Lôft I'klektic

[juxstapose 2]

Then came the last straw... which I by chance found out a couple of months later that might be related to his personal life.. which may or may not have affected his time/work management... but which I don't agree with.. so thankfully we chose the other contractor over him. Not that who we chose was perfect. She also dont really go down to site, dont take pics on watsapp to update us, dont really have design ideas, worker threw away an existing light which we had wanted to keep, sink alignment could have been thought thru first, painters really not so good... but she rectified all that we asked for la... so still not that bad.. so really. . Thete is no perfect contractor...

[inthechouse 8]

To be fair, here's what I think are OK/good:

- He has replied 99% of my messages, albeit not in the span of time that most of us may be used to.

- He has never cancelled on a meeting. Sometimes it's a very last minute request but he shows up - even if 15-30 mins late. Note: Be clear that his presence at your site is mostly based on your request, not at his own initiative. So far he has met me at the unit voluntary once - the day the lights would be installed. He said the electricians can't come before 9am and since I have to be at work by 9+, he offered to meet me there at 8.30am.

- Progress of the reno has been pretty good thus far. Note: We did not order any faucets, sinks or lights online.

There's just quite a bit of grief getting him to rectify certain things - half of which have been rectified. One of this rectified work isn't done properly, but I think the fault lies with the sub-con. Still thinking of what to do with this issue. So in other words, he does rectify errors. But you would have to communicate your requests to him tactfully and probably even skillfull, if you know what I mean.

P.S: Because I want to be present whenever each team of workers start work, I texted him often to ask for updates. And he would tell me 1-2 days ahead of time what would be taking place for the next stage. With an understanding boss, and a lull period at work (Dec to early Jan), it was totally possible to take leave or time off 1-2 days in advance.

Edited January 24, 2014 by inthechouse

[Makanology 29]

Hi inthechouse, this is Makan. You must be one of the rare few ones who have a normal experience with Alan. Just like Astarz, I was the one who whatsapped Alan regularly to update what his sub-cons completed, PRAISING and THANKING him very, very politely in both English and Chinese. Knowing that Alan reads Renotalk, there was ALWAYS the fear that he will do a shoddy job for us if he realized we were airing his attitude and 'professionalism' online.

However, as we approached towards the deadline that he promised but never made any effort to meet, we got desperate and upset at him. He was avoiding our whatsapp messages and phone calls. That was why we took things in our own hands and coordinated the leftover works ourselves daily from 930am - 6pm!

[Makanology 29]

Anyways inthechouse, you are at the last leg of your renovation right? Jia you! Really happy to hear that yours went fairly smoothly. Luckily your boss and work help

[inthechouse 8]

Anyways inthechouse, you are at the last leg of your renovation right? Jia you! Really happy to hear that yours went fairly smoothly. Luckily your boss and work help

Thanks thanks! Yeah time flies. But I am still worried about the rectifications. It's a tedious haggling process...

For my unit, I think the masonry guy and the tiling guys' work = least satisfactory.

[fsuz 2]

Glad we stumbled upon this thread.. We were almost ready to sign with Alan since we thought his workmanship was good.. But after hearing all your accounts, we are not too sure anymore.. Nevertheless, hope you are enjoying your new house (for those whose reno is completed) or will enjoy your new house soon (for those who are still reno-ing)!

[Ks Toh 74]

This sounds like a complaints forum!

i think the problem is you guys engaged an ID who is simply too popular.

You know those small eateries that become famous? Like Le Chasseur along New Bridge Road. Food was good, service was excellent. Owner/chef took pride in the food and even came out to chat with us. Patiently taught us how tau suan must be eaten with two bowls. Showed us how he fries the pork knuckles. I even had a photo taken with him.

But as he became more famous and more people flocked to his shop, standards dropped. Now he has moved to much, much bigger premises in Eunos. I went there the other day. Service was average. Maybe business at this new location is not too good, but certainly he owner/chef now has a "cannot be bothered' attitude. I tried to get him to chat with my friends like he used to do, but he said too much trouble. He was sitting at a corner. His specialty dish, tau suan, was served normally in one bowl. Don't even bother to do it the way he used to.

I think it is probably better to engage an ID who is not too bad, but better not be so good that he is simply too busy for you. Might be a good idea to engage a young ID who is hungry for work and eager to please you. Might not be as experienced but hopefully his sub contractors will be more experienced.

You must also supervise, supervise, supervise. The day you are not there, something will go wrong. If you need to change, insist on changing. Do it so that the ID or contractor knows better to check with you, and you are not the sort who will just accept it.

In your contract, best to split the works into different phases different payment, and have provision for you to add or delete works. This allows you to delete entire scope of works if you are not happy with your ID. This was exactly what my wife did. After some unhappiness over the wet works, she took out practically everything else (painting, kitchen, wardrobe, hall etc) and decided to engage contractors directly.

Renovation is not rocket science. You just need to ask around, read Renotalk and use your common sense. When all else fails, Google it. You will get there!

