Unimax Or Ciseern?

[chlow 0]

Edited February 4, 2008 by chlow

[Jius 0]

the handover of my flat was before CNY 08. On CNY, my relative tried my aircon, the 2 aircons seemed to be only blowing air. today, 1 mth after I moved in, the aircon man came to repair. They told me all the gas has leaked. The pipe connection was not tight enough.

I sms my Ciseern ID that thank God I am still alive!

[brightred 0]

Who was the joker who did the pipe connection for the air-con?

[simplycho 0]

hi all,

i have been to Modern Living today.

Have seen Unimax and Ciseern..

anyone has comments on Ciseern's Thomas?

quite like their Fiona Xie mock up dream hse..

m looking for sth like their showroom flat.. however, having 2nd tots aft looking at their "package"

budget is ard 30k, but i expect to have sth like their showflat.. however, after seeing some other photos of their flats, i doubt 30k's enough

any suggestions??

[brightred 0]

Cisceern was one of the ID that we shortlisted and evaluated their proposals. I do not think their designs are particularly unique and quite off the shelves kinda of template. And with regards to Fiona Xie's place, they are just marketing gimmicks. Just my 2 cents worth.

[Cantona7 0]

the handover of my flat was before CNY 08. On CNY, my relative tried my aircon, the 2 aircons seemed to be only blowing air. today, 1 mth after I moved in, the aircon man came to repair. They told me all the gas has leaked. The pipe connection was not tight enough.

I sms my Ciseern ID that thank God I am still alive!

Funny har! The complaint on Cisceern thread had been removed.

[brightred 0]

Maybe...just maybe the owners of Cisceern has a vested interest on this forum. But nonetheless, I must say the Cisceern has very good marketing and business management strategies. Lots of publicity generated and from a business standpoint, it is a good business model. But not impressed with their designs so far. "P

[tofler 0]

Hi!

Havent been online for almost a week...

vowsh , they offer me a choice of plain black or white india granite or a number of china granite with patterns.

Have lived forever with black Indian granite, back home, so decided to go for a beigish granite with patterns...(think they call it tiger pattern) love it!!

Kitchen psf is $69

And granite is $90

If I choose a galaxy black or pearl black I wud have to pay $120 psf...just fyi.

The kitchen is their 10th Anniversary gift to the customers so they actually did it at cost.

This even their competitors agreed, was a very good price which they cant match.

My total reno, including total hacking and relaying of 2 bathroom floor and wall

as well as kitchen floor and walls, and service balcony floor tiles

All the carpentry work.... 3 wardrobes (13 + 6 + 5 feet), bookself cum storage cupboard (8 feet) + shoe cabinet- cum divider (4 feet full height, with mirror backing) as well as painting + plumbing + electrical work came to 27 K.

Exceeded my planned budget by 4k........ I spent another 4 k on buying lights + toilet accessories + hood-hob n aircon + grills + ceiling fans ...right up to the last hook I purchased came into the 4 K

So grand total of 31 K for a EA (area is 150 and ceiling is higher than 9 feet, maybe bcoz its a ground floor unit.... so all the dimensions viz windows doors, curtains were extra large... compared to normal hdb stds)

Best thing about them is their punctuality, every appointment my Id was on time and handover also as scheduled... have moved in on 8th Dec... so far no complaints.... and still have a 8 year guarantee!!

Wow! 8 Yrs Warrenty...

I doubt my ID would provide me with such assurance.

[whitestar 0]

I WOULD NOT recommend Unimax and a certain ID named Ms Z.

Pros:

- Tiling/masonary works were very good.

- Bathroom package was good.

- Waterproofing works was very good.

- Glass works were good.

- 8 years warranty (IF they are still in business...)

Cons:

- They want a deposit BEFORE they come up with a proposal...they didn't do on-site survey also before asking you to commit.

- Their bathroom package comes with very basic toilet accessories...needed to top up for everything.

