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lala81

Our 温馨 5-Room 小狗窝

By lala81, in Reno t-Blog Chat - HDB Resale Renovation & Interior Design

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lala81    3

lala81
Posted

ID Selection

Finalised my ID yesterday. Paid 3k deposit.

I've been reading RT for about a year already and so had a reasonably clear idea of what i wanted in terms of renovation. Though have not much clue about color matching. Being a boring person meant i also prefer conventional looks.

Long hours at work and being a father meant that i wanted to minimise time spent on sitting down with too many contractors/ID.

I would have been perfectly fine with using a contractor but alas, the lack of time to manage the renovation meant i would be using a ID.

So 2 months plus back, started with a short list of 3 people. 2 are fairly popular ID/contractors here. Last one is someone who did the renovation for my good friend's place this year (He also did the minor renovation for my good friend's brother).

Mr A
- one of the popular recommended small company ID here (will refrain from naming names since i don't have positive things to say about him). Did some of the flats in this forum.
- Sms-ed him asking him about whether he's free to take up project blah blah blah. Mr A asked me to send him an email with floorplan and requirements. Polite and prompt with the sms replies.

- maybe about 5 days later after sending an email with no reply, smsed him asking whether received email. Mr A said he was sick for past few days and will give me a quote within 1 wk before meeting up for discussion

- just before end of 1 week, Mr A send me an sms asking me how come no floor plan attached (at that point of time was a photo, not scanned PDF) to original email. The email was the same one i sent to the other shortlisted contractors lor, all no problem except him. So i sent him another email

- after that never got back to me. no follow up email, no sms.

- didn't bother with him anymore after that. Cos' he obviously wasn't interested in my business (Haha maybe since i wasn't doing flooring or retiling the contract wasn't worth much) or he was too busy

- shows that you can't believe everything good u hear in RT

Mr K

- Yes the famous Mr K. Famous RT contractor and rightly so. Workmanship and punctuality consistent through his many projects featured here on RT.

- send him sms. quick call back via phone. Arrange an appointment to meet him, wah 2 weeks waiting time :wacko:

- had to remind him 1-2 times over whatsapp regarding appointment. Cos he is a bit forgetful, think he's handling quite a lot of projects and potential new customers

- Met him at the appointment. Arrived 10 mins early at the appointed macdonald's. I decided to wait until 5pm before sending him sms to say i'm here. my wife walked around the macdonald's looking for seat and mentioned that some guy was sitting there looking at floorplans on ipad. I said can't be him, cos i haven't sent him our floorplan yet. Haha but in the end, it turned out to be him. He was a good 20mins early. :)

- breezed thru the discussion of requirements with him. He speaks mandarin mostly and is highly experienced. so the conversation was very short and to the point. he wrote down my requirements on the floorplan in his shortform. Has some slight communication wavelength issue with him, not that i don't understand mandarin well.

- got a quote from him in few days. His quote is also not as detailed compared to some others. Less itemised. His quote is only 1 page long for example when my other quotes are 2.5 pages long. Think he just includes a lot of stuff in naturally, but to someone like me, i felt less reassured that he remembered what i wanted. he forgot quite a few things i wanted, so i called him up and asked him again to add the new stuff in.

- fast reply, 2 days later got the revised quote. Conclusion is not cheap, more expensive than my other quote but not by much

- finally decided not to use his services as i think my communication with him is not as good as my final choice. And he is bit forgetful on the finer points i wanted though i'm sure he will be able to deliver the goods when the reno starts.

- if u go look for him, i suggest that u speak to other IDs first especially if u are quite new to the process. Don't put him as no.1 on your appointment list. Since the people who mostly find him are those who are RT savvy people haha.

 

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lala81    3

lala81
Posted

ID Selection (cont'd)



Mr B

- did my good friend's condo earlier this year. Fuss-free renovation according to my friends. They aren't very demanding customers but they are not the chin chai type also. So thumbs up from my friend!

- not much prior history here. U can only find 2 references to him online - 1 is on a blog dated 2010. another one is a casual recommendation by him from a RT forummer who used him but didn't create a renoblog.

- very prompt with his reply over sms/whatsapp. polite and fast replies.

- met up with him. close to my age. But he's been doing his own business for 5 yrs and been in the industry even longer. very likeable fellow. understands what i'm trying to say. After he realised early on that i'm quite familiar with contractor talk, discussion is pretty smooth

- quote is detailed towards my liking (compared to Mr. K). Cheaper than Mr K also.

- Reasons to sign the deal with him:

Known quantity. Workmanship adequate and good experience from a 1st hand account.

Specific in his quote. Less room for misunderstanding and errors later on

Very fast replies. Same wavelength when discussing even through whatsapp. Essential since i won't have much time to supervise. And since i can't really use phone much at work.

- negotiated for discount and signed the deal yesterday! :good:


now only need to wait for my delayed receiving of the keys... :(

 

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oldskool    2

oldskool
Posted

haha no need to congratulate lah, not say i win toto 1st prize haha :notti:

Will post more picts once i actually get my keys...

hahah selecting the right contractor / ID almost like tio abit already la

 

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