leechaorui

I think there are two reasons. First, by swinging outwards, you may hit and damage a car that is directly outside your gate or someone who is standing outside your gate (in a public place) may get knocked by your gate opening outwards towards him/her. Second reason that I thought of was to restrict homeowners from building only within your land perimeter. I was informed by the architect that the rule prohibits swing gates from opening outwards, unless after opening outwards, the gate is still within the perimeter of your house. Like I said earlier, after TOP, nobody bothers unless there is a complain against you.

I think there are cost advantage in doing just footing and there are also cons to it in terms of quality of structure. After the house is built, generally people can't tell the difference between reconstruction or redevelopment. Even those who do A&A and have a clever design, can have an end product that looks like a new development. In general, those who do reconstruction tend to just do footing. I think if they were to do deep piling, the few pillars or walls that are preserved for reconstruction cases may collapse during the piling process. Like what pantieileen said, homeowners can still do piling but I think it is kind of difficult to protect the few pillars standing around. I was informed that the architect will have a lot to explain if those walls and pillars that are supposed to be preserved for reconstruction cases are "accidentally torn down". Hence, I guess most would try for footing instead of piling. As for home shelter, I last heard that the authorities are clamping down on homeowners who try to avoid building home shelter through the reconstruction route. Was told that it is harder to get the approval for waiver to build home shelter because the government is trying to plug this gap. I supposed clever architects can still come up with creative solutions and design to meet homeonwers needs. Cheers!

I thought you would have a remote control. I think door closing outwards is not approved by the authorities. For TOP purposes, doors have to close inwards. Anyway, after TOP, many owners reverse the closing of the gates towards outside. Danger is for homeowners to damage someone's car and the person make a complain to URA and BCA. You may want to consider a sliding gate in future.

Hi Siaw8, This is what I extracted from the URA website. The term erection and redevelopment is used interchangeably. Reconstruction" refers to a situation where: - The proposed increased in the gross floor area (GFA) of your property exceeds 50% of the existing GFA (for example, adding a 2nd storey to a single-storey building); or - The external walls of the building are removed and replaced with new walls (notwithstanding that the proposed increase in gross floor area does not exceed 50% of the existing GFA) "Redevelopment" refers to a situation where the entire building is demolished and a new building erected. In the case of "redevelopment", among other technical requirements, you have to comply with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) requirement to provide a bomb shelter. You may wish to visit the SCDF website at www.scdf.gov.sg for more details on the bomb shelter requirement. I think by and large, after the house has been constructed, you can't tell the difference between reconstruction or redeveloped. One thing I noticed about redevelopment is you can do deep piling while reconstruction typically involve only doing the footing for the house foundation. When you do deep piling and put in strong materials, I think you could increase the loading to your house. This could potentially open up more possibilities to the house design.

I think most people use glass of 2mm or 3mm thickness and some may use 4mm thick glass. I used 5mm thick glass because I wanted my glass sliding door to be really solid. Beside the thickness, the quality of the glass is also important in determining its strength. If you plan to use thicker glass, you will have to correspondingly improve on the thickness and quality of the aluminium casing, the quality of the screws/ riverts and the size & strength of the rollers below the windows/ sliding door casement should also be enhanced. This is to ensure that the whole window/ sliding door casement in terms of weight and load bearing is proportional. You may want to consider double glazed glass to reduce heat and noise penetration, use tempered glass and to install a solar film to prevent the glass from being broken into small pieces after it has been smashed. Having said that, whatever is the thickness, 2mm or 5mm, none of them will be able to withstand the force of someone from using a big hammer to smash it up. Cheers!

That's wonderful. Just concern that if the sensor fails and the autogate closes on you before you could drive off completely, it can be quite disasterous.

If you don't mind paying the full cost, I think you can negotiate with your neighbour to have the wall torn down, redo the footing and then reconstruct it. Live and let live.

Yes, my gardener can do that for me. PM me your hp again so that I can intro him to you. I have not used him before but plan to use his services in a few months time. I think better for me to test him out first before I recommend to you. If you want it fast, I can pass you his contact and leave both of you to discuss. Cheers!

