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simplehuman

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Everything posted by simplehuman

  1. Hi inthehouse, with regards to the paint on your skirting, u may want to try rubbing it off with a piece of damp cloth. It works for me but not too sure for your tiles.
  2. U can try Tai Kwang: www.taikwang.com.sg. They can mix and match to fit ur budget.
  3. Hi inthehouse, seems like you are another victim of Alan? Anyway, hope that all fellow forummers' review of Alan can put together a more complete and true experience of using his services. I suggest that u get a tub of putty to fix up the hole. It is available at all paint or hardware shops and should cost u less than 5 bucks. This is white in color and as such, will be easier to paint over if ur paint is of a light shade. Remember to also get the tool for this purpose.. it looks like a scraper but i dunno its actual name.. its made of metal, with a wooden handle... at the same time, get a piece of sandpaper to sand over the patchwork after it has dried and finally, just paint it over. Hope the above helps. ***oops... just read that yours is a cement screed wall... u may want to try what jayque has suggested and ignore the above...
  4. Haha... those posts that praise him to the skies seemed very much like fairy tales to me.. too detached from reality and my personal encounter... Makan, we too have been screamed and shouted at by Alan (can I say we have been abused?)... we too have been taken for granted... being nice and not reciprocated nor appreciated... dun worry, you are not alone Like what macuser77 suggest, these pple might really be Alan in disguise/ good friends/ relatives trying to counter our bad reviews.. really do not know..
  5. Just to update on my earlier post here with regards to my leaking tap.. I totally had no plumbing experiences and dunno exactly how to fix that tap, but I managed to call up the Town Council whom eventually got a worker to come down to turn off the mains for me. Surprising efficient, the worker came down in 30mins! Following instructions from my dad, I bought a plumbing tape and spanner and managed to lessen the leak but its still dripping water occasionally... believe I may have to live with that permanently. Thanks to Mr Alan's plumber -- Ah Beng.
  6. I do not know if it is the value of the contract amount that explains why the differential treatment.. Mine is a HDB 3 rm, and I believe for most 3 rms, the reno cost is only a fraction (one-quarter to one-third) that of yours. Your good experiences with Alan seemed almost unimaginable to me. For us, it is not at all exaggerating to say that the experience we had with Alan is nightmarish. We have lost count of the number of mistakes that we have pointed to him for correction and the shoddy workmanship of some of his sub-cons (especially the tilers, plumbers, electricians, supplier for wrought iron gate and especially the group that laid our parquet flooring). I do acknowledge that he fixes most of these mistakes. However, these are not conveniently solved without numerous hours of coaxing and sweet-talking with him. Towards the end of the project when 90% of the project costs are already paid, we were almost totally ignored when there were still major items outstanding. My husband and I took turns to SMS and call him, urging and nudging him to complete the works to the extent that we were almost begging him on our knees! Just imagine the anguish of having to stay in a uncompleted house with newly installed items breaking apart! It was H E L L for us. In the end when everything failed and we still can't get him to finish up, things turned really ugly. We actually threatened to bring him to CASE as matters were way beyond our control did he finally give in to finish up his business.
  7. Haha.. Takaishi, I couldn't agree more with you! My bro-in-law come to our house during CNY and asked for the contractor's name and contact. We gave him and told him to avoid Alan at all cost!! He is already No. 1 on my top banned list.. Even my husband ask him to look for any Tom, Dick and Harry but Alan.
  8. So far, nv used any agent for amazon.. only ordered those items that I can ship direct..
  9. Yes I did sign in. if not I can't even post here... you see, I can't even quote your post...
  10. Hi Administrator, Sorry to post this here but I just realized that I can't quote and I also can't copy and paste on renotalk. How can you solve this problem? Thanks, simplehuman.
  11. Songz, u're right! Tat's what the guy with googles told me straight in the face! He claims that every company makes their stuff in China whether branded or not and that its all the same! But hey, this is Grohe! Shall I exchange a taobao wallet with his Gucci (if he has one) and tell him its the same?
