FatRabbit

Actually, after moving in for almost 1.5 month now, I realised there are alot of shabby work done at our place. Hoping that the 18k renovation would last us a little longer.. Some of the paint in toilet is peeling off now, found a discolour patch on our counter top, suspect the worker use some kind of chemical and discoloured it, the drawer grip installed on top rather than bottom which make the opening of drawer not user-friendly, toilet bi-fold door is blocking half the glass door to the wet area which was not convenient & etc Before they do any of this work, they do not ask the home owner and they just do according to their will.. In the end, I have to live with the inconvenience..

sorry for such late reply. To save money, I didn't engage ID, I engage a contractor intro by friend because I just want to do simple work that fix what is old. My entire renovation cost was about 18k.

homestyler

Hi, I frequently buy things from taobao and my new house is 80% taobao. I would recommend a stainless steel ones if you do not need hot and cold outlet. Also, check on their reviews before buying. I usually recommend tian mao over taobao. I recently bought a waterfall faucet for sis in law and they are fine, it's only $45 after conversion. It's selling for $250+ here. Other than that, you can consider crossing the border to JB and get the faucets. I bought my 2 way