leechaorui

Welcome to RT. Your reno ideas look good.

Wish you a rewarding reno journey.

Congrats. Very good location.

When your house is vacant, motorists may assume that it is alright to park outside your house. It would be helpful to put a signage on your main gate to inform motorists NOT to park their vehicles outside your house. Sometimes, it is useful to put the rubbish disposal bin at your main gate area to discourage unauthorized parking. Hope this helps.

My neighbour is renting out 2 big rooms, with each room's size equivalent to about 2 HDB Master bedrooms. If you are interested, I can connect you up with him. I am not a housing agent and all terms, conditions and rental agreement are completely left to you and landlord to discuss and I assume no liability for any dispute that may arise in future between landlord and tenant. His place is at Kovan area. PM me if you are keen.

Like you, I also take these stuff as fundamentals in construction. The reality is contractors and engineers seem to always commit mistakes in these areas. I spoke to a civil engineer about these issues and he said that the technical drawing he provide can never be full-proof and the knowledge gap can only be closed by an experience builder/ foreman on the ground to do practical adjustment. Since knowing this, I have paid close attention and not place too much faith on the expertise of professionals. You are right that roof extension, slope gradient, number of drain holes are critical and there are also other important factors such as wind direction that could bring rain into the gaps of the roof, the amount of water to discharge and drain from the roof during a thunder storm, how to weather proof the walls and RC slab, etc... are some of the considerations in planning the design and form part of the ongoing discussion with the foreman and builder during construction. I find myself at the site almost everyday to ensure that the construction goes as planned. Even then, due to my limited technical knowledge, carelessness and oversight, I have to concede that there were several mistakes that I made during the construction and design too. I put this as the specs in the main contract. Whole house waterproofing instead of only wet area.

Thanks for sharing and good to know that you have solved the water leakage problem. Yours seem to be a design cum workmanship problem where water could get into the sponge area, only one hole to drain water and water proofing at a wall joint not properly done. I find that when the contractor build exactly to the engineer's requirement on the joint area, there are subsequent problems of weight and size of fitting in the beams and pillars and also leakage issue. There is a lot of experience required by the contractor and on-the-ground practical adjustments needed. This also happened to me but I managed to had a discussion with the foreman, engineer and contractor to make some ground adjustments during the construction phase of putting up the concrete ceiling with a 45 degree clay tile sloping roof. Keeping my fingers crossed, I think my place should not have issues with water leakage. In fact, I also insisted on doing 2 holes to drain the water at the open balcony area of my attic. During the recent bloat of rain, there were no leakage. Cheers!

As long as the contractor satisfy the minimum standards, I think the construction is already quite good quality. If you want to go way beyond the minimum standards, it will mean more cost, more time and more monitoring. Architects and contractors are businessmen and their first aim is to make profit at the fastest time and not build the house to the highest possible standard using the strongest quality material and methods.

One more thing that I did which I omitted sharing with you. I did not allow my contractor to carry out more works on the site after they have casted the cement, especially the pillars and beams. I find that workers can be very careless and if strong objects knock onto the beams or pillars while it has not dried completely, there will be permanent damage to the beams and pillars, thereby reducing their strength. Hence, I am quite particular about workers doing more work at the site when they are waiting for the cement to dry up. I also ensured that the contractor put in stronger and bigger rebar iron beyond the minimum so that the structure is going to be really strong. The result is the pillars and beams get bigger than normal. The cement that I used for the structure is close to the same quality as those used for home shelter. This is to ensure that the structure of the building is built to a higher degree of rigour and can really become timeless. With stronger structure it means that you can put very heavy stuff such as putting very big fibre glass fish tank or store very heavy stuff in your house, balcony, etc.. without fear of cracks on the floor. With a very strong foundation, it means that after many years and even when there are major construction nearby, your house won't suffer from settlement effects. The con of this is spending more money, more time and a lot more monitoring of the project. The contractor will want to save money and satisfy the minimum requirement which by international standards, Singapore is already very high. Cheers!

