snoozee

hope your ID is well versed in landed house regulations. whether you can get approvals within 6 months or not depends on how many times your submitted plans get rejected. URA takes about 1 month to check and approve/reject. So if your submission gets rejected, the same process and wait time is repeated. Usually BCA submission is done after URA approves of the plans. BCA side wait time is shorter (last time standard is 7 working days) but of cos if reject then repeat same process. One thing you can "help" is to pay up promptly as soon as you are requested to pay for the submissions. Cos the authorities will only start processing upon payment. So if you take you time to pay then they will also take their time to start processing.

While the covered carporch roof might be legal, you trying to extend the attic until above the carporch roof may not be since it will be outside the envelope already. Unless you leave the roof above the carporch roof room as an open terrace which might be still passable though you will need to install high lightning conductors for safety. best is check with URA to get clarifications as only they can tell you whether your plans can or cannot be done

go to KDK website. many models for you to choose from. from $60 to $200

write in to URA and seek their advise is the best. Cos there are some housing estates where this enclosed room is actually allowed. So if you see most of the houses around your estate have this additional room, then high chance is that it is actually legal. In the even that URA informs you that the room does not conform to regulation, then you would likely need to remove the roof and walls forming the room.

extractor fans are usually hooked up to the same circuit as the light so that both light and fan will turn on and off at the flip of the switch. If you want to have a timer then you will need to set up some home automation device such that when you turn on the switch, the automation device also turns on and starts an internal time to count down 1 hour then later cut off the power supply to the fan.

Don’t do solid doors. Mine is a bifold door with louvres on top to allow for ventilation

Depends on your NVR model. Mine allows me to view the footage from a mobile app. But more search functionality when viewed directly from the NVR via monitor

If you already have a OTP installed in your living room, you don't really need to relocate it. just make sure you run 2 or 3 RJ45 Cat6 network points near to your OTP so that the ONT can connect back to your central network switch via one of these RJ45 network points. Cat6 network cables have a max distance run of 100m from point to point. So just build your "server room" in a location where you can spare the area to place your equipment. this "server room" can be anywhere in your house or in your attic if you want. Calculate how many network points you are going to have and add in the points you need for WAP. For POE network switches, the next step up for 24 ports is 48 ports and price also is much more expensive. If you can squeeze everything within 23 network ports (1 port will be reserved for the uplink for your ONT), then you can get a NVR which has few network ports. Else you may be better off buying a NVR with 8 POE ports and connect your CCTVs to the NVR directly instead. to view videos on the NVR, just buy a cheap 2nd hand monitor and have it hooked up permanently. would be easier than carting a monitor every now and there. fanless or have fan doesn't really matter. your equipment is unlikely generate that much noise unless you specifically buy data centre grade equipment which is not meant for home use

the OTP does not belong to starhub. it belongs to NLT. is your OTP going to be in the original location as when it was first installed? when opennet (previous name of NLT) ran cables for landed houses, the termination point is somewhere inside the house as opposed to for new built where the termination point will be inside the meter compartment. I believe you could get NLT to relocate the termination point for you and if they are shifting it to the meter compartment then you would need to get your contractor to run a new fiber from the meter compartment to wherever you want the internal termination point to be. Of cos you can just leave the OTP where it is now like you mentioned along with the ONT, then run a Cat6 cable to wherever you want to install the other switches and equipment. Is the DB inside your house? If yes, does it have space to store network equipment and such? Honestly speaking, the location of where the network points will terminate should be decided very early on in the project rather then being left as an afterthought since you will have problems trying to run cables or have to redo finishing just to run the cables. I'm not sure how many network points you are planning to have but assuming you are going to have 2 points for each bedroom and 2 for living room, that will be a total of 14 points for 6 bedrooms and the living room. Adding on to your 6 POE CCTV points you are looking at at least 20 Cat6 cables. I can tell you that trying to hide 20 Cat6 cables is not going to be easy and if you are planning to have the termination point in your living room, then you will need to find a way to hide the big ugly trunking for the Cat6 cables. For my house, I am using those big trunking for aircon pipes to house my network cables before they go inside my server rack. And don't be so overly concerned about having no fan or heat issues. Like I mentioned, your roof attic is unlikely going to heat up to temperatures like 60 or 70 degrees so even if the equipment runs at around 40 degrees Celsius will still be ok. Equipment and hard drives for NVR don't last forever so you will need to replace them eventually

