snoozee

Shifting your gate will involve rerouting all your services which are in the meter box. This is not only electricity but also water and maybe telephone as well as the optic fiber termination box. Not sure if you have gas pipe or not. so you will need to call sp services(electricity), PUB(water), Singtel and netlink trust to check on the cost. then you will also need to redo all the various services from the meter box back into your house. Also you will need to engage a LEW and licensed plumber to do all the submissions for you. somehow I think SP will charge you the full fees for shifting as they will need to open up the road to realign your underground cable or maybe pull a new one to your new meterbox location

"reserve a spot" is very subjective. if there is no prep done for a lift, means you need to spend money to hack the floor slabs and do excavation, etc. Since you mentioned it was just A&A, high chance is nothing much has been done in terms of building work to cater for a lift. even if you can do the design layout yourself, you will still need a QP which is either a registered architect or professional engineer to do the submissions to the authorities. for a reconstruction project, a PE can do submission instead of an architect. so you can design the layout, find a builder and have the builder's PE to submit for you. this would be the lowest cost solution. of cos you need to get a trustworthy builder to do it.

is your house in a 2 storey landed zone, 3 storey landed zone or zoned with plot ratio 1.4? you can go to URA landed housing master plan to check the zone your house is located in if you're not sure. if it is a 2 storey zone, you can't add on anything more unless you tear down and rebuilt and add a mezzanine floor in between the storeys. if it is a 3 storey zone or plot ratio 1.4 zone, you can add 1 more storey to make it into a 3.5 storey house. but a lot depends on the existing structure and this will require a PE to read the current structural plans and advise accordingly. your roof would have to be replaced, a new RC slab would need to be cast for the new attic floor, new columns and beams for the new attic floor (and maybe new 3 storey as well depending on existing structure) as well as a new roof. To retrofit a lift could be around the region of 100k for the lift equipment and new lift shaft. your PE would need to find a suitable location within the house to install the lift. alternatively if the house is set back more than the 7.5m, you could possibly add the lift in front of the house as well. It all depends on the existing layout. you can add additional toilets. your architect/M&E engineer/builder would need to study the existing plans and see where the toilets can be placed to join back to existing waste pipes which would be the most cost effective. to run new waste pipes and excavate the ground floor to join pipes back to the last IC will cost you quite a bit. I think 1M may be doable but also depends on how extensive work you are looking at. your authorities submission fees and professional fees may cost you about 50k already. add in 100k for the lift you will be left with 850k for the actual construction and renovations. so you need to talk to a builder and work out the cost accordingly.

If you want really fast charging, you will need to put in 2 types of chargers, Type 2 AC and CHAdeMO standard DC chargers. Not sure if this setup is allowed for landed housing or not though. for DC fast charging, you need to use a lot of amps. So it would be better for you to upgrade to 3 phase 100A now. A 100Kw fast charging system will pull almost 50A already. im not an EV expert but read that DC fast charging will cost more than normal AC charging and also reduce the lifespan of the batteries if done too often

What is the size of your cabinet hole now? Standard oven hole is 600x600mm. it’s not a straightforward job to shift the shelf as the shelf would have been nailed or screwed on from the outside of the cabinet carcass. So if you want to shift it, you will see the screws for the new shelf at the sides. not sure exactly what model is your current oven. Searching online seems to suggest that it fits into a 600x600mm hole. Suggest you remove the existing oven first and plan from there. If you don’t want to remove it, can pull it out slightly and then measure the hole size

Just cater for a 32A isolator at your car porch area. EV chargers can run from 8A to 32A. So bigger amp will allow for faster charging. If no 32A but has 13A socket, also can use for EV charging but just slower. you can check for specs of EV chargers from schneider or BMW.