There are a few builders that I had researched on and each has his strengths, including my current builder. There are also builders recommended in this forum that you can search for quotes. If you want to use the services of my builder, better for you to pm me your hp and email so that I can share his strengths and weaknesses with you privately. Not so nice to share builders' weaknesses in open forum. My email is leechaorui@gmail.com

Sure, I can recommend you an architect. There are a lot of architects around. You can review whether the architect is good based on your call. If you are on budget and you don't need very fanciful design and very high quality construction, you may want to re-consider getting a builder.

Congratulations. You can get an architect to help you. One of my friends, converted his semi detached to a detached house and he also bought the remnant land besides his house. I think you need to get approval from URA and BCA. LTA, SLA and NParks may also be involved if there is any road reserve, land reserve, etc.

If you are looking to use the services of the architect and then tender out the rest of the works to contractors in building your house, you could contact an architect directly. There are really plenty of practising architects around. On fees, I think the architect will not be helpful towards you if your fees are low. They would probably not be able to devote too much time to help you as they would need to chase for other businesses. There is one forumer who used the architect route and paid close to about $100K for the fees. Hence, in comparison the fee of $40K is quite modest. You will need to provide more details of your house so as to better assess if the fee quoted is reasonable. To pay $40K fees to an architect to design a very luxurious good class big bungalow is cheap compared to a little terrace house.

My garden is planted with pearl grass. The gardener mentioned that over time, there is still some minor trimming required and it is low maintenance. So far, my pearl grass is not growing uniformly well. Some parts are healthy, some parts have quite a fair bit of brown leaves and there are also patches that barren.

There is a defect liability period usually for a year. Some people hold back 5% of the contract value for 1 year. I didn't do that. I paid my contractor in full when the job is completed.

You can empty the WC by using a sponge to soak up all the water. The first step is to first clean it. Buy the acid from hardware shops.

Congrats. This is an excellent location.

I have glass sliding doors at my place. I think it requires quite a paradigm shift. It is a move to a more gracious living concept and not be too worried about having to fence up everything and make sure we are very securely protected. My walls are scalable and my place can be broken into. When I was away for a holiday, I accidentally left the door ajar and thankfully, nothing happened. My estate is relatively safe with lots of joggers jogging past my house quite regularly and my neigbours are cordial and they generally help look out for one another. Nonetheless, the determined intruder can certainly break the glass sliding door and enter my house. If you are concern or your sense is the estate is not quite safe, you can keep fierce big dogs or install security alarm and cameras. These would deter some criminals. Cheers!

Bepgof has recommended a useful website. Some of the plants there will do better in low sunlight area. Survival is still much dependent on the condition (some light sunshine but not excessive amount of watering) and some element of luck. I think you could be referring elephant ear plant to Platycerium andium. This plant also cannot take too much sunlight and you probably do not need to water very much. It usually grow without the need for soil.

I think using GFA is the more conservative approach in computing area. The built up area which consist of all the area which a shadow can be cast, all the steps in the house, etc... tend to be an exaggeration of the actual area. Developers of condo always use built up area to make their units look bigger than actual. A fairer way of computing is to include all useable balconies of which some may not qualify for GFA but should not include RC ledges and air-con ledges and areas whose height is below 1.5 metres. You can email me the floor plan with dimensions of the house and I can help you do a brief computation of the useable area.

Agree with you. I think useful to have a combination of wired and wireless. For simple websurfing, wireless is more convenient.

Thanks for the sharing. Monkey is a NO NO to me. Song birds are okay, not mynah, sparrow or crow. Problem with birds is they flew away after being released and most don't return. I have released two green parakeets, three spotted doves and some other small canaries that were rescued. There was a sun bird that makes a nest on a tree outside my house. So far, not much success in inviting birds to return. My neigbour who has a fish pond and keeps lots of guppies in it, had kingfisher patronise his garden and pond. Quite interesting but so far, no shama, puteh, etc.. kind of birds visit his garden.

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions. I have seen some nice garden too but they don't attract song birds and butterlies. How to make the garden inviting for these creatures?

From the 3D pictures, very beautiful transformation. What is the budget for this renovation? My cousin would also like to renovate his flat when it is ready.

very nice set of keys presented to start the blog. I am sure you will be creative in your home design too. Cheers!

I think before moving in, one has to throw rice mix with salt into the house. Has to be thrown from room to room. This is supposedly a ritual to get rid of nasty stuff lurking in the house.