Project Muji Home - of white, wood and chrome

[Blade07 0]

Sorry to hear that you encountered so much trouble for this contractor at the end. If it's me I would definitely not pay them the last % as the works are not finished to an acceptable condition.

 

Nice shelving from taobao. May I have the link too. Am considering that too.

[dietgalvon 14]

On 10/16/2017 at 9:45 AM, Ng Jia Minh said:

Hi, 

Can you ok me the contact for renoguyz?

 

Thanks

@Ng Jia Minh PM-ed

[dietgalvon 14]

On 10/17/2017 at 6:26 PM, Blade07 said:

Sorry to hear that you encountered so much trouble for this contractor at the end. If it's me I would definitely not pay them the last % as the works are not finished to an acceptable condition.

 

Nice shelving from taobao. May I have the link too. Am considering that too.

@Blade07 Yup, there are way too many things to pick on such that I'm still not done with the review on them.

Anyway, if you're referring to the bomb shelter shelvings, here it is: https://ezbuy.sg/product/20000001769476.html.

[Blade07 0]

Thanks! The funny thing is using the App I was never able to find the same thing. But website shows it is under prime.. so irritated. 

 

[boon 0]

Hi dietgalvon, love your house! I actually read from the first page to the last haha.

Really like how you source stuff from taobao too

Sorry to hear that the journey hasnt been such a pleasant one and that there is so much pain even now. Hope you're able to reach a amicable solution with your contractor.

Can I request for you to PM me your contacts for:

1) SERVICE YARD WINDOWS - JUN CONTRACTOR

2) BLINDS - U SERVICE

3) GLASS WORKS - AH JIA

4) INSTALLER FOR YOUR DIGITAL LOCKS

[Waffles 0]

I am thinking to sign with CX reno but chanced upon this experience. 

By the way, have you managed to settle everything with CX?

[Jas28 0]

A very Nice Home and thanks for sharing your experience  on your renovation Journey.

Do you mind sharing the contact for the below

1)window Jun contractor and the toilet PD door and the quote 2)J&E    3)electrician contact           4)ID - MH of L**** P****** S*******

[dietgalvon 14]

On 10/19/2017 at 4:55 PM, boon said:

Hi dietgalvon, love your house! I actually read from the first page to the last haha.

Really like how you source stuff from taobao too

Sorry to hear that the journey hasnt been such a pleasant one and that there is so much pain even now. Hope you're able to reach a amicable solution with your contractor.

Can I request for you to PM me your contacts for:

1) SERVICE YARD WINDOWS - JUN CONTRACTOR

2) BLINDS - U SERVICE

3) GLASS WORKS - AH JIA

4) INSTALLER FOR YOUR DIGITAL LOCKS

@boon PM-ed (hope I PM-ed the right person)

8 hours ago, Waffles said:

I am thinking to sign with CX reno but chanced upon this experience. 

By the way, have you managed to settle everything with CX?

@Waffles A lady from CX called us up recently and offered to re-do the common toilet grouting, and they did. Previously we got HDB's help to mitigate the damages on the service yard door, but I wasn't pleased that the damages were created in the first place (and they refuse to acknowledge). Nevertheless, it's a pain dealing with them and I would consider it as case closed for now.

We weren't wow-ed by their workmanship to be honest (workmanship was the reason we didn't got for an ID despite the similar (or even cheaper) quotes). They did not fulfill the value we believed they could give us (in addition to the many blunders) so I wouldn't recommend them based on my experience. It may be different for others.

8 hours ago, Jas28 said:

A very Nice Home and thanks for sharing your experience  on your renovation Journey.

Do you mind sharing the contact for the below

1)window Jun contractor and the toilet PD door and the quote 2)J&E    3)electrician contact           4)ID - MH of L**** P****** S*******

@Jas28

1. PM-ed on windows, PD door was through my contractor

2. I won't be sharing their contact as I personally do not recommend them

3. Electrician is through my contractor

4. PM-ed

[justiceleague11120 0]

Hi I must comment that I have much interest in your unit and am sorry to hear of such events,

but I am sorry not for you, but for J & E.

in fact your should count yr blessings that you choose them.

why i can make such comments? cos i am one client who actually went to your unit and look at their worksmanship and sign up with them.

I have gone to see more than 6 other contractor jobs and none pleased me more than urs.