  12. I registered with comgateway as they have a joint promo with DBS cards but so far nv tried out their service hence can't comment... After few rounds of purchasing from Amazon I somehow realized that several of the items I bought are actually made in china even though its from a US retailer. Undeniably, China is the world factory... U might be able to find something similar on taobao or tmall.. good luck!
  13. Hi xiaohuiis, the bottom of the page says: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. You may need to get a shipping agent to ship to SG..
  14. Seriously I cannot pinpoint exactly whom put in the connector to the wall. I didn't even notice that part until the problem arises... The plumbers came in at least twice on different days.. Halfway into the reno, a group of Indians came to fix the water pipes and at the final stage to completion, a Chinese (I tink Singaporean) came to fix the water taps etc.... I remember also seeing the Singaporean Chinese guy on the day the pipes were fixed... he was there and he put in a temporary tap for his workers to use... I believe it was him who did the connector... Didn't get his name but he is the only one who wears a pair of goggles while working... Anyway, given a choice I would have done what OceanEleven have suggested to ask Alan to hack out the connector no matter what. However, it was the last working day prior to CNY and my furniture and appliances are coming in one by one... In fact, Alan missed and dragged my completion and some of my bulky furniture had already arrived while the house is still work-in-progress... Another of our major consideration is that our bathroom pipes run in from the other side of the shared wall with the kitchen and we can't hack without taking down the carpentry which involves my built-in oven which is too much of a hassle... We also needed to move in before CNY as we were being chased out of our previous place... At the start when we signed the agreement, Alan had actually promised to handover in mid Jan. But somehow he screwed up our plan submission to HDB and our reno was delayed! I called up HDB and they said he did not do any submission at all. It was pretty obvious that he had forgotten about doing it! Subsequently he promised to deliver no later than 31 Jan and we took his word for it... We went ahead to make arrangements for our furniture delivery one by one as Alan sounded confident in his promise. Approaching 31 Jan, a lot of works are still outstanding and we even call and ask if he is going to miss the deadline again! And yes, he is going to delay again and I got to ring up the shops one by one again, begging for them to withhold delivery! All other furniture shops also needed to close for CNY and not just him!! ** This was last year when CNY was on 10 Feb..
  15. Haiz... Just to share what happened.... I was actually at my house on the day they did the plumbling and some other works... it was the last day before they close shop for CNY and I believe they were in a rush to finish all outstanding works... I was standing around in my living room and I saw one worker clearing 'rubbish', but what was in his hands was a box containing my new purchases! I got a shock and ask for the worker to hand over the box to me. To my astonishment, there was really lots and lots of rubbish covering my set of new spotlights costing more than $300, taps and drain covers that I bought from taobao and spare parts for my Grohe taps and he actually ask the worker to throw all these away!! I was so angry (my blood is boiling as I type this)!!! When I confronted him, he still dare to argue back saying that I 'anyhow' leave my box lying around when in fact I had left it in a corner of my utility room! As my Grohe tap connectors are also in the box that he wanted to throw away, I asked why didn't he use it and guess what. He said that he has already installed a china-made one for me already!! That connector was embedded in the concrete wall and there was no way to replace unless I hack that part away which would be massive work! I was really boiling!! My Grohe connector was made of brass and of a superior quality compared to the cheapskate steel connector that he installed! True enough, it was not compatible and 1-2 days later, it started leaking.. It was CNY period and Alan couldn't get anyone to come down.. He told us his workers only start work a few days later!! My tap dripped on for the next one week before someone came down to fix! The workers whom came to fix the leakage also can't change the connector but to add more tape and sand off part of my tap and connector to make it fit better. My heart broke as I saw what they did to my brand new Grohe shower set. :dunno: and now its dripping again!!!
