Ho Bee

[htng 1]

Sorry, after renovating my place, I no longer feel the need to come into renotalk. LOL! Usually only come in and pm a few friends as and when needed. I engage them before and I am not Patrick doing his self advertisement. Anyone who is interested can pm me directly. I wont say he is perfect. No contractor is perfect in this world. Of course if you have the biggest spending for reno, I think every company will suck up to you. If you have tiny budget, have to endure a bit lor. This is the real world mah. After engaging various contractors, I can tell u I vomit more blood before with other contractors. If I were to describe here, maybe will write 2 pages long.

I have to share my side of story too. My experience with Patrick was extremely horrible.

1) He never offered any advice to me from the start of the renovation. I know that contractors does not offer design ideas but I do expect technical advice from them.

For my case, he did tell me the difference between white laminate and darker ones, glossy vs matt. End of the day, it is really up to you. I always tell my friend. If you are not familiar, dont get contractor. If you got no time to manage them, also avoid contractor. Pay extra 20% to get ID to manage.

His reply is always :" Up to you" if I asked him anything. I'm not sure if he understands the pros and cons of the issue or is he nonchalant about it.

2) He does not like to hold responsibility. This is in reference with point 1. If anything goes wrong, he will say it is my fault because I'm the one who wanted it this way, not him. Then he will charge me extra for the rectification.

When I work with him, there are some things he ask me to avoid because he encounter some bad experience with his past project. For instance there are some screw up sink sellers trying to sell top mount sink to do undermount. Patrick mention those kind leak like mad bcos of the small contact surface. Initially he did for some clients and he got a huge headache. Initially I feel he is talking rubbish because shop says can but he say cannot. In the end, I email some reputable sink makers and also visited the high end shops and the sales say some sellers did sell topmount sink for undermount which is really crap. When my sink mixer leak after 3 months, I thought Patrick did a lousy job. So I engage a certified plumber to look at it, he says I paid so much for such a lousy china made "mixer" which is crap. He dismantle everything and show me how lousy that mixer is. He sold me an italian made mixer for even cheaper than the china one I bought. Now already 6 mths pass and the mixer still very solid.

3) He does not renovate in the interest of the house owners. For example, he didn't ask if I wanted a concrete housing or plywood housing for my sink area. Friends who have visited my place asked me why I didn't choose a concrete housing as it is more lasting.

I approach a few ID and contractor before. ID confirm recommend plywood whereas some contractor says concrete housing very lasting. This one I totally agree but if you say design style, confirm plywood design looks better than concrete. Sorry if I offend some ppl here but I am just saying based on my own opinion. Nowadays, ppl do things based on design already. Why do we buy ID magazines to refer and also engage ID? We do it due to style, design and trend. If we really care about long lasting, we should engage engineers to do our renovation? My mother keep telling me concrete for my 1st reno, now 2nd reno, still tell me concrete. Please la, now no longer the trend to use concrete lei. For my mum generation, a lot of sink cabinet all concrete. For my case, my sink is just beside my kitchen cabinet, now L shape so I dont ask them to do 1/2 wood, 1/2 concrete bcos I am worry about the thermal expansion for both materials.

4) He never give me a schedule or update of the things that he is doing. This is because he himself also didn't know the status! I know this because he couldn't answer me whenever I asked him.

It is always:" I will check" but he never got back to me. This is very bad because I'm not able to return to the new house to check on daily basis.

Yes, this is the problem when you engage contractor. Bo pian la. One man show taking up multiple project. Seriously, I dont expect them to be good in project management.

5) It is very difficult to get hold of him. I'm very lucky if he ever picks up my call. But then, he always sounds hostile, giving the impression that he does not like to be disturbed. This is especially so during the weekends when he would just forward his calls to his wife. It is very frustrating because I need to get hold of him urgently to discuss on the renovation stuff and he is not available. On the other hand, his wife will always pick up the calls but she has no idea of what is happening.

Just call his wife, leave a message and she will get back. Usually I drop an email to her

6) He will give me a black face if I pointed out any defects to him and will mention that nobody does it this way. Why? So that he don't have to rectify the mistakes caused by his people.

This dont happen to me so I cant comment. Usually, I talk to him slowly even if it is his error. I think I learn the hard way from experience. Last time my old contractor burst my conceal piping when doing reno still talk a lot of crap. Say it is the house fault not his fault etc and refuse to rectify. I am extremely upset and I get my friend who is a lawyer and ask him to issue that guy a lawyer letter. LOL! I didnt expect the contractor to be super aggressive. Even he say he bankrupt and go to court also wont do.. After a few days I cool down and I talk to him nicely. I suddenly realize maybe they take the softer approach better?