Yes, i am a client of them and my unit was handed over last 2 weeks ago and here i am writing to say that you may not even know they have done good things to u.

let me educate u a bit.

1) All the cabinet doors used by them are actually 18 mm thickness unlike some contractors who will give between 12 to 15 mm, meaning they dun cut on quality.

2) your Kompacplus top, in case you din know is actually all flushed in same directions, urs is L-shaped; if they do not have designer sense, yrs will be one side horizontal and one side vertical. so this shows they pay attention to their works. I dun tink you even know actually such layouts costs more and maybe E also din tell u

3) their internal coloured PVC is nice; i have another quote that normal white pvc is cheaper than them but to top up is actually higher than J & E.

4) carpentry does not have much sharp edges and finishing at one glance is good.

Next i also believe after yr sage J & E have improved;

E was the one who asks us to do a thorough defects check before we start reno

1) he even asks me to pour water and buy a scrub to scrub the bathroom floor. Due to budget i only overlay one master bathroom; common bathroom only did a kerb. E says if HDB developer already did a bad job ; they cant rescue ( GIGO. ) he mentioned got 1 case, likely urs that they din even do anything in the common bathroom but after washing; all the grouts came off and owners requested them to redo. so he wanted make sure it din happen to us and we must check properly.

2) E also asks us to check on the aluminium windows and frames. again he cited a case that owners may not have checked properly; hdb Developers may touch up themselves by spraying over defects and then after our cleaning up washing, the marks become evident and then they kanna blamed. He says why will they want to damage clients'hse when $$ not collected full.

3) items are not to be delivered before handover. again E says and advised us to check all reno works properly before arranging delivery cos they dun wan to be blamed for items not under their control as accidents can happen.

anyway my project i must say is well run and kept to the schedule i wanted, so i will rate them 8 out of 10. sometimes they rush me too much over the whatapp groupchat for delivery items and lights and plumblings fittings but overall it was a pleasant reno journey and i have paid them full on handover day le.

 

 

[Clarence Lye 10]

i think it really depends on individual luck.

the same ID/contractor may be good for others, doesnt mean it's good for you as we all have different level of tolerance and acceptance of defect.

So long i think if they are willing to rectify, it's still not so bad. Better than giving you 1000 reasons and then keep delaying your rectification works.
Overall from what i read here, J&E is not bad. I have 2 friends using them and are both okay as well.

Perhaps communication breakdown, or just sueyloh.

[jez2014 16]

6 hours ago, Clarence Lye said:

i think it really depends on individual luck.

the same ID/contractor may be good for others, doesnt mean it's good for you as we all have different level of tolerance and acceptance of defect.

So long i think if they are willing to rectify, it's still not so bad. Better than giving you 1000 reasons and then keep delaying your rectification works.
Overall from what i read here, J&E is not bad. I have 2 friends using them and are both okay as well.

Perhaps communication breakdown, or just sueyloh.

Yeah, I have to agree with Clarence. Maybe some sort of communication breakdown occured, or just plain unlucky bah.

I think that there's no such thing as an incident free renovation, but as long as:

1. the client is not too fussy/OCD

2. the contractor  has rectified the mistakes

 

Then everyone should be able to move on bah.

 

TS, maybe you have not seen the REAL horror stories on Renotalk? There are people left with homes that are half renovated when the contractor or IDs abscond with the money leh!

We used JE in 2014-2015 and were highly satisfied. My brother is also getting his own resale flat sometime 2018, and we would still recommend JE to him.

[dietgalvon 14]

23 hours ago, justiceleague11120 said:

Hi I must comment that I have much interest in your unit and am sorry to hear of such events,

but I am sorry not for you, but for J & E.

in fact your should count yr blessings that you choose them.

why i can make such comments? cos i am one client who actually went to your unit and look at their worksmanship and sign up with them.

I have gone to see more than 6 other contractor jobs and none pleased me more than urs.

Yes, i am a client of them and my unit was handed over last 2 weeks ago and here i am writing to say that you may not even know they have done good things to u.

let me educate u a bit.

1) All the cabinet doors used by them are actually 18 mm thickness unlike some contractors who will give between 12 to 15 mm, meaning they dun cut on quality.