- NEVER punctual. The ID fixed an appointment to meet at 11am, didn't turn up till 4pm. Needless to say, I gave the ID a piece of my mind.

- ID used permanant marker to draw aircon trunking on the wall. Required LOTS of paintwork and touch up to cover the permanant marker drawings.

- Contractors engaged by them to do carpentary and painting not good.

- When the toilets were up, the plumber said that the water pipes were not done up yet and to avoid using the toilets. When I came up one day to check on the works, the place smelt like a toilet...went and checked and the toilet was in a disgusting mess because other contractors decided to use the toilets...Called up the ID, and complained on the poor co-ordination.

- Of the many times that I was there supervising the work, the ID was nowhere to be found.

- After kitchen cabinets were up, solid top came in the wrong color. Asked if I wanted to accept it...naturally, I said "NO". Wanted to give me a free bedhead feature for it but I declined because solid top, once wrong, is very troublesome to redo.

- Carpentary work is horrible. Laminates were not even, had to send back several doors to redo. Even after that, when cooking, some laminates will start to come apart due to the heat. I had to get another contractor to glue back for me.

- Carcass for wardrobe and kitchen was wrongly done and had to be redone resulting in delays.

- Kitchen cabinets were NOT supposed to have handles but came with them.

- Had to troubleshoot for them all the time!!

- Promised a schedule of 5-6 weeks, move in was finally around 12 weeks from start of reno...final touch up was only done about 3 MONTHS after constant chasing!! And they still had the cheek to accused me of deliberately delaying the final payment! In the first place, I even offered to pay off everything if they could stick to the schedule...but they couldn't.

- One year after my reno was done, I decided to give them a second chance and asked for a quote on the additional items I wanted done in my home...it was a couple of years ago when I asked for the quote, now my reno is completed with another company and they haven't reverted.

Overall:

VERY VERY VERY BAD experience. I was very frustrated with their lack of punctuality and the many delays in the schedule due to them getting the things done wrongly or not to my specs.

To be fair, if you really want to use Unimax, avoid their carpentary. Another friend who signed up with Unimax in 2010 with another ID, the carpentary firm disappear halfway!! Needless to say, that project was also heavily delayed. One can argue that they have the 8 year warranty to back all these things up...but really, if they wouldn't answer your calls after final payment is received, would they bother to come up and repair your stuff??

I subsequently engaged another company for additional reno and the experience was far better.

*Edited for grammer/spelling mistakes.

Edited August 30, 2011 by whitestar

[whitestar 0]

Actually, sometimes its not the ID that delay but rather they might have difficulty in getting the sub contractors back to do touch up work. As a result, the staff always get the blame as they are the frontline personnel to face owners. Every company has their own workers and designated sub contractors, so the challenge in my point of view should be directed towards their company policies and system as staff are just under instructions. Anyway, ones standard on workmenship differs from another person so the fairest practice is to get an independent body to check n determine. I m not trying to side anyone but just that I myself is in sales n service line and at times I m also stuck in the middle..and it wasn't my fault..hahaha... Anyway if the company is truly providing bad workmenship, I agree with you totally, DON'T USE THEM!!

I agree that sometimes the ID is not to blame...but the ID should be aware of his/her company's capacity and that of their contractors before stating/giving a schedule. IF there are delays, the ID should keep the owner/s informed. That is being professional. People will understand if they are kept up to date but in my case, I was told that since it was a lull period, renovation will be quite fast...when the reno stalled for 2 whole weeks: totally NO WORK done, I was not informed of the delay and the reason for the delay. IF my ID was there to give instructions and supervise the site, the contractors wouldn't have made crucial mistakes like wrong placement of carcass, wrong solid top color etc etc...resulting in huge delays. If the ID cannot get the workers to come and touch up the place, then works is deemed incomplete and the final 10% should not be demanded. So if it is company's policy to close a case file (100% payment) then it is up to the ID to get the contractors back quickly. Which is easier? To touch up an almost finished project and have complete payment versus a new project...it's all about co-ordination.