When you need to excavate deep, a lot of costs goes into the ERSS/shoring of the soil to prevent collapses. I had to pay around 50k for ERSS to build my RC trench to protect the sewer line which is just under 3m deep and 9m long. So you can imagine how much more it would cost to do an ERSS for a much bigger area for a basement.

since you have a semi-d, why do a roof garden when you can have the garden at the side/front/back? you are taking a risk of leaks in future with this. 1M is definitely way off in current situation. even during pre-covid days, 1M might be just enough for a terrace house if your additional staircase is within the building envelope, it should be doable as long as URA/BCA approves the plans. do note that by right you can't build anything outside the prescribes building envelope of which the setbacks of 2m side and rear and 7.5m front (except carporch roof for front up to 2.4m setback) applies with the current envelope control, if your house is on sloping ground, your building envelope has to be based on the slope as well. it is a bit stupid but this is what it is now. do note that just because your house is current sitting below road level, it doesn't automatically qualify you to build a basement. if the entire house is currently sitting on flat land below road level, your first storey platform level has to be taken from the current house's first storey/ground level. so it's up to your architect to figure out creative ways to work around this site restriction. I had the same site problem and URA didn't allow me to design my house such that the area below road level is a basement even though the existing ground level is 1.2m to 1.8m below the road level.

haha. maybe your architect don't want to do extra work by amending the drawings to insert in the mezzanine floor? I think you need to ask yourself again on why you need/want the mezzanine floor? is it a need or a want? if you need the additional space, then the other option is to insert the mezzanine between the 1st and 2nd storey which will make things much easier

as mentioned, you are working with fine margins. so in order to avoid false ceilings, etc, the M&E part must be designed very well such that pipes can hug the walls and corners. also if you do not want exposed electrical trunkings, all the lighting points must be planned before hand such that the conduits are cast within the floor slabs. designing a house is not just about the architectural component but also all the other services (sewer, water, electrical, networking, aircon) as well as these other services can mess up with the overall house interior if they not designed properly. when you are trying to squeeze in as much GFA within the storeys, you need to find creative methods to run the services and hide them.

entirely glassed up means your cost will increase. you need to use structural glass which can act as a barrier and these will not be cheap

have you talked to your architect on the mezzanine? the problem i see could be how your architect can design the staircase which is wrapping around the lift shaft. BCA has standard specifications for staircase thread width and riser height. your 2.7m floor to floor height will give a min of 16 steps or max of 17 steps. so if the architect can add the 16 steps plus 2 landings within the 2.7m, then your mezzanine could be doable. however as mentioned earlier, you are working with very fine margins with 2.7m floor to floor heights. so your PE would need to be very creative in the beams design to maximise the ceiling height also remember that if you need to have toilets on the mezzanine and attic floors, you will need to have waste pipes for the toilets. unless your architect is going to design all the toilets in one stack (ie: one above another), you are likely to have waste pipes running across the ceilings and below the beams. so you will need to think of how these waste pipes can be hidden inside the ceilings or using box-ups at the corners. waste pipes for floor traps will need about 400mm of space below the floor slab so it's not going to be easy to hide them if you don't have enough margin to work with.

just install a ceiling fan if you can. running cost would be much lower and provides better circulation than a aircon blower. FYI, i'm just using KDK regulator based AC fans for my rooms. power consumption is around 50w if on max speed. similar consumption or lower than DC fans but at a much cheaper price. So don't be taken in by the marketing of DC fans with lower power consumption since you end up paying for the electrical savings by paying much more for the fan up front. for my living room, i splurged on a 84 inch haiku fan as it does its job very well even on very hot days. the fan has 10 speeds and highest we've used is speed 4 and it is usually at speed 3 only. I have aircon for my living room but it is hardly used unless wife needs the aircon on when baking cakes on a hot day.