2) your Kompacplus top, in case you din know is actually all flushed in same directions, urs is L-shaped; if they do not have designer sense, yrs will be one side horizontal and one side vertical. so this shows they pay attention to their works. I dun tink you even know actually such layouts costs more and maybe E also din tell u

3) their internal coloured PVC is nice; i have another quote that normal white pvc is cheaper than them but to top up is actually higher than J & E.

4) carpentry does not have much sharp edges and finishing at one glance is good.

Next i also believe after yr sage J & E have improved;

E was the one who asks us to do a thorough defects check before we start reno

1) he even asks me to pour water and buy a scrub to scrub the bathroom floor. Due to budget i only overlay one master bathroom; common bathroom only did a kerb. E says if HDB developer already did a bad job ; they cant rescue ( GIGO. ) he mentioned got 1 case, likely urs that they din even do anything in the common bathroom but after washing; all the grouts came off and owners requested them to redo. so he wanted make sure it din happen to us and we must check properly.

2) E also asks us to check on the aluminium windows and frames. again he cited a case that owners may not have checked properly; hdb Developers may touch up themselves by spraying over defects and then after our cleaning up washing, the marks become evident and then they kanna blamed. He says why will they want to damage clients'hse when $$ not collected full.

3) items are not to be delivered before handover. again E says and advised us to check all reno works properly before arranging delivery cos they dun wan to be blamed for items not under their control as accidents can happen.

anyway my project i must say is well run and kept to the schedule i wanted, so i will rate them 8 out of 10. sometimes they rush me too much over the whatapp groupchat for delivery items and lights and plumblings fittings but overall it was a pleasant reno journey and i have paid them full on handover day le.

 

 

@justiceleague11120 Great to hear that you had an awesome experience with J&E. Like I mentioned in the previous post, what I shared here is based on my experience only, and others might feel differently. There were many good reviews of their carpentry in this forum, which was why I engaged them eventually. You can share your pleasant experience and recommend people to them if you like!

That said, on one glance, anything can look fine; it takes more than one glance to find a cracked tile. But workmanship is not based on ‘one glance’. In all honesty, J is very knowledgeable in carpentry and I’m not doubting that. That was why for my MBR wardrobe which I paid $4.4k for, other IDs quoted me only $3.3 to $3.5k but I still engaged them. It is no doubt that carpentry was one of the least problematic of the journey, but it is not perfect to the extent that it justifies the price difference and whatever we were made to go through.

Thank you for your attempt to ‘educate’ me; but I have done a fair bit of research to know enough. We trust(ed) their expertise in carpentry, hence we paid a premium for it. For the Kompacplus, it was two rectangle pieces, not 2 pieces which was cut in diagonally to the corner, hence it wouldn’t cost more. This much, I’m sure.

Thank you for letting me know what E said about our issues like the common toilet grouting and the aluminium window frames. Because he went totally radio silent on us.

We approached HDB after E (or his tilers) did a slipshod job in patching the grouts. HDB acknowledged that the job was poorly done. But I did mention that recently CX got the tilers back to redo it and it’s okay now. This shows that the tilers can do a proper job, but they chose to spoil things instead (that’s worse than simply not doing anything at all). As the project manager, he ought to manage his tilers. If I have to manage his tilers, I would have outsourced all the tiling works.

For the aluminium window frames, it is not possible I did not spot them before they came up to redo tiling works at the kitchen because I mentioned above I spent 5 hours cleaning the whole area scrapping off paint stains left by CX’s painters. If there were any defects, it would have been surfaced already. Also, when I sent the pictures to E, he did not respond at all. Instead he responded to you on my issue but did not rectify the obvious scratches and dents. I wonder why.

Regarding “items are not to be delivered before handover”, I trust he is referring to the glass top which was scratched. Handover was on 29 July, the glass was delivered on 8 Aug, how is that before handover? I’ve reminded him to ask his guys to be careful with our new glass top. All black and white – in our whatsapp chat.

Glad that your project was on time. Because unfortunately, ours took 11 weeks and 4 days for a “6 to 8 weeks” project which he estimated. Handover was supposed to be a week earlier but his reason for the delay was “having another handover on the same day”. In fact, even on handover day, the works are not completed and he told us to leave his padlock on so that his guys can complete the rest within the next few days (which they did not until weeks later). Ultimately, their rectification works (minus the common toilet grouting and the unaddressed defects) completed only in end September.