Hence in this case, I'd say my ID is to blame.

I agree that there can be differing standards for different people BUT EVERYONE can recognise bad workmanship. Uneven laminates, laminates that come apart during cooking IS bad workmanship no matter how you look at it. To top it off, another contractor came and evaluated the kitchen cabinets done and asked if I had the reno done a long time abo because the laminates and wood were rather old!! Old wood doesn't mean bad wood but it does stir up questions on old stock being sold at MAJOR discount with shoddy workmanship.

The ID is paid a commission based on the project, and since we are paying them to do a job, WE become their employer in that sense to co-ordinate the works...This is not saying that we squeeze things out of them...if they give/offer, it's a bonus and should be perceived as a bonus...but even if they don't offer, they are still under the obligation to see things through properly for us.

The second company I engaged, didn't offer me any freebies, but workmanship was good, service was good and friendly and THAT makes the whole experience worth paying for. I would rather pay for things that I want done than to have a whole lot of freebies as compensation for work badly done.

In essense, I believe that the ID that makes or break the whole reno experience...afterall, we don't need to deal with the contractors, company policies etc...instead, we deal with the ID. An example: When I go to a restaurant and a waiter comes to me with a bad attitude, I would not think about dealing with the restaurant (company) and its policies...I would simply lodge a complaint against that waiter...same deal here.

Edited August 30, 2011 by whitestar

[whitestar 0]

Wow there seems to be a personal grudge and personal attack here..haha... Hmm are u an ID and Competitor? Just being curious no hard feelings.. Anyway I still think its the company resposibility to make sure that things are in the right order rather than the staff because being under instruction has its limitations. Well just trying to be fair here. Well as the rules and the purpose of the forum is just to share info experiences and no slandering and bad mouthing isn't it? Well the issues as mentioned occurs about 3 years ago, why take so long to bring out right? Hmm...interesting???

Aiyoh...no hard feelings lah...no personal grudges here...but just sharing how unprofessional Unimax turned out to be lor...haiz..

Actually, I was complementing about another ID firm which I subsequently engaged...then I saw some post regarding Unimax so just share lor..I mean, isn't that the purpose of this forum?? Sharing of personal experiences, good or bad??

In all fairness, I'd say IF you find the ID comfortable to work with and subsequently follows through..then the experience, no matter the delays, would still be a good one...but if not, then the experience will be far more challenging isn't it?? To some extent, it doens't matter about the company first...if the ID can give you a good design which you like, then that would be the major percentage..then followed by reviews of the workmanship etc...but if you cannot really work with the ID, no matter how professional the design looks, then add on poor workmanship then the whole experience is ruined...You can read many horror stories about such IDs too in other forums here as well...so what I'm saying here is the ID contributes a huge percentage of the overall experience.

The ID only need to design something for your home once...we have to live in it...I'm not saying boycott...I'm saying that I wouldn't recommend...IF the ID is here and reading this, the thing to take away from a customer service perspective is "How can I prevent a similar experience or improve the experience for my client?" I have also spoke directly to the ID in question too...so it's not that the ID is not aware of the problems and whatever issues I have pointed out here...my friend's case merely one year ago with a different ID also ran into workmanship issues...so the overall account of poor co-ordination, workmanship issues and delays are fairly recent as well...

I apologize if my answer appeared to be a rebuttal to your post...it wasn't meant to be...I just wanted to say whom in this case is accountable for the bad experience. For me, it was my ID first, workmanship second...for my friend, it was workmanship.

