Hello all,
I would like to share my nightmare experiences on my engagement of Koong Yee Renovation for my house. I read about the positive feedback online about KY, so I sought their services to renovate my resale flat. DL was my contractor. I used the term contractor & not ID (interior Designer) as not much design work was shown- no inputs and ideas were put forth by him AT ALL throughout the project. I signed the contract in early Nov 2015 as he was very sincere & promised to drop by often to oversee the project as he stays nearby. The estimated completion date was end Jan 2016.
Work included hacking of floor tiles, rewiring the entire house, custom-made cabinets throughout the house. There were a few discussion sessions that lasted more than 5hours into 11pm+. Details & specifications were laid down. DL showed up a few times on site initially, after which handover the project to his newbie assistant as he had too many projects to oversee. Work was delayed as workers were too busy with other projects, nobody bothered about my house. Even if workers did show up, they were slow & did little work. Then Chinese New Year came & project was further delayed.
The carpentry work were done by Malaysian workers & materials were from the factory located there. The workmanship sucks. It is not because I have high expectations or fussy. It is really bad! When I pointed out to the supervisor, I was told ‘when things come out from factory, it’s like that, there is nothing much I can do’.
Most of the time I have to deal with the workers as KY contractor was hardly on site. After work was done, no one came to inspect if the work was done properly. When the house was washed, the storeroom was left out unwashed. When I brought this up to KY, no apologies or remedy was offered.
Also, dimension & specifications were ALL wrong! I mentioned earlier that we had spent HOURS discussing the measurements, but none of it got to DL's head. When cabinets and everything came, EVERYTHING, not a single thing was in the correct measurement!! When I specifically requested that no lock for the drawers in the wardrobe, all drawers came with locks! Practically EVERY single custom made items need to REDO because specifications were all wrong! So the work was further delayed as many things have to be redone. The workers were unhappy that they have to redo the work & were slow in progress too.
Imagine one worker came to site at 11am, then lunch break, tea break & went off at 5pm. The next 2 weeks, no work was done at all because they were engaged in bigger projects elsewhere.
Throughout the renovation, I feel like I am the site supervisor. I have to check on the work done on site, if things were not right, I have to call up KY to report, then action would be taken. Towards the last phase of the project, DL’s assistant resigned from KY, so I was left alone to oversee the renovation.
There were so….. much agony & frustration during this renovation. When the final item was done in May 2016, DL eagerly wanted to close the case & asked to come to my house to discuss the final payment. Wow! It is the first time DL is so serious in his work. But he merely sent workers to come on site to work, he did not check if the work is done to a satisfactory level ? He did not even ask me if things are done well, merely assumed that the worker came, so things are done. Isn’t this the work of the contractor to check that things are in order ? Imagine it took more than 6 mths to renovate a HDB flat !
Overall, words can’t describe my experience with Koong Yee, especially DL. Attitude was bad, being late for appointments is a given right, because he was engaged elsewhere. So it is all right for me to wait as he is busy. Never once did he apologize for being late.
It’s a nightmare that I do not want to remember. Good luck to those who engage in KY.
Mdm Tan.