Well, I wasn’t done with the review I wanted to write on them but your reply prompted me to write part of it out already. Sorry that this sounds more negative than I hoped. Being someone who does tonnes of research before deciding on a vendor, I am very upset with my own choice because my fiance actually preferred the last ID we met. He gave in to me, but I caused him more trouble because he was always the one who took leave to take care of these.

Edited October 27, 2017 by dietgalvon
Checked back on WhatsApp with glass vendor, installation was 8 aug not 10 aug.

[dietgalvon 14]

7 hours ago, Clarence Lye said:

i think it really depends on individual luck.

the same ID/contractor may be good for others, doesnt mean it's good for you as we all have different level of tolerance and acceptance of defect.

So long i think if they are willing to rectify, it's still not so bad. Better than giving you 1000 reasons and then keep delaying your rectification works.
Overall from what i read here, J&E is not bad. I have 2 friends using them and are both okay as well.

Perhaps communication breakdown, or just sueyloh.

@Clarence Lye This much, I agree. There were so many good reviews of J&E and I got to know them from this forum myself. 

Did I not mention that they rectified the other defects or did people choose to only see that I posted about the defects that were unaddressed? I even posted that the guy who drilled stuff for us did a good job lah! However, it is also a fact that E ignored our texts and failed to rectify a good portion of defects.

Surely not communication breakdown, because from what I experienced, E takes some time to respond, but will eventually respond when we call him. He replies fast on our questions but not when issues cropped up.

1 hour ago, jez2014 said:

Yeah, I have to agree with Clarence. Maybe some sort of communication breakdown occured, or just plain unlucky bah.

I think that there's no such thing as an incident free renovation, but as long as:

1. the client is not too fussy/OCD

2. the contractor  has rectified the mistakes

 

Then everyone should be able to move on bah.

 

TS, maybe you have not seen the REAL horror stories on Renotalk? There are people left with homes that are half renovated when the contractor or IDs abscond with the money leh!

We used JE in 2014-2015 and were highly satisfied. My brother is also getting his own resale flat sometime 2018, and we would still recommend JE to him.

@jez2014 Well, I've moved on after CX got the tilers to redo the worst issue i.e. the common toilet grouting. There were other defects caused by them but we were simply ignored. We got HDB to salvage the service yard door issue which was also bothering us and though it was not as perfect as what it came as, I decided to leave it as that.

To be fair, 3 weeks after my last text, someone from CX did call me (after they redo the grouting) and I still owe her a call because she asked if there was anything else that they need to rectify for us. I told her I wanted to call her back because there were so many things I wanted to feedback on, but I have no intention of getting them to rectify anymore. I had enough of seeing more dents and cracks each time they come up.

Surely my situation ain't as bad as those horror stories, but I think I did enough research to avoid that lah. Of course there are still people who had good experience and you guys should continue to recommend them! I'm just sharing based on my own experience.

ANYWAY, I will be doing a review with the good, the bad and relevant pictures so, I guess till then.

[jez2014 16]

8 minutes ago, dietgalvon said:

@jez2014 Well, I've moved on after CX got the tilers to redo the worst issue i.e. the common toilet grouting. There were other defects caused by them but we were simply ignored. We got HDB to salvage the service yard door issue which was also bothering us and though it was not as perfect as what it came as, I decided to leave it as that.

To be fair, 3 weeks after my last text, someone from CX did call me (after they redo the grouting) and I still owe her a call because she asked if there was anything else that they need to rectify for us. I told her I wanted to call her back because there were so many things I wanted to feedback on, but I have no intention of getting them to rectify anymore. I had enough of seeing more dents and cracks each time they come up.

Surely my situation ain't as bad as those horror stories, but I think I did enough research to avoid that lah. Of course there are still people who had good experience and you guys should continue to recommend them! I'm just sharing based on my own experience.

ANYWAY, I will be doing a review with the good, the bad and relevant pictures so, I guess till then.

Ah well, I see!

Good luck with the review! May I suggest though, that you don't burn bridges. You are still covered by warranty for some time mah.

[dietgalvon 14]

12 hours ago, jez2014 said:

Ah well, I see!

Good luck with the review! May I suggest though, that you don't burn bridges. You are still covered by warranty for some time mah.

Hahaha prior to us making full payment already ignoring us, and after all the blunders during rectification works, we definitely won’t be looking for them anymore.