Anyone Tried Koong Yee Renovation Works?

[cpwee 0]

Don't bother engaging Koong Yee. They are always at the home fairs at Expo soliciting new business, but when it comes to delivery it's a nightmare, or at least I'm in the midst of it now.  The guy was nice and friendly at the pitching state, but once you sign off, they just become bo-chap and non-responsive. We engaged them for our house renovation services just recently in April 2016, the ID in charge of our project is on leave (which he did inform us even before we signed off), but was assured of coverage. As most of you may have already guessed, the truth is there is ZERO coverage, so nothing in the house has moved for 2 weeks FYI. PM me if you need the details. From a disgruntled customer of Koong Yee Renovation.

[jamejone183 0]

My advise is be careful about the materials they use and if you are buying from vendors they introduce, practice more caution.

[cpwee 0]

Hello jamejone183,

yes fully agree with you! We experienced this on 2 counts:

1. Sanitary fittings: We were recommended a supplier in TradeHub who is supposed to give good discounts. Did our selection but something just didn't feel right, so we pulled the brake on payment which we were glad we did! We went to the supplier (Lookz Pte Ltd in Balestier) which we bought the fittings from for our previous place - and true enough, the exact items/quantity worked out to be 20% cheaper than what the "Recommended supplier" quoted us.

2. Curtains: arranged meeting with the "recommended supplier" - on day of meeting, we reconfirmed if the supplier was going to be on time and got a "yes". Hence we reached our place on time; after waiting for 15 minutes with no supplier in sight/no news, we called him and it was then he said "I'm still in punggol" with no apology offered. Told us to wait till 45min-1 hour after arranged time if we could - we obviously said no! Went back to our previous curtain furnishing company (Yours Furnishing at River Valley Road) - lovely service, and on day of site visit to take measurements, the lady (in stark contrast) text us half an hour before  scheduled meeting time to let us know she was on the way. And I did not even have to text her to get this update from her.

Having griped about the above, to be fair, there are 2 saving graces for Koong Yee - the carpenter and the electrician. If anything, these are the only 2 suppliers in our entire experience with Koong Yee who made any sense. The carpenter, being a tradesman,  definitely wanted to get work orders so he was enthusiatic and he gave very sound advice during the confirmation - and it was then we realised our PM did not brief the carpenter AT ALL though he claimed to have done it before going on leave. We ended up briefing the carpenter on the requirements which we spent 2 hours briefing our PM on.

The electrician was also professional and provided good sensible advice/solutions when we went through the site to brief on the lighting spots, power socket locations etc. Again, our beloved PM failed miserably in his capacity as a project manager, as he did not brief the electrician though he claimed to have done it again. During the walkthrough and brief, he was supposed to take note of quantities/items to calculate the electrical quote on the spot, and came up with horribly wrong quantities which resulted in a quote that was more than double (we already did our rough estimates based on the unit prices given by Koong Yee). Hence the quantities were passed to the electrician for vertification, to which we saw the electrician's face turning awkward, to which he defused the awkward situation of our dear PM not knowing how to do his job very quickly by saying in Mandarin which translated to "no wonder Boss is angry, quantities are not correct." And after he adjusted the quantities, the quote only became what we estimated it to be.   

In conlusion, the calibre of the renovation company (empty promises) is largely aligned with the standards offered by their suppliers (sub-standard).

 

[cpwee 0]

Hello all, I just want to give an update on our recent post concerning our experience with Koong Yee. The works were finally completed and place handed over to us in mid June. Despite all the earlier delays and missteps, we have to give credit when due, that is they took eventually our feedback seriously, rectified the problems and went out of the way to win back a disgruntled customer.

The staff who gave us so much heartache was replaced by his senior (who is definitely more experienced) and one of the directors also stepped in to give us assurance and commitment to see to the completion of our renovation. Both took turns to come in to check on progress and coordinate works, updates were given promptly on a daily basis. Things moved much faster in the last 2 weeks than the first 4 weeks combined! When we finally moved in, only very minor touch up works remained to be done.

Throughout this saga, they were apologetic of their shortcoming and never once chased us for payment, even though we asked a few times when we can pay according to the agreed schedule. There was a level of focus of gets things complete first to our satisfaction before settling the bill. We appreciate this effort. Happily living in our new place now.

[valerietan 0]

Hello all, 

I would like to share my nightmare experiences on my engagement of Koong Yee Renovation for my house.  I read about the positive feedback online about KY, so I sought their services to renovate my resale flat. DL was my contractor. I used the term contractor & not ID (interior Designer) as not much design work was shown- no inputs and ideas were put forth by him AT ALL throughout the project. I signed the contract in early Nov 2015 as he was very sincere & promised to drop by often to oversee the project as he stays nearby. The estimated completion date was end Jan 2016.  