you don't need a managed switch to have different SSIDs/Guest network for your wireless network. It all depends on your feature set of your wireless access point and/or controller. While the price of a managed switch is just a slight premium over non-managed switches, there's no point paying more for something which you don't really need. If you mess up the configuration of a managed switch, you may find yourself with more problems if you don't have the knowledge to reconfigure the switch. Personally I prefer HP network switches as those I bought comes with limited lifetime warranty meaning HP will replace the equipment for free if it fails. I recently just claimed warranty for a network switch which is more than 10 years old. For NVR, it depends on whether it comes with an inbuilt fan or not. Not every NVR comes with fan so it depends on the particular model. Even if the NVR does come with fan, usually the noise generated from these small 40mm fans will not be substantial unless a server grade fan is used. if your roof insulation is done properly, the heating up will not be substantial. There will be heat stored and released from the walls but it won't get that bad as the interior of a car parked under the sun for the whole afternoon. All my networking equipment are stored inside a storeroom which is normally closed with no ventilation save for the gaps around door frames. My network switch measures its internal temperature at 38 degrees Celsius which is warm but not that hot to cause equipment death.

Usually left, right and units behind your house. mine was done for 5 houses, left right and 3 units behind

just install a few more solar lights and you can get the same effect. buy from taobao will be much much cheaper. I have wired light points all done up for my garden but nothing connected to them since i relying on solar lights.

install solar lights. My gate pillar lights are solar and they can run for almost 12 hours. I recently modified one of my solar garden lights by detaching the solar panel from the LED portion so that I can hang the solar panel at a location where there is sun. After doing that, my garden light now can last throughout the whole night as the single lithium ion battery can be fully charged as there's no plants to obstruct the light.

NLT will just terminate at the meter box as that is the guidelines for new built. If you want to have a point inside the house then I think can do private arrangement with their contractor or engage own contractor. mine was all covered by my electrical subcon and I have new underground lead in pipes for fiber, electricity and spares

Basically if your house is already fiber ready, before demolition works commence, the fiber termination point should be relocated back to the meter box by NLT. Else most contractors will just cut away this fiber point and owners will then need to pay for a new fiber point for their house. For new builds, NLT will only terminate their fiber point at the meter box whereas when they were rolling out fiber for houses previously, the fiber point was installed all the way inside the house. so basically new builds will need another fiber line done by the contractor to link the NLT fiber point at the meter box to a fiber point inside the house.

Are you comfortable with working with electrical components when main breaker is turned off? If yes then switching the SPD is just a matter of unscrewing then cables, removing from the busbar and then reversing the steps with the new component. most important is to make sure main breaker is turned off, use a test pen to confirm no electricity before removal and never let the bare wires touch each other after you remove them from the device.

If you've not hired/appointed an architect, go and do this first. After appointing the architect, the architect can help you source and appoint the other consultants.

my electrician used cables from Sigma. I had wanted to split the DB into one for each floor initially but ended up not doing it and put it inside a store where my network equipment rack is. The main consideration of not having split DBs was how/where to hide the DBs. torch light is subjective la. Nowadays our mobile phones usually near to us all the time so can use the phone's LED as torch. how much you ended up paying for all the SPDs?

SP would have sent you a letter of confirmation along with the estimated timeline for provisioning of services. timeline is about 3months on average before the pandemic. So nowadays wait a bit longer is not surprising. That time I waited 8 months after payment as kenna CB just before due for installation.