7) The main reason why he never collects any payment in advance is because Patrick has no design nor colour combination skills. He needs to do this to lure customers. It is a good move considering that most contractors / ID would demand some $$ upfront.

If you need design, get ID. I seriously dont expect a person like him to recommend me colors or design. Even if he does, I am also scare to try. Magazine has a lot of recommendation already. Well, I can say collecting payment is his business strategy. It makes me more comfortable as I believe things in doing then collect $. There are some cases of contractors/ ID taking money and then missing in action. If I am in their shoes, I feel worst. My standpoint to him is simple, not satisfied, no payment and this works well.

The overall feeling I have is that I need to tell him what to do exactly, visit my house on daily basis to check on the status and inform him if there is any mistakes. It turns out that I'm the contractor, not him.

Yes, end of the day, it is not his house but ours. I can tell u 99.9% of the contractors/ ID will not point out their own fault. I know an ID who flys in from abroad to do/ supervise projects for those rich folks. That guy really has a lot of pride in his work and he only demand the best. However, only the rich can afford him. I met him once to talk about other stuff and whenever he talk, he wont talk about budget but rather "How confident are you in making this up to my expectation"...His detail for workmanship really impress me. There is one time he scrap part of his original ideas and redo that portion because the contractors he engage did a **** job. See, that is what I call passion and pride. I never ever encounter such incident again. Most of the time when I visited my friends place, their ID will say. Aiya, it is like this one la, a bit only...Bo pian...Will they tell the contractor to redo? Will they redesign that portion again?

I'm not lucky to have someone to remind me of this. I hope there won't be a 2nd case. For those who are still having renovation with him, do stand firm when pointing out defects to him because I know he likes to give people black face.

Definitely have to stand firm. Got problem, must fix.

For those who wanted to sign up with him, pls try to call him and see if he is willingly to entertain your calls or give you ideas or feedback on your renovation. After all, getting hold of your ID / contractor and able to communicate with him is the most important thing, right?

Do not be lured by his no payment upfront because there is a catch.

I would highly not recommend him to anyone.

I engage his ~ 9 mths back so all my incidents are quoted based on 9 months ago.

[Funnysheep 0]

Can PM me Ah Keong's number?

[Pufferfish 0]

Hi all,

I am a new joiner to the forum..

Just completed my house renovation about a month ago and now that most things have been settled after moving into my new place two weeks ago, its high time for me to contribute something to the forum, especially when I had learnt so much from here.

First of all, I felt that i should share my experience with Ho Bee (referring to Patrick and his team of workers / carpenters / electricians) after seeing the kind of undeserving comments about the company.

I started using Ho Bee as my contractor to "overhaul" my EM when I first got married in 2005 and my experience with Patrick had been a very positive one and I can vouch for his efficieny, responsibility, workmanship and after-sales service (Patrick really scored a big thumb up in the last aspect). I shall not elaborate too much on the details or else you guys would think that I am his relative / employee. Along the way, I also did recommend some of my friends and colleagues to him and so far, I had not received any negative feedback from them.

Now 5 years had gone by and I again engaged Ho Bee to do up the reno for my place, and nothing much had changed, the same old Patrick and his team (except his main carpentary guy is now one plump guy whom I named as LONG GE) with his sense of responsibilty and efficiency.

From day one since I know Patrick, he is not someone who appeared to be an eloquent and smooth talking salesman. In fact, he is the type who would give you one answer (at most 2 or 3) at best when you ask him one question. To be fair to him, he is a contractor, not an ID folk. So you more or less need to know what you want before engaging him. In short, tell him or his team what you want and they will deliver it to you within their possible means. They are the type, can say can, cannot say cannot. Listen to your suggestion and give you some practical advice. Wont promise you sky high...

During the renovation period, I just leave the work schedule to him and he would plan out nicely for me. At most, I would visit the site at night, call him if i spotted something amiss and he will send his guys to rectify the next day.

I remember there was an incident when I got them to erect a "false" wall and when the wallpaper guys (whom I engaged seperately) finished their work, they commented that the wall plastering wasnt smooth, resulting in the uneven appearance of the wallpaper under the spotlight. When I called Patrick, he didnt try to push responsibilty by saying things like "aiya, wall plastering / building new wall is like that one" but immediately sent his workers down on the same day to re-plaster the wall.

Of course, I wouldnt say that his work is 100% perfect, no contractor / builder can claim to be so. But when you tell him, he will not defend himself / his workers and will rectify to up to your requirements without questions.