[Makanology 29]

Yes I think all those who have engaged and complained about Alan fell into the same trap - engaging someone who got too popular. I believe in the early days, Alan must have been really solid as a contractor but as his fame grew, he probably got greedy and took on too many jobs at a time. At any point of time, he was doing 10 homes! With that, he couldn't give equal attention to each job and he kept mixing up & missing details.

We engaged him last April - June. During the same period, the number of negative reviews were increasing. We kept close contact with his other clients like Soo May, Jaykr, mentos etc to filter out the bullsh*t he told us. That got him scared as he never expected us to compare notes.

This is the strength of forums and how it can group people together. We are so glad of the support and encouragement given. The strange thing is to date, we have never met any forumer, not even those that were affected by Alan. A-ha now I hope his legacy lives on distastefully on the forum as it is time that future & new house-owners see the truth of his 'promises' and 'professionalism'.

[Makanology 29]

Kstoh, thanks for dropping by our 'complaints department'. Your tblog is always very fun and enlightening to read your words of advice will definitely encourage those who are still engaging Alan with their renovation!

[OceanEleven 203]

i think the problem is you guys engaged an ID who is simply too popular.

Renovation is not rocket science. You just need to ask around, read Renotalk and use your common sense. When all else fails, Google it. You will get there!

Totally agreed with kstoh. I had spoken to both Alan and Mr. K. Both portray a very busy image, unable to schedule down a proper and actual timing to meet. Then Alan is a little more gungho style, not the least that he doesn’t know what he is doing but matter of fact he knows his work well. He views renovation more like a process, like a phase by phase project. When time comes for the next phase, he won’t wait, he would move on, doing the norm, the SOP.

[Songz 132]

After reading through I think when one start to take more than it can handle, problems arises.

Anyway hope you all can rectify the outstanding issue and solve it

[lme 0]

But as he became more famous and more people flocked to his shop, standards dropped. Now he has moved to much, much bigger premises in Eunos. I went there the other day. Service was average. Maybe business at this new location is not too good, but certainly he owner/chef now has a "cannot be bothered' attitude. I tried to get him to chat with my friends like he used to do, but he said too much trouble. He was sitting at a corner. His specialty dish, tau suan, was served normally in one bowl. Don't even bother to do it the way he used to.

Poor or slow service can be tolerated but I found that this guy keeps serving up tau suan with other ingredients like hair, or red bed soup. In other words, just doesn't give us what we want. When he does give tau suan it tastes fair only.

I also disagree with OceanEleven that he knows his stuff or does things according to SOP because if he did then we would not need to deal with those "it's too late to change at this stage", especially since these were the details that he failed to supervise.

We check his work almost everyday. Our requests to fix things to the way we want are hardly met, even when we told him quite soon after these were spotted. Contractor forcefully proceeded on to next step without rectifying earlier mistakes.

[Takaishi 44]

wow it was a good read. hope makan can settle the stuff well.

i think alan, being a great name in the past, doesn't necessary equate to being superb in the present.

i guess he will be on the number one banned list, least for me. those stuff incurred by TS is totally unacceptable.

[simplehuman 1]

Haha.. Takaishi, I couldn't agree more with you!

My bro-in-law come to our house during CNY and asked for the contractor's name and contact. We gave him and told him to avoid Alan at all cost!! He is already No. 1 on my top banned list.. Even my husband ask him to look for any Tom, Dick and Harry but Alan.

[meeko 5]

Hi all. Just wanted to give my view about this hot topic regarding this contractor. My reno was handled by him last year. It was completed on schedule, as promised by Alan at the beginning.

I understand that a lot of the members in the forum might have had some unpleasant experiences. But to be fair, I must say that my husband and I were pretty satisfied with the quality of his workmanship and his general attitude. Granted, he did not do a lot of hand holding. But each time we were not completely satisfied with certain jobs, he came down and made his guys do the rectifications immediately. No black face or complaints from him.

He was also very relaxed about the final payment, citing that he wanted to give us sufficient time to move in and settle down, as well as to observe if there were any further rectifications required. Everything was handed over sometime in early sep last year, and to this day, he does respond to my messages. I had a light that stopped working (the LED driver was spoilt, so nothing to do with workmanship. Found out after I took the whole light fixture to the shop I purchased it from), and asked Alan to help arrange for his electrician. He responded within an hour and sent his technician down as promised. This took place at least 3 months after the handover and final payment.

On another occasion, my brand new built in oven stopped working. Alan sent his electrician down the very next day. They helped me check everything and we finally discovered it was a technical fault that the oven people needed to rectify.

All in all, based on my whole reno journey from start to end, I would engage Alan again if I had another home to renovate. There were minor setbacks along the way, mostly due to a breakdown in communication between him and his guys (yes, one of the cons is that he does tend to have too many things to keep track of and may forget details). But we had no big upsets as he was always quick to remedy any mistakes made.

Just sharing my personal experiences. To those who haven't had a good experience, I hope that you're enjoying your new home anyway. Please feel free to browse through my reno blog. Haven't updated more recent pics. Will do so soon. I think it's important that the workmanship of a contractor still looks good after some time has elapse.

Thanks for reading!