My Modern Zen 2-Room 35sqm (Type 1) HDB BTO Apartment Renovation Journey

[RyanYTH 87]

11 hours ago, SuperZ said:

@ryanyth, thank you for your advice.

You brought up a couple interesting points:

"It was her good advice that saved me a future headache if I had done Box-up in the bathroom."
Can you please elaborate? I was thinking of same shower enclosure but I would just go with a one panel shower glass screen (all the way to the floor) without any curb.

"wishing I did something about the wooden skirting around my living room etc etc"

What is it about wooden skirting? I opt out of OCS so I am doing cement screeding and wooden-like tiles with out wooden skirting.

Any thoughts?

 

Oh your shower enclosure is probably fine.
I was refering to my aircon trunking which lead into the bathroom.
The original idea was to do box-up to cover up the trunking, and than lay tiles over the box up.
The idea is to hide the aircon trunking which may look ugly.
But this is a BAD idea, because if one day my aircon trunking needs to do servicing or replacement,
i literally need to tear down the tiles and box up which as you can imagine would be a huge nightmare.

Wooden Skirting (as you can see circled in red in the attached picture) is this panel of wood that HDB
will do as an effort to hide any imperfections between the wall and floor tile. Mine was reddish in colour.
Some other BTOs may have different colour. 

I forgot to take it into consideration and should have removed it and replace it with nicer tiles or at least paint it in a black colour
which will better colour match my apartment's black and white theme. I've since gotten used to it tho, so I guess its alright now.



If you opted out of OCS and doing cement screeding, you can do tile skirting like the below example picture
instead of wooden skirting which IMO looks nicer and more resistant to wear and tear compared to wooden
skirting but of course, it will cost more lah.

Edited December 9, 2019 by ryanyth

[SuperZ 7]

@ryanyth, than you for your advice.

You are right to have aircon trunking not to be buried beneath the tiles. My sister had her aircon trunking behind her built-in wardrobe. As the result when she needed to do re-trunking (for new aircon), the contractor said that he had to tear up the wardrobe. For me, I would never put any fixed stuff like tiles or wardrobe over the trunking enclosure. Aircon is the most frequent serviced item.

Good idea about tile skirting. I would consider.

[Cranberries 8]

Hello @ryanyth!

I was following your blog 2 years ago and now I re-visit your blog to refresh my memory as I prepare for renovation. 

Thanks for sharing your experience! 

One thing I wanted to point out is I finally understood why there is a need to install the SlideArm. When I read your blog I thought I do not need that as I do not like to leave my main door open. 

Yesterday I went to open my bto door and I had ENOUGH of that soft closing door! I did not prepare a door stopper and it was such a fuss going through the door with it always moving towards shutting. Immediately I remembered reading in your blog that you have installed something above the door as a door stopper and I made up my mind to install that too! 

[RyanYTH 87]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:05 PM, Cranberries said:

Hello @ryanyth!

I was following your blog 2 years ago and now I re-visit your blog to refresh my memory as I prepare for renovation. 

Thanks for sharing your experience! 

One thing I wanted to point out is I finally understood why there is a need to install the SlideArm. When I read your blog I thought I do not need that as I do not like to leave my main door open. 

Yesterday I went to open my bto door and I had ENOUGH of that soft closing door! I did not prepare a door stopper and it was such a fuss going through the door with it always moving towards shutting. Immediately I remembered reading in your blog that you have installed something above the door as a door stopper and I made up my mind to install that too! 

Thanks for your reading my blog!
Hahaha ya that soft closing door can be abit of an annoyance.
But that said, is already not bad HDB give us soft closing door. Last time the door i think isn't soft closing.
Slidearm still works nicely for me now close to 2 years and I still recommend it.
If you are tighter on budget tho, you don't need to install it. A door stopper or a ball/magnet combo will still do.

[Cranberries 8]

Hello, @ryanyth!

I did not know there is such door stopper mechanism till I read your blog. Would have chosen the magnet, but magnet will turn rusty after some years (that's the case for my current home) and for usual rubber door stopper, I foresee asking myself "where is that door stopper ?!" when I need it ??. So a door stopping mechanism installed above the door shall be best choice?

[Lichi Tree 1]

On 12/9/2019 at 7:14 PM, SuperZ said:

@ryanyth, than you for your advice.

You are right to have aircon trunking not to be buried beneath the tiles. My sister had her aircon trunking behind her built-in wardrobe. As the result when she needed to do re-trunking (for new aircon), the contractor said that he had to tear up the wardrobe. For me, I would never put any fixed stuff like tiles or wardrobe over the trunking enclosure. Aircon is the most frequent serviced item.

Good idea about tile skirting. I would consider.

This is very true and all owners should take note and learn about this, usually, IDs or contractors wouldn't advise you against it as they prioritised design over serviceability.