For those who are looking for contractors and would like to see a sample of Ho Bee's renovation kung fu, do PM me and you are more than welcomed to drop by my humble residence for a preview of their work.

[Korn 0]

Hi all,

I am a new joiner to the forum..

Just completed my house renovation about a month ago and now that most things have been settled after moving into my new place two weeks ago, its high time for me to contribute something to the forum, especially when I had learnt so much from here.

First of all, I felt that i should share my experience with Ho Bee (referring to Patrick and his team of workers / carpenters / electricians) after seeing the kind of undeserving comments about the company.

I started using Ho Bee as my contractor to "overhaul" my EM when I first got married in 2005 and my experience with Patrick had been a very positive one and I can vouch for his efficieny, responsibility, workmanship and after-sales service (Patrick really scored a big thumb up in the last aspect). I shall not elaborate too much on the details or else you guys would think that I am his relative / employee. Along the way, I also did recommend some of my friends and colleagues to him and so far, I had not received any negative feedback from them.

Now 5 years had gone by and I again engaged Ho Bee to do up the reno for my place, and nothing much had changed, the same old Patrick and his team (except his main carpentary guy is now one plump guy whom I named as LONG GE) with his sense of responsibilty and efficiency.

From day one since I know Patrick, he is not someone who appeared to be an eloquent and smooth talking salesman. In fact, he is the type who would give you one answer (at most 2 or 3) at best when you ask him one question. To be fair to him, he is a contractor, not an ID folk. So you more or less need to know what you want before engaging him. In short, tell him or his team what you want and they will deliver it to you within their possible means. They are the type, can say can, cannot say cannot. Listen to your suggestion and give you some practical advice. Wont promise you sky high...

During the renovation period, I just leave the work schedule to him and he would plan out nicely for me. At most, I would visit the site at night, call him if i spotted something amiss and he will send his guys to rectify the next day.

I remember there was an incident when I got them to erect a "false" wall and when the wallpaper guys (whom I engaged seperately) finished their work, they commented that the wall plastering wasnt smooth, resulting in the uneven appearance of the wallpaper under the spotlight. When I called Patrick, he didnt try to push responsibilty by saying things like "aiya, wall plastering / building new wall is like that one" but immediately sent his workers down on the same day to re-plaster the wall.

Of course, I wouldnt say that his work is 100% perfect, no contractor / builder can claim to be so. But when you tell him, he will not defend himself / his workers and will rectify to up to your requirements without questions.

For those who are looking for contractors and would like to see a sample of Ho Bee's renovation kung fu, do PM me and you are more than welcomed to drop by my humble residence for a preview of their work.

I wouldn't recommend him to anyone as I had a very bad experience with him.

[puvan 0]

I wouldn't recommend him to anyone as I had a very bad experience with him.

can u share your bad experiences with us??

[leticus 0]

i think the bad experience is quite real as nobody have these kind of details.

[Korn 0]

can u share your bad experiences with us??

His tiler sucks big times. I found out more than 20 pcs of homogeneous tiles that are "hollow" and he gave me a black face and told me to tell that to his tiler myself.

[surecords 0]

His tiler sucks big times. I found out more than 20 pcs of homogeneous tiles that are "hollow" and he gave me a black face and told me to tell that to his tiler myself.

Hi, I thought the only sales point of Ho Bee is good tiler LOL. I used Ho Bee for my EC renovation last year. (mainly bathroom)

His tiler has done a almost perfect job (design of tiles are being aligned as much as possible). In contrast, his painters were nightmare.

I donated 1.5k for lousy painting. However, I'm thinking to chase Patrick for any problem might occur in future for his work.

If he grumble and refuse to fix the problem, then I will come back to this forum and share my frustration, LOL.

What do you mean by hollow anyway?

[Korn 0]

Hi, I thought the only sales point of Ho Bee is good tiler LOL. I used Ho Bee for my EC renovation last year. (mainly bathroom)

His tiler has done a almost perfect job (design of tiles are being aligned as much as possible). In contrast, his painters were nightmare.

I donated 1.5k for lousy painting. However, I'm thinking to chase Patrick for any problem might occur in future for his work.

If he grumble and refuse to fix the problem, then I will come back to this forum and share my frustration, LOL.

What do you mean by hollow anyway?