main DB. in one of the other threads @AWS had gave quite a detailed view on surge protection and such

with swing gates, the gates will always be in the way when open but sliding gate will be like part of the boundary wall when opened. We didn't want the obstruction but no choice had to do swing gates instead. Also if the swing gate is opened outside, it narrows down the access angle to drive into the driveway since now you have a channel formed by the swing gate which you need to clear before you can get into the house. it can be quite challenging if the road in front of your house is narrow and/or if someone parks on the road directly opposite your gate entry point. imagine trying to do a 90 degrees turn from the road into your house with just less than 2m of clearance between your car and the edge of the gate panel when the gate is swung out. by right swing gates are supposed to swing inwards. of cos most people do it "by left" to swing the gates outwards or alternate with one side in and one side out. anyway the swing arm mechanism can be installed just before you move into the house so ahem... another consideration is whether one chooses to have a separate side gate or not to enter/exit the house. Some people integrate the side gate into the main slide/swing gate. But with integrated side gates, it will be challenging to do the electronics to perform remote unlock of the side gate from inside the house. This also means one will need to manually unlock the gate from outside the house as well and can't use a keypad or access card to unlock the side gate. Of cos one can always open the main gate for pedestrian access but it will just reduce the life span of the motors since these things don't last forever. whichever type of gates is chosen, request for the optical sensor to be installed as well to stop the gate from moving when obstruction is detected. I had accidentally closed the gate on my car at my in-laws place when I accidentally pressed the remote control to close the gate when my car was still halfway out. caused a small ding on my car. haha most gate suppliers will provide 2 or 3 remote controllers for you. Don't need to waste money to buy additional remotes at $20+ per remote from them. The remote controllers can be bought online for about $4 per remote controller. Just need to open up the existing one to check which frequency the gate control receiver uses (either 333mhz or 433 mhz). After buying the new remote controllers, it's just a matter of adjusting the dip switches inside the new remote controller to set it to work with the gate side control receiver. Can always buy a few more to keep as spare with the batteries removed so won't spoil the PCB inside if battery leak.

just put in a LD clause and fine the contractor for every month of delay beyond the contractual period. $350psf seems unlikely in today's context with raw materials price already increased and shortage of manpower. you should be looking at about $400 psf or higher already.

sliding gate make sure you have enough set back at the front for the track and gate since these are supposed to be within the boundary unless you want your gate to slide on the inside of your boundary wall instead of outside. sliding gate will be slightly slower than swing but negligible. your gate width of 4m if you do swing gate means need to do bifold of 4 x 1m panel width. note that by right swing gates can only swing into the house for safety reasons. some swing gates will have an additional locking plate on the floor for the gate to lock into and prevent over-swing so if you don't want the plate on the floor, have to tell the contractor in advance. ultimately which one you choose also depends on your terrain. if perfectly flat ground then no problem with either. i wanted to do a sliding gate but ended up doing swing gates as my terrain too challenging to design and install a sliding gate.

2 storey zone the attic balcony usually is open to sky and must remain open to sky. Unless you have an open roof terrace as your attic then you could possible enclose the parts which are within the building envelope. Unless you don’t mind having a fully enclosed area based on the 45 degrees slope then no issue since the enclosing will still be within the envelope. Take a look at the envelope control building envelope outline. If your balcony falls outside the area enclosed by the building envelope (45 degrees line), you cannot enclose it with a horizontal roof. Roof is a structure element which must be within the building envelope with a leeway of 1m protrusion for eaves. timing wise don’t trust anyone who says can complete within 3 to 6 months. Shortage of workers is a problem now and projects will drag on unless your contractor is just only doing your project. A house near to mine was supposed to complete an A&A within 6 months. Now 7 months later it is still no where nearing completion and by my estimate should take another 3 months. Main problem is that the main contractor will pull the workers to work elsewhere and sometimes hardly any work done for weeks.

It depends on whether your house is in a 2 storey or 3 storey zone. Assuming in. 3 storey zone, I don’t think it will be an issue to extend the roof to cover up the existing 3rd storey balcony. But if your “3rd storey” is actually your attic storey, then you can’t cover up your open to sky balcony. if your existing 2nd storey toilet has waste pipes going to the upper storey then doing the new toilet directly above might be easier. But if there’s no waste pipes going upwards from your 2nd storey, then your new toilet on your 3rd storey has to have a new waste pipe going down and through the 2nd storey to join to an exiting waste pipe at the ceiling of your 1st storey. Basically a big job to hack through the floor to run the waste pipe down. a PE can do the submission for you. But you need to find a PE who is very very well versed with the envelope control guidelines in order to know what you have in mind can be done or not.