  16. Omg... while still tinking of how to solve my leaking window, just discovered my shower tap's connection to the water pipe is also leaking!! Worst still, the water is running off against the wall, we have no idea how much water is flowing and for how long already... it is not easily noticeable.... super super sian.... 一波未平,一波又起。。。
  17. Thanks for the recommendation, but really quite sian to go thru more reno works in the house.... each time the contractors come, bound to have lots of cleaning up work to do... tolerated living in a work-in-progress house for almost a year... dun want to go thru the hassles anymore... Anyway, we only noticed the rain came in during the recent heavy thunderstorm although during the haze period, we already suspected that Alan's windows are not too good already... too bad we did not ask him to rectify at that time...
  18. Thanks zihui and Happy New Year!
  19. Hi zihui, can u pls share the link for this Yue Minjun painting?.... thanks!
  20. Nope... didn't contact him to rectify... long given up on him.... Ever since he collect 90% payment, its really hard to get him to do any sort of rectification.. We consistently nagged and sms him every other day for previous rectifications and he simply reply with lots of excuses and empty promises... we tolerated this for almost 3-4 months... in the end, we called his sub-cons directly instead and he still dare to call to scold us and accuse us of not respecting him!! Lucky for him, his sub-con did come down. otherwise, we'll be approaching CASE/ small claims tribunal for help already! anyway, he has achieved his aim... we won't be contacting him... ... if we really can't live with that fault, we'll find another contractor to rectify... he's a **** jerk.
  21. Hi Mr/ Mrs E, just like to check if u have any sliding windows done by Alan? I just discovered that mine has SERIOUS leakage problem after recent downpour! I happened to be at home and was totally shocked that the rain is coming into the house! My floor, wall and curtains all wet! Never seen such lousy works before in my life!!
  22. I tried to email his Malaysian office b4... his charges for 3rm HDB SGD$7800 not including travelling expenses! I got a big shock when I saw this amount!
  23. Hi Ivy, I had a fs consultation recently on the recommendation of a relative. However after seeing him, things have not been good.. I've read your old posts on your bad experience with fsm. Hence, need your help to PM the list of good and bad fsms... need to confirm whether mine is inside that list and hopefully find second opinion. Thanks a lot.
  24. Apologies if I may have scared u too much... this reno has taken quite a toll on our lives.. really unexpected that we have to spend so much time on the house even though we had engaged a main-con... and to stay in a unfinished and totally neglected half-renovated house really stresses us out... still trying very hard to hang on to it.... Hope things are better for you Cheers! ps. must confirm everything via SMS.
  25. I was told that Alan did 100+ houses in 2012. Assuming a conservative figure of 120 houses for 2012, that means 10 houses completed every month and one handover in every 3 days!! We further assume that each house takes 3 months to complete, that will mean that at any one point he has at least 30 customers on hand! This has not included new customers asking for quotations and enquiries! How much attention do u think he can spare you? With the above said, everything else that he can't manage is left to you in the end cos ultimately this is your house anyway. When you are already halfway thru the reno, do you think you still have a choice? I have almost all the contacts of Alan's subcons. Why? Cos he doesn't manage the project and everything is thrown to us. We paid him as a main con. Even though the design comes from us, our minimum expectation is to at least have someone to manage the day to day running of the site and that the work conforms to what we want. Looking back, we do appreciate the IDs or other main-cons who rejected us due to their busy schedules (it was peak period when we sign up). They are the ones whom are truly fair to the customers that signed up prior to us. At least they reject new business to ensure their existing customers are given the necessary attention required of every renovation work and they dun benefit themselves at their customer's expense. Conversely, Alan attention on our house is extremely minimal and forgetfulness is a commonly used word on him. I see it as his good excuse for not putting his heart at it. I also realized his 'forgetfulness' grows with the % of monies paid. Like most others here, my husband and I are both working. Initially, we just go over to visit the house with a torch light at night and it is only during weekends that we can have a good look of the house. However, as work progresses, we discover more and more serious mistakes and we realize that we need to spend more time on the house. I ended up having to take leave to monitor the site myself. After sometime, Alan seems to take things for granted and I ended up at my house almost everyday just to coordinate everything for him! This definitely wasn't what we had expected!
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