Hi,

Hollow tiling means that his tiler only put cement at the centre of the homogeneous tiles during tiling works. This is a lazy and shortcut method for tiling and it is a common issue. You can hear a "hollow" sound if you use a metal object to knock onto the tiles. The after effect is the tiles will pop up if there isn't sufficient cement to hold it to the ground. I paid a premium price for his tiling work because he claimed that his tiler's works is superb but I think it is one of the worst I had experience.

There were also issues occurring at my bathrooms. His tiler built up kerbs for the mounting of the shower glass panes. There were 2 drainage holes inside my bathrooms and the kerbs were built in such a way that one of the them is within the boundary and the other is outside.

I noticed that there were no through holes for the kerbs after completion. As the floors of the bathrooms were slanted to one side to facilitate the drainage of water, water starts to accumulate along the kerbs when I turned on the tap.

I find it weird that his tiler did not set up the through hole. It is common logic, right?

The worst is when I told patrick about this and his response is :"You never said you want through hole!"

What kind of response is this???????

[surecords 0]

Hi,

Hollow tiling means that his tiler only put cement at the centre of the homogeneous tiles during tiling works. This is a lazy and shortcut method for tiling and it is a common issue. You can hear a "hollow" sound if you use a metal object to knock onto the tiles. The after effect is the tiles will pop up if there isn't sufficient cement to hold it to the ground. I paid a premium price for his tiling work because he claimed that his tiler's works is superb but I think it is one of the worst I had experience.

There were also issues occurring at my bathrooms. His tiler built up kerbs for the mounting of the shower glass panes. There were 2 drainage holes inside my bathrooms and the kerbs were built in such a way that one of the them is within the boundary and the other is outside.

I noticed that there were no through holes for the kerbs after completion. As the floors of the bathrooms were slanted to one side to facilitate the drainage of water, water starts to accumulate along the kerbs when I turned on the tap.

I find it weird that his tiler did not set up the through hole. It is common logic, right?

The worst is when I told patrick about this and his response is :"You never said you want through hole!"

What kind of response is this???????

It's your money, don't give up and talk with Patrick, (put aside your frustration) calmly tell him what to fix exactly.

I would not expect no from him, but if he say no, then tell him that cannot pay the rest of the money (maybe you have not paid anything).

See how he reacts to that response.

Good Luck.

[htng 1]

It's your money, don't give up and talk with Patrick, (put aside your frustration) calmly tell him what to fix exactly.

I would not expect no from him, but if he say no, then tell him that cannot pay the rest of the money (maybe you have not paid anything).

See how he reacts to that response.

Good Luck.

Did his tiler change ppl? During my time, they rejected the defective tiles twice till the tile supplier scare. I have to tell them no time already so must faster lay tiles. Haha! I feel the tiler is great. Maybe change ppl

[bigbearyong 0]

hi im new here, was wondering is it gd to engage them or is it as bad as what other ppl was saying. pls advise, thanks

[surecords 0]

hi im new here, was wondering is it gd to engage them or is it as bad as what other ppl was saying. pls advise, thanks

It depends on what you are expecting from reno company. If you are hoping various advices for design, layout, and color aspect from reno company, use ID instead of Ho Bee. Also, if you don't have time to check on the progress of works every day, then you would better use id instead of Ho Bee.

If I were you, I will use them for tiling jobs and hacking only.

I think there are not much of price difference between Ho Bee and ID. But remember, even how well ID presents 3D stuff to you,

the actual works being done by contractor. It depends on the quality of their contractor for the end result.

So either way, your chance to get the right reno company is as tough as a russian roulette. LOL

Good Luck.

[worldangel 0]

I had good experience with him, as I have mentioned before. And as he is a contractor, he will not be able to give you much design ideas - you will have to do a lot of homework yourself. But this is something to be expected when you engage a contractor instead of an interior designer. We went in with this mindset and thought we got back our money worth and more. Patrick and his wife were extremely pleasant to deal with and after the renovation when there was a problem with our tap, the wife even sent us a cheque to compensate the plumber whom we called down to check on the tap (long story, but it proved their sincerity and after-sales service).

[Korn 0]

It depends on what you are expecting from reno company. If you are hoping various advices for design, layout, and color aspect from reno company, use ID instead of Ho Bee. Also, if you don't have time to check on the progress of works every day, then you would better use id instead of Ho Bee.

If I were you, I will use them for tiling jobs and hacking only.

I think there are not much of price difference between Ho Bee and ID. But remember, even how well ID presents 3D stuff to you,

the actual works being done by contractor. It depends on the quality of their contractor for the end result.

So either way, your chance to get the right reno company is as tough as a russian roulette. LOL

Good Luck.

Hi Surecords,

Hahaha, Well said!