[RyanYTH 87]

Sorry i just wanted to post this for fun.
There is something really very Special and Magical about being able to
bake your very own loaf of bread in the kitchen of your very own HOME.❤️

Edited February 5, 2020 by ryanyth

[mytinybto 1]

On 2/4/2020 at 11:29 PM, ryanyth said:

Sorry i just wanted to post this for fun.
There is something really very Special and Magical about being able to
bake your very own loaf of bread in the kitchen of your very own HOME.❤️

Looks yummy! Please post more!  I still have a few years to go before getting my keys and the wait is killing me already.  So nice to read homeowners enjoying the 2 room flat lifestyle  

[Sonilor 1]

This is an excellent idea, I like it because you can enjoy a two-room apartment. When I moved out of my old apartment, I was looking for one that would make me feel more comfortable, you know what I'm saying? Comfort inside the apartment is very important because it depends on your mood in the morning and during the day, also depends on your sleep, which is why I decided to take a look at private park apartments peter cooper village, which was well recommended by my friend. It's a great place, I'll tell you what

[grusky 0]

hello, i was reading the post 1-year  entries and you had one where you talked about the aircon working fine for your cooling despite having removed the sliding door partition. I just would like to ask, does this make the air-con work harder since it has a larger area to cool, assuming only one is turned on at anyone time? or it just cools according to the temps and fan settings one sets? 

 

[RyanYTH 87]

On 7/23/2021 at 9:36 AM, grusky said:

hello, i was reading the post 1-year  entries and you had one where you talked about the aircon working fine for your cooling despite having removed the sliding door partition. I just would like to ask, does this make the air-con work harder since it has a larger area to cool, assuming only one is turned on at anyone time? or it just cools according to the temps and fan settings one sets? 

 

Hello there, and very sorry for this late reply. I hope you're still following this.
To answer your question first, I'm not sure if the aircon works harder and also not sure if it cools according to temps and fan settings.
You will need to consult a Aircon Technician for this i reckon.

And now a funny story about my Aircon. It actually broke down and I actually replaced it.
This is what actually transpired and I learnt alot of things (expensive lessons lol)

Some background:
So apparently my Condenser is a System 5 and its using to cool a System 2 aircon.
No wonder my Condenser is so big compared to others. 

It worked fine for about 2 years and I DID NOT DO maintenance for about 1.5 years.
The troubles started when my aircon would suddenly shut off by itself and had a blinking light.
I also noticed the blown air started to not get cold anymore.

After checking, it was found that my Gas Level at my Condenser is very low.
So of course I topped it up. Normal Aircon Gas PSI is 160-170 btw. I remembered mine was like 60PSI?
And it worked ... only for a couple of months when issue started again.
And when we checked, Aircon Gas had fallen alot. This is not normal because Aircon Gas don't usually drop so low at such a fast rate.
To cut a long story short, eventually it was discovered that my Aircon Gas is leaking.

Now there are 2 ways to do this:
1) You can do something called a Pressure Test (which cost money) that will be able to determine where the leakage is at.
Leakage can happen either on Piping or the actual Aircon itself. This is ONLY a test and does not actually solve the problem.
It's main purpose is only to let you know whether which is the one that is leaking.

2) You can gamble and choose whether you want to directly replace the piping or the entire aircon.

My Aircon tech advised me to skip the Pressure Test as he felt it wasn't worth the money given how new my aircon is. (Only 2 years)
He recommended to replace the piping because that is most likely where leakage will occur for an aircon that is so new.

He than mentioned even if issue is not because of piping but the aircon itself, I won't need to do another piping replacement since
aircon replacement will also need re-piping anyway. 

I agreed with his findings on this as it does make sense and we proceeded to replace the piping.
Replacement of piping is where I learnt alot. (Check the attached image I added)
Remember my original piping is in the black trunking? My new piping is now the white trunking.
You may wonder "Why doesn't he just remove the piping from the original trunking instead of running a new trunking?"

And the reason is the Aircon Tech advised while he could do that, he advised during the course of removal of the original trunking or piping,
the tiles on my bathroom might come loose and break. So it is advisable to leave it alone. I accepted this reasoning as this does seem reasonable
and I appreciated that he pre-empted me of this situation. So the new white trunking is made.

Back to the story, alas replacement of piping did not work and Gas kept leaking. So i guess my gamble failed.
In the end, i replaced with a new Mitsubishi Aircon and used System 2 compressor instead of System 5 and it has since worked fine so far (about 8 months now)
Isn't it funny how items always seems to spoil right just after warranty period has ended? Had my Daikin warranty still been valid I probably won't have stressed so much hahaha

Lessons i've learnt:

1) Regular Aircon Maintenance IS IMPORTANT
As i've mentioned I did not do Regular Maintenance for almost 1.5 years.
Regular Maintenance IS important. Not only does it clean everything properly, it helps detect problems early too.
Had I done regular maintenance who knows maybe I may not have encountered such an issue.
As an advice, do regular maintenance at least twice a year.

