leechaorui

Roaches can stay alive and active as long as there is moisture. It is best that you keep the place free of water. When there is no food source and water (esp water), roaches will automatically find the place inhabitable.

There is a type of magnetic brush that allow you to clean the outside from the inside of your house. I think once a year, you can hire someone to help you use a water jet to clean the exterior of the house including the roof. This would help remove the stubborn stains and dirt that is stuck on your house, other than those at the windows. Cheers!

I enjoy reading your T/blog. Very humourous. Three Cheers for you!

Good size MBR. I think better budget a bit more for contingencies.

Agree, very beautifully designed and done up.

It differs from place to place depending on your specs, size, requirements, furnishing, etc... Best for you to get some quotes from architects and builders to give you a sense of cost with respect to your needs.

You can check on the contractors registration at the BCA website. I think it is not difficult to register with BCA. Only thing is most of the contractors are small timers and they can't bid for big projects (eg. condo development). However, bidding for bungalows and terrace houses are no problem. Even when the soil condition is very poor, you can still avoid micro piling. Go for second and third opinion from civil engineers and you will soon know that micro piling can be substituted easily by using RC piling. Only thing is your contractor needs to be experienced enough to do RC piling in a way that vibration is reduced and nearby properties are not affected. $500K all cost inclusive is a difficult figure to work on. $1 million for above average furnishing looks excessive for a built in of 3000 plus sqft. I build my place for $700K, all cost inclusive. I think built in is about 4000 sqft. Nonetheless, it is good that you have a bigger budget to work on. With your budget, I am sure you can get super luxurious furnishing if you go for competitive tender and control cost well.

Thanks. I missed it. Your place has 2 bedrooms and 1 utility room or are there more floors upstairs?

Hi Wind30, Could you share your floor plan?

Don't know how some people manage to re-develop their houses into 3.5 storey for very low budget like $400K or even $500K at today's construction prices. When I get quotations, it is always higher. Partly could be due to my requirements on the type of construction materials used. I think to build a small house at a budget of $1 million for 3000 plus sq ft is still very high by today's standard. Maybe, your architect is giving you some very high end luxury furnishing, long warranties, state of the art design and exceptional service. A reasonable budget for fairly high quality construction should not exceed $750K to $800K for a house of this size. I saw in the papers that some high rollers lost many millions in the casino over a few days. No offence or sarcasm, paying a few hundred thousand dollars more for the construction cost of a house may be a big thing for many. However, as long as you are financially comfortable and you like the service and product, it may still be considered as money well spent. Do share more of your construction in the T/blog. I look forward to seeing your construction process.

Congras and good luck on your rebuilding work. Hope to see more of your postings on the process you have taken, your selection process for builders and architect and what you plan to do for your house. Agree with you that it is important to be more specific in the quotes. However, there will still be many things that one doesn't know and therefore cannot specify such as the quality of cement used, the type of construction method of installing grills (sholder and joint with the rebar from the ground upwards as opposed to installing grills simply by using a bracket), quality of water proofing materials, etc.... Your built in area is huge for 2.5 storey which means that you have larger indoor space and lesser outdoor space as most of the land will be occupied by the building. 20% of your quote ($200K) going into piling is a lot of money. I supposed you are using micro piling and drilling very deep. I am also in the process of constructing my house. My piling cost me about $20K only for approximately 30 piles with penetration of about 25 metres. This included noise monitoring and vibration monitoring for piling works, licensed surveyor to set out the pile point, grid line and ECC, mobilizing of piling machine, PDA test, supply and drive in 150 x 150 RC pile to engineer's proposal and labour to cut off pile head. I am presently in the process of constructing my corner terrace. Although I have neigbours at the side and back, my contractor used RC piling without any major issues. You may want to review your piling work and cost of piling. For 2.5 storey, I don't think the piling needs to be very deep even when the soil condition is poor. If the soil condition is good, you may only need to do rough foundation which is even cheaper. The money saved can be used to purchase other items for your house construction/ renovation. Sharing similar experiences with you, I have also encountered friends who have rebuilt their houses using sub-standard contractor and architect. In the end, their house leaked badly, suffered from choke pipes because contractor used exceptionally small pipes to save cost, etc... The building process is frustrating and the end result is poor. Hence, it is important to choose the right builder and architect. Cheers!

You may want to try lighting.com at Balestier. This shop has got quite good feedback.

You may want to try stainless steel or granite top.

Practical words. Agree with you.

Very nice toilet. The WC set looks expensive.

You may want to take a few days leave to rest properly. If this problem comes back again, you may want to approach the Master that Lim75 recommended.

Original condition was already quite good. Now you have enhanced it much further. Very pretty. Cheers!

There are quite a number of IDs that forumers have used and recommended here already. Looking forward to see your 3D pictures.

I think you need to have a pipe that links to either the waste pipe or somewhere at the bottom of the wall for the water to be discharged. Otherwise the water will leak through the wall. I think best if you could re-install the storage heater and hack the toilet wall to redo the piping.

You can try introducing China lemon grass/ Citronella because this plant could repel mosquitoes. On the other hand, many species of insects feed on heliconia leaves. Maggots, bacteria and protozoans make their homes in pools of water in Heliconia bracts too. Hope this info is useful for you. Cheers!

You could get your contractor to sand, fill and re-seal the floor. The reasons for cracks could be due to moisture or drying out of the wood. Get a dehumidfier to suck out the excess moisture in the room. I think this should help mitigate the problem. Cheers!

I think you can ask the contractor to help you do the patching to close the gap.

Wish you smooth smooth reno.