based on your dimensions, you have a total of 11.5m which is just short of the 12m maximum allowed. attic 3m floor to roof will mean your floor area will be smaller since the walls need to be contained within the 45 degrees building envelope front and back. URA's regulation allows for 3.5m high attic which will also maximize the floor area there as well 2.7m floor to floor height is very very marginal. after you cater for the floor slab thickness and the 50mm drop required for the floor finishing, you will most likely end up with just 2.4m floor to ceiling height. you may not be even be able to put in false ceiling at all since the drop of the false ceiling will cause the height to be less than the required 2.4m. 2.4m ceiling height is almost like old HDB flats ceiling heights already. just to share with you my floor to floor storeys height. ground floor to mezzanine - 2.8m mezzanine to 2nd storey - 2.7m 2nd storey to attic - 3m attic to root - 3.5m my mezzanine storey areas/rooms do not have any false ceiling as the height is just over 2.4m from floor to ceiling slab. some parts are slightly lower due to the beams running across the rooms as well. but because the rooms aren't that big and it's next to the double volume living room, i don't get the claustrophobic feeling when inside the rooms. and due to how my architect designed the rooms and how the PE designed the structure, we are also able to put in ceiling fans for the rooms as well.

i am trying to imagine your layout and honestly, i'm not sure if you can achieve what you plan to do as your house is in a 2 storey zone based on your intention of inserting a mezzanine between 2nd storey and attic. you mentioned you will have a double volume living room for half of it (at the back based on what you had mentioned so far). i assume your living room is on the 1st storey/ground floor. so with half of the living room being double volume (behind), the other half (in front) will have a floor plate. so is your architect going to declare the side where there is no double volume the mezzanine storey or 2nd storey? if the half floor (in front) next to the double volume living room is going to be declared as a mezzanine, then you can't have another mezzanine between the 2nd storey and attic. I don't think URA allows for more than 1 mezzanine floor within a single landed house. if the half floor next to the double volume living room is going to be declared as 2nd storey, then you can't have a mezzanine floor above this because by definition, a mezzanine floor cannot be a complete floor by itself. Technically mezzanine floors can only be 50% size of the floor below but URA had relaxed their regulations for this and will approve on a case by case basis. the only way (i think) you can insert a mezzanine between 2nd storey and attic is that you have a entire 2nd storey floor plate which is at 3.1m from the ground floor which will mean no double volume living room at all

Depending on how big your mezzanine floor area is, you may not get approval from URA for your loft as they may count that as mezzanine floor area as well. Eg: If your mezzanine floor area is 50% of your lower floor’s GFA and your loft is 15% to 20% of lower floor’s GFA, you might still get approval. But if your mezzanine floor GFA is already at 60% and your loft GFA is 20%, it is most likely to be rejected as the overall GFA for mezzanine is too much. from what you described, it sounds like your house has quite a bit of split levels. Definitely not ideal for older folks as lift can’t access those split levels. 3.1m floor to ceiling would most likely mean a floor to floor height of between 3.3m to 3.6m depending on how the PE designs the structure. Assuming your attic storey is 3.5m from floor to roof, you will be left with a height of 5.2m to 4.9m for the 2nd storey and mezzanine. This is almost marginal already as BCA requires a minimum floor to ceiling height of 2.4m for rooms. Do note that this low height will cause “problems” as well if you want to have ceiling fans for the rooms. So you need to consider this when you compress the room heights.

You can insert the mezzanine between there. But you will end up with double volume ceiling for one of the rooms so you need to consider this. The car porch roof height need not follow the first floor ceiling height exactly even if you want it to be a car porch roof terrace. You could add steps to get out to the roof terrace if you want it to be higher. It all depends on how the architect designs the house and PE designs the structure I have a mezzanine floor like George as well. This creates a double volume ceiling for my living room which helps ventilate the living room as well as make it brighter and spacious. for your 3.1m, I’m not sure is it’s floor to floor or floor to ceiling. If it is floor to floor, the actual floor to ceiling will be much lower due to the beams and any false ceilings you may end up doing. Having such low ceiling for such a big area like a living room may make it feel claustrophobic

Well you can try calling aircon companies to see if anyone wants to buy. But do it before you handover the house

just let your builder dispose of them.