2) A bigger condenser (Eg: System 5 used to power a System 2 aircon system) doesn't mean it is more reliable or more powerful.
Buy a condenser according to what you need. Lets say you have a System 2 aircon and want to turn on both aircons at the same time,
if your aircon tech says a System 3 is enough, there is no need to spend more money on a System 5 because it seems more powerful.
It doesn't work that way. If you don't forsee yourself turning on both aircons at the same time and a System 2 condenser is enough, it will work.
Always tell your aircon tech how you want the cooling to be done, and he will recommend the best solution for you.

3) If you are doing aircon piping and if the piping happens to run along re-tiled walls (like what i have for my bathroom),
you need to be prepared that you may need to do a new trunking in order to avoid the potential issue of your tiles possibly coming loose or break.
The best is to route your aircon trunking in such a way so that this issue can be avoided.

4) Mitsubishi Aircons cannot have their vent blower permanently lowered.
What I mean is, do you know when Aircon blows their cold air, you can adjust the height of the vents so they either blow up or down?
I like my vents to permanently blow down because it will directly blow cold air at me. Daikin aircons can set this permanently, but
Mitsubishi Aircons does not. For mitsubishi aircons, it is apparently a standard feature that after some time, the vents will automatically
move up and will not permanently be locked at the down position. This is a default system feature that CANNOT be changed.
(Mitsubishi aircon owners will know what I mean) I thought this is good to know for people who needs this feature.

5) When hiring an Aircon tech, its good to go through a few different ones so you can get a feel of who does a better job.
During the period when I first detected my aircon gas leaking, i went thru a few aircon techs. Some of them aren't very honest
and some don't even know what they're doing. I went with the one that felt the most comfortable to me as I felt their reasonings
and information for what they did felt reasonable and logical for me.

In the end, from the day I first started encountering issue till the day everything is resolved, I reckon I spent about $3k+.
(This includes replacement of piping, replacement of aircon system, etc etc)
It's alot of money, but as a homeowner, things do break down and you need to be prepared for such incidents to happen.

Thanks for reading my "Aircon Adventure". I hope what I experienced here can help someone out there.
If anyone is interested, my Aircon Tech i can recommend is Yiwan Aircon. Contact - 8868 9878
That said, make your own judgement. While Yiwan may be my preferred Aircon Tech, they may or may not suit you depending.

Edited August 21, 2021 by RyanYTH

[mmoh 66]

hello Ryan, when u 1st bought the aircon, did you request for a stronger compressor? If not, why does it comes with a system 5 compressor? I have never heard of this happening before and I always thought the system what compressor always comes with the same number of blower unit.

On the piping, cant the technician remove the cover and replace the piping? As I understand, the trunking always comes with a base and a cover. so the technician can remove the cover to check if there is any leaking on the piping.

I read before somewhere that your should set your aircon to blow high and that will cool the room faster.

 

[RyanYTH 87]

On 8/25/2021 at 8:39 PM, mmoh said:

hello Ryan, when u 1st bought the aircon, did you request for a stronger compressor? If not, why does it comes with a system 5 compressor? I have never heard of this happening before and I always thought the system what compressor always comes with the same number of blower unit.

On the piping, cant the technician remove the cover and replace the piping? As I understand, the trunking always comes with a base and a cover. so the technician can remove the cover to check if there is any leaking on the piping.

I read before somewhere that your should set your aircon to blow high and that will cool the room faster.

 

Nope, it was all decided by Jason. I didn't know a thing about aircons at all.
So hopefully what i've posted here can be of help to someone. Hindsight is always 20/20 i guess?

As for removing cover and replacing piping, i've written in my earlier post. Have discussed with my aircon tech before, removing of piping
might cause issues like tile breakage and other stuffs which he pre-empted and I decided not to go ahead.

I'm not sure about blowing high to cool room faster tho.
One thing I do notice is that Daikin has a more powerful "Dehumidifer" function (that waterdrop icon)
and I actually use it to cool the room when I sleep. It is actually cheaper to do this instead of using Aircon.
I see savings of about 10-20% or so. That said, was it a contributing factor for my condenser break down? i don't know.

In contrast, Mitsubishi Dehumidifer function doesn't feel as strong as Daikin, thus not as cold.
but it's Aircon Mode feels colder and cools room faster than Daikin IMO.
For some reason, a Mitsubishi 25C somehow feels colder than Daikin's 25C

Edited September 1, 2021 by RyanYTH

[Evech 0]

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