When you see stalactite formation, it means that the water leakage is already quite serious. I am using Quick Seal products for waterproofing my house. So far, I think this is one of the more premium products. The following is the website on quickseal in Singapore: http://www.quicseal.com/www%20-%20proposal/pg%20hm.htm After you have reviewed their products and expertise in this area and feel that they can meet your needs, you can contact the company to send a water proofing specialist to help you with the leakage problem. Let me know if you need more help. Cheers!

Hi Petunialee, For my place, I think my engineers and contractors were quite kiasu, they did quite extensive piling works and as they lay the cement around the piles, I think they used solid bricks to cover the area and left the area to dry up for 30 days before they start putting in the concrete for the first floor of which they also let the concrete dry up by waiting for another 30 days. That's why my construction took about 3 months just to lay the foundation and first floor. I think the contractor also let the concrete dry up for 30 days for the second floor and the pillars from the first to the second floor. After which constructing of the third floor and fourth floor onwards, they only let the cement dry up for 3 weeks to dry up. My contractor normally do not wait for 30 days because idle machinery and not putting labour into higher productivity cost him money. I think he did that because he had to rush a project at another site and his foreman is very particular about letting the cement dry up completely. I think the cement should be sufficiently dry after 2 weeks. I don't think clerk of works's license is in jeopardy because I saw some of my neighbours' house contractors only waited for a week or even less to proceed with the works. The result is plenty of cracks on the wall after sometime. However, as long as the water proofing is well done and the joints are properly constructed, the hairline cracks could be permanently rectified by re-plastering the wall using high quality cement and then painting over it using STO sealant and paint. Cheers!

Hi Joshua, The stains on the false ceiling could be caused by various factors or a combination of factors such as leaking air-con pipe, water pipe, water tank, roof, toilet/ balcony, etc... which are more common to the less common ones such as water seepage through walls from neigbour's house or your own wall. As your building contractor will be most familiar with your house, I think it is best that you get him to troubleshoot the leakage and get to the root cause. If you wish to get my current building contractor to review your place, drop me a pm and I can help do the connection for you.

Hi Petunialee, Congratulations on completion of your first floor. Will your contractor wait for the 28 days for the concrete to dry up completely and reach its maximum strength before constructing further up?

I just got a swating toilet bowl (Potex) from Marcus of Lite Fusion. You can call him.

Hi Joshua, What is the issue with water seepage? Is it air-con pipe leaking, roof leaking or ...?

Hi GG, Good to know that you have moved into your beautifully renovated house and enjoying the experience. Do you know where can I get a eg. plastic protection or a mat to protect the parquet flooring from the weight of my piano? Cheers!

Hi ymjp100, Nice reno design. Would you be really taking away the grills from the stairs?

Congrats. Very nice reno and a very pretty daughter too! Always happy to see fellow forumers providing a beautiful home for their family. Cheers!

Your waterproofing on the flooring may be damaged in the process of removal and this may result in leakage.

What about LG?

What happens if parents place is far from school that you wish to send your kids to?

Look forward to your sharing when your project kicks off. Cheers!

Agree with Always Happy. You may want to see a doctor in a polyclinic and get a referral to National Skin Centre.

I think for toilet, the box up should preferably be water proof concrete and the pipes should be working well (preferably PVC as the pipe is very lasting).

I think the leather sofa may not be very lasting. My sister bought a set and it started tearing after less than 2 years of usage. However, fabric sofa seem to be more durable. If you wish to get a cheap set of fabric sofa from Seahorse, there is a display set for sale at Compasspoint (SengKang) branch. I think the 3 seater is retailing for less than $200. Take note that there is a delivery charge unless you purchase more than $300 (I think). I just bought some mattresses from Seahorse and have fairly positive experience. There is now a promotion at Seahorse. Cheers!