I heard of horror stories of sub contractor not taking the plywood out after the cement is dried. The sub contractor simply plaster over the plywood. In the end, the whole house leaked badly. The owner has just re-teared down many of the walls to extract the wood and re-plaster the place. Very jialat. Another story that I heard was the sub contractor use cloth/ sponge to paint over the grills. This resulted in very quick depreciation of the paint work on the grills as the paint is very thin. This one not so bad, just need to clear out the existing paint and re-do the paint work. Those contractor that don't pay their sub-contractor fairly or don't pay their sub contractor is doing their customer a dis-service. Imagine owner pay contractor to build the house for $800K and the main contractor sub-contract out and the sub-contractor further sub-contract out again of which the tail end guy gets only $400K, I can't imagine the quality of the house construction. I met one such contractor and found his work to be extremely shoddy. He even boasted that as long as owner is happy, nothing will happen. I told him off that the quality of his work was unacceptable and he was basically trying to rip the owner.

Hi Jane, The quotations for rebuilding houses have a range of prices. It depends on the complexity of the work, the construction materials used, the furnishing, the margins of the contractor and also the extent of the architect's involvement. The following are some examples of cost differentials in construction (usually owners don't notice these differences): (a) has areas protruding outwards supported by cantilever as opposed to supporting by a pillar, (b) use solid bricks as opposed to hollow bricks, water proof the whole house as opposed to water proofing only wet areas (eg. balcony, toilets), © use materials that allow for much higher weight loading compared with the minimum requirements, (4) use STO weather proof paint (stops seepage of water into the paint) as opposed to ICI/ Nippon weather bond paint, (5) use larger copper pipes as opposed to the minimum standard (allows for better water flow even when everyone turns on the tap) (6) use higher quality cat 6 cables (eg. Belden brand and AMP faceplates) as opposed to not installing cat6 cabling or using average quality cables and faceplates (7) use Singapore cement (has properties that help to prevent water seepage and cracking) as opposed to other types of cement (not good to mentioned brand here) (8) use higher quality water proofing materials as opposed to using ordinary type of water proofing materials (9) use piling to build foundation as opposed to doing only rough foundation (according to some professionals, after many many years, there could be some settlements effect) (10) use solid bricks to help bond the cement and rebar when doing foundation instead of wood (wood tend to have gaps and allow for dust and dirt to get in between pillars' joints (I think this is not a major problem although some claimed that it would slightly weaken the pillars). (11) use of solid thick aluminum galvanized frames/ Fascina brand instead of those filmsy aluminium windows and frame. (12) use double glazed windows to prevent heat from entering the house as opposed to using ordinary glass for the windows. (13) use wall bracket to secure large size feature wall stones as opposed to using cement to stick the stones to the wall (stones can dropped off after some time). The following are some cost differentials in furnishing: (1) use of higher end bathroom taps, WC, basins, water-heater system (eg. Gohe, TOTO, 707) that are made in higher cost countries as opposed to generic brands that are made in China, Indonesia or M'sia (2) use of higher end parquet such as those longer timber strips from Burma as opposed to smaller strips parquet from Indonesia, (3) use of chengai wood from mature trees as opposed to using marbau wood for decking. (4) use of high quality marble selected and cut from large piece as opposed to using granite, smaller marble cuts, homogenous tiles, etc... However, some pple are able to get good quality marbles at very competitive prices. (5) use of LED lighting system in the house as opposed to normal energy saving lights. (6) use of high end Legrand, Clipsal, MK switches with LED lights compared to using those simpler ones. (7) use of inverter air-con system (eg. Panasonic, Mitsubishi Heavy Ind, Toshiba) as opposed to using non inverter air-con system. The different types of air-con system also attract different pricing. (8) use of KDK fans as opposed to generic brands (9) use of custom made curtain using high quality materials as opposed to buying off the shelf in supermarkets (can also get good quality customed made curtains from M'sia at lower cost). (10) install more power points, TV points and telephone points as opposed to trying to plan very carefully on the number of points needed. Also install power points that can take higher energy consuming equipment (eg. oven) around the house instead of the standard types. (11) install one DB on each floor instead of one DB for the whole house. Use of higher quality brand DB (eg. Hagar) instead of generic brands. (12) install designer wardrobe and other carpentry work instead of simpler ones. The following are some cost differentials in architect selection: (1) use of architect that is helpful and support you in managing the project all the way (ie higher fees) as opposed to one that basically sign off and you hardly get a chance to meet him (lower fees). A good architect will also help you manage the contractor and ensure the quality that you deserve is given to you. Based on your requirement of 5 bedrooms, 1800 sqft land and inter-terrace (I presume re-development to 3.5 storey), my estimate is between $670K to $800K depending on your requirements. I am assuming that you use higher end construction materials with piling, LED lights, Cat6 cabling for the whole house, custom made curtains, no constraint on number of power points/ TV points but not using super high end marble, toilet furnishing, etc... If you are looking for really simple design, using lower quality construction materials, I think $550K is a doable sum. You can check it out with contractors and architects for a quotation based on what you want. The higher the demands, the higher the cost. If you want to find strong builders and more renowned architects, cost would also be higher because these people do not compromise on the quality. No point approaching them if you do not have a good budget to work on. Hence, you need to know what you want/ need before you start speaking to builders/ architects. There are builders who can do low cost and I feel you should not approach them if you have good budget. In the end, you may pay high price for low quality. After all, I think these contractors may be quite used to cutting corners (my guess). The best case scenario is to get high quality with low budget and the bad scenario is to pay high price to get poor quality. Cheers!