Soil investigation needs to be done based on instructions or requirements of a PE. So need to find a PE first and then find the SI firm. Yes you are correct that the potential builder can do the above first. But why would one want to spend time and effort to do something if he is not going to get the job in the end even though the builder could have quoted for just this scope of work? In the usual architect route, the architect is appointed and the PE appointed as well. Then the SI company is appointed and takes directions from the PE. Once the SI report is out, the PE designs the structure and the architect will call for tender based on the confirmed architectural and structural plans. In this manner, cost is confirmed and controlled right from the start and there should be any additional costs incurred unless something unexpected happened or owner requested for changes. the location and surroundings of the site usually only provides an estimate and is not a confirmation on what type of foundation can be done. One member had gotten an estimate from a builder as his site is near low lying area. Builder said need piling but the house ended up doing raft foundation as the site is on a high point near the low lying area. My own house is located on high ground. But I had to do footings as the original site was excavated massively when the whole area was developed and the developer back then backfilled the area with clayey soil. ultimately what type of foundation to be built is decided by the PE as he is the one who is putting his license on the line when the structural plans is submitted to BCA. We as layman can’t dispute the PE’s decision unless we get another PE to provide another opinion.

Architects would usually find 3 to 5 contractors to bid for the job. Of cos there will be contractors whom they had worked with before on previous jobs who are invited for the tender. Look at it this way. If the contractor isn’t up to par previously, would the architect invite him to bid for another job? The architect also won’t want problems with a problematic contractor as well right? honestly speaking, if the contractor has not meant to include foundation work in the original quotation, then all the items related to foundation should not be in the quotation in the first place. It’s like you go to a showroom to buy a car, then you want to upgrade to bigger rims and tyres and the car dealer tells you that the original quotation for the car didn’t cater for rims and tyres. if the contractor says the new footings are 3 times larger then original then I would ask for the original drawings to see what was the original estimated footings size. It is easy to calculate the additional materials required when you have the original and new structural plans to compare with. as mentioned, you are at the mercy of your contractor now. Whether the additional cost is reasonable or not doesn’t make a difference since you have signed the contract and such and don’t really have any other options to move forward besides accepting this new extra cost.

You need to have at least a PE who will determine the scope of the soil investigation. I sourced for my own SI company based on requirements specified by my PE. Also where to drill and when to stop drilling is also based on the PE’s instructions

Unfortunately you are at the mercy of your contractor now. So if you are unwilling to pay for the additional cost, you are just stuck with no way to move forward unless you want to terminate his contract and find someone else to take over and such. I don’t know how many footings you have for your house has but assuming there are 10, each footing will cost an additional 6k. For my house, I had to enlarge 2 of my footings and corresponding underground beams and I had to pay about 8k for this.

Your contract already catered for these items “RC structure for footing which also include formworks and raft foundation” which should form the footings and foundation already. So best is that you clarify with the builder on what these items are and the difference between these and the new footings they are charging you. Even if the new footings are larger than intended, it shouldn’t cost an additional 60k. I guess this is the risk you take when engaging a design and build contractor rather than going the architect route. With an architect, everything including structural design would have been confirmed before hand and the awarded contract would have no variations unless something unexpected happened or owner requested for changes.

Did you hire an architect or yours is a design and build contractor? check your contact with the builder and see the details on whether piling cost has already been covered in the contract you signed. If nothing has been signed then of cos the builder can adjust his cost for the contract. footings are big blocks of reinforced concrete with rebars inside sitting on the soil and these rebars will later on be joined to the underground beams to provide the foundation for the house. Piling is using piles driven into the soil until the piles reach the hard rock/soil layer and later on pile caps(similar to footings) are cast on top of the piles. there’s nothing wrong with using footings as foundation. The PE would have done all his calculations based on the soil investigation report and determined that footings will work well. My own house is built on footings as well. normally the PE should request for a plate bearing test once the house is demolished to verify and confirm that the house can be supported by the soil using footings. This test results need to be submitted to BCA and if the test passes, then there’s nothing to worry about using footings. as mentioned, check your contract/quotation with the builder. Normally foundation( footings, underground beams) would be classified under substructure. If cost had already been allocated for this in the original quotation, then the builder shouldn’t add on the 60k. But if nothing had been confirmed for this part, then 60k seems to be a fair amount in current context