So if you really want to tackle the issue of company here, then simply put, I wouldn't recommend this company carpentary work at all because for the benefit of the other readers here, the workmanship of their contractors is questionable...they do have a 2 bathroom package which one can take up if one is keen on this company because I did mention that their waterproofing works, masonary/tiling, glassworks are good...I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

Anyway, I shan't say further...I've said all there is to say about this company...I leave it for the rest of the readers to discern and decide for themselves regarding the engagement of this company...I have moved on since with another company who has given me nothing but peace of mind and satisfaction. I have learnt a lot from Unimax though on the things I need to look out for in terms of workmanship so something good did come out of it after all...

*Edited for grammer/spelling mistakes

Edited August 30, 2011 by whitestar

[misterc 0]

They did the works for my unit and only when I was selling my place did I realize that they did not file the entirety of the works with HDB! I could not handover the flat because HDB refused to certify their checklist!

WTF! And when I called them to complain about it they simply ignored the issue!
I had to engage a PE and another contractor to make up for their mistakes!

Fugging rubbish Company. Go with UNIMAX at your own risk!

[cliffordng 0]

On 8/27/2011 at 8:11 PM, whitestar said:

I WOULD NOT recommend Unimax and a certain ID named Ms Z.

Pros:

- Tiling/masonary works were very good.

- Bathroom package was good.

- Waterproofing works was very good.

- Glass works were good.

- 8 years warranty (IF they are still in business...)

Cons:

- They want a deposit BEFORE they come up with a proposal...they didn't do on-site survey also before asking you to commit.

- Their bathroom package comes with very basic toilet accessories...needed to top up for everything.

- NEVER punctual. The ID fixed an appointment to meet at 11am, didn't turn up till 4pm. Needless to say, I gave the ID a piece of my mind.

- ID used permanant marker to draw aircon trunking on the wall. Required LOTS of paintwork and touch up to cover the permanant marker drawings.

- Contractors engaged by them to do carpentary and painting not good.

- When the toilets were up, the plumber said that the water pipes were not done up yet and to avoid using the toilets. When I came up one day to check on the works, the place smelt like a toilet...went and checked and the toilet was in a disgusting mess because other contractors decided to use the toilets...Called up the ID, and complained on the poor co-ordination.

- Of the many times that I was there supervising the work, the ID was nowhere to be found.

- After kitchen cabinets were up, solid top came in the wrong color. Asked if I wanted to accept it...naturally, I said "NO". Wanted to give me a free bedhead feature for it but I declined because solid top, once wrong, is very troublesome to redo.

- Carpentary work is horrible. Laminates were not even, had to send back several doors to redo. Even after that, when cooking, some laminates will start to come apart due to the heat. I had to get another contractor to glue back for me.

- Carcass for wardrobe and kitchen was wrongly done and had to be redone resulting in delays.

- Kitchen cabinets were NOT supposed to have handles but came with them.

- Had to troubleshoot for them all the time!!

- Promised a schedule of 5-6 weeks, move in was finally around 12 weeks from start of reno...final touch up was only done about 3 MONTHS after constant chasing!! And they still had the cheek to accused me of deliberately delaying the final payment! In the first place, I even offered to pay off everything if they could stick to the schedule...but they couldn't.

- One year after my reno was done, I decided to give them a second chance and asked for a quote on the additional items I wanted done in my home...it was a couple of years ago when I asked for the quote, now my reno is completed with another company and they haven't reverted.

Overall:

VERY VERY VERY BAD experience. I was very frustrated with their lack of punctuality and the many delays in the schedule due to them getting the things done wrongly or not to my specs.

To be fair, if you really want to use Unimax, avoid their carpentary. Another friend who signed up with Unimax in 2010 with another ID, the carpentary firm disappear halfway!! Needless to say, that project was also heavily delayed. One can argue that they have the 8 year warranty to back all these things up...but really, if they wouldn't answer your calls after final payment is received, would they bother to come up and repair your stuff??

I subsequently engaged another company for additional reno and the experience was far better.

*Edited for grammer/spelling mistakes.

Hai..........frustrated and tiring too. Hope I read this earlier...