Work included hacking of floor tiles, rewiring the entire house, custom-made cabinets throughout the house.  There were a few discussion sessions that lasted more than 5hours into 11pm+. Details & specifications were laid down.  DL showed up a few times on site initially, after which handover the project to his newbie assistant as he had too many projects to oversee.  Work was delayed as workers were too busy with other projects, nobody bothered about my house. Even if workers did show up, they were slow & did little work.  Then Chinese New Year came & project was further delayed.  

The carpentry work were done by Malaysian workers & materials were from the factory located there. The workmanship sucks. It is not because I have high expectations or fussy.  It is really bad!  When I pointed out to the supervisor, I was told ‘when things come out from factory, it’s like that, there is nothing much I can do’.

Most of the time I have to deal with the workers as KY contractor was hardly on site.  After work was done, no one came to inspect if the work was done properly.  When the house was washed, the storeroom was left out unwashed.  When I brought this up to KY, no apologies or remedy was offered.

Also, dimension & specifications were ALL wrong! I mentioned earlier that we had spent HOURS discussing the measurements, but none of it got to DL's head. When cabinets and everything came, EVERYTHING, not a single thing was in the correct measurement!! When I specifically requested that no lock for the drawers in the wardrobe, all drawers came with locks! Practically EVERY single custom made items need to REDO because specifications were all wrong!  So the work was further delayed as many things have to be redone.  The workers were unhappy that they have to redo the work & were slow in progress too. 

Imagine one worker came to site at 11am, then lunch break, tea break & went off at 5pm.  The next 2 weeks, no work was done at all because they were engaged in bigger projects elsewhere.

Throughout the renovation, I feel like I am the site supervisor.  I have to check on the work done on site, if things were not right, I have to call up KY to report, then action would be taken.  Towards the last phase of the project, DL’s assistant resigned from KY, so I was left alone to oversee the renovation.

  There were so….. much agony & frustration during this renovation. When the final item was done in May 2016, DL eagerly wanted to close the case & asked to come to my house to discuss the final payment.  Wow! It is the first time DL is so serious in his work.  But he merely sent workers to come on site to work, he did not check if the work is done to a satisfactory level ?  He did not even ask me if things are done well, merely assumed that the worker came, so things are done.  Isn’t this the work of the contractor to check that things are in order ? Imagine it took more than 6 mths to renovate a HDB flat ! 

  Overall, words can’t describe my experience with Koong Yee, especially DL. Attitude was bad, being late for appointments is a given right, because he was engaged elsewhere.  So it is all right for me to wait as he is busy. Never once did he apologize for being late.

It’s a nightmare that I do not want to remember. Good luck to those who engage in KY.

 

Mdm Tan.

[madeleinetan 0]

Hi

from my experience with KY i can say it depends entirely on the contractor you get. 

the first contractor assigned to me was ok at the start, but overall was not professional and the project lacked supervision . however after we requested to have someone else take over the job things were much better.

the pros of engaging with KY is that their prices are very low. i did my whole 4rm resale flat (size 111) for under 40k ( flooring entire unit, re-did entire kitchen- tiling, carpentry, etc, re-did both bathrooms, rewired whole unit .

if you are working with a budget, i recommend you use them and request for Delise Khor. He was the contractor who took over and he is very reliable and efficient .  He is easy to work with and gets the job done fast. 

 

[angelinee90 0]

was comparing their quotes with other ID. Relatively cheapest among other ID I have met. But after reading a lot negative feedbacks from this forum, think I need to reconsider them lol.

[cminyee 0]

are they really that bad? i talked to one of their senior ID quite sincere leh

[Quahz 0]

Yes, I've tried them.  Their ID Sayre will proudly describe their showroom kitchen display but the concept shown was different from when they install. Just receive their lawyer's letter today demanding their last 10% payment which I'm withholding as there are rectification works that have yet been completed - rework on the kitchen cabinet and hard top cracks appeared which cannot withstand the heat of the kitchen hob.

Lots of issue starting from day 1 of the renovation .... things that ID agree to do but subsequently done differently.  Not customer centric mostly will say CANNOT, ADD ON (for small request like having a silicon stopper to prevent door handle to slamming on the wall I bought it for $2.40 for set of 6 pieces).

Regretted that freebies and pricing were the main attraction but with the add ons, better to use someone else and not worry about freebies as all these are somewhere hidden in their cost.  A lot of research needed to find a good renovation company, my nephew used another reno company also had promises made but undelivered.

Good luck if you using them.

[l3in4dong 0]

Hi,

I just did my my home, previously i went around to look for many quotes from many different companies. And finally came to a conclusion that diff id company quotation are diff as  only they themselves know what they are quoting as design and materials used are diff, some tried to pull a quick deal off where they themselves are not sure and not knowledgable. I personally feel that having a responsible contractor or ID is very important.

In the end decided to use a ID that is introduce to me by a friend which have engaged their service before.

If u really need my ID or Contractors contact feel free to let me know