terrywei

I would like to caution against Astute Works Pte Ltd. First of all, I believe that his works prior to 2010 is of certain standard. Often commended for good workmanship and innovative design. But I like to bring to the attention of potential home owners intending to engage Astute. I almost engaged them early this year but I'm glad I did not. In early Jan 2011, the company was suspended by HDB for demolishing reinforced concrete stiffener (i.e. service yard wall) without prior approval from HDB. The affected home owner was also fined a couple of hundreds for Astute's negligence. The story happened in a new flat in the Punggol area, Ethan (boss of Astute), proposed to demolish the wall between the kitchen and service yard as part of the entire renovation project. The request to hack was forwarded to HDB and HDB said that a PE must be engaged to assesses the structure before any hacking can be approved. Ethan then quoted the owner $1200 as the fee to engage a professional engrg (PE) to assess if the wall can be hacked. $1200 is VERY cheap according to Ethan, he managed to bargain to this cheap fee. It would be much more expensive if he did not bargain. The owner found it too expensive and thru his own circle of friends, managed to get a PE at only $200. The PE assessed the wall and said that hacking will not harm the structure and it is possible to hack it off. Without submitting the PE's endorsement to HDB for approval, the wall was hacked. Weeks after the wall was hacked, HDB called up to check in the status of the reno, in particular was the wall hacked? Only then did the owner realised that Astute had hacked the wall without HBD's approval. PE's endorsement does not equals HDB's approval. All works were immediately stopped and his license suspended. Thing never got better from then on... He was rather arrogant saying that at most he don't do HDB renovations. He can still do condo and private properties. His workmanship now is far from what it used to be. Apparently, his partner or right hand man (im not too sure of the relationship) left the company perhaps somewhere in 2010 or earlier. His skilled workers also jumped ship. That explains why his earlier workmanship is good but now anymore because it is a totally different batch of workers. I think it is timely to provide an update about this company since the last comment was in 2008. I am not here to bad mouth the company but rather to caution all potential home owners who are thinking of engaging Astute. To be fair, one thing remain unchanged... His quotes are still pretty reasonable.

Our place is being done up by him right now. I can say so far so good.. He is pretty responsible and takes the initiative to call us if anything happened that is not going as planned. Readily contactable too. Best of all, easy to talk for discounts... His quotes are pretty reasonable too so dun worry about that. Haha

Kerio, Just curious to see if you know what happened to your reno company? I saw that they are suspended from the HDB website...

Sam MIA?

my id proposed placing the tv infront, middle of the window... I have my concerns about the sun n rain... scared may damage the tv n console prematurely... anyone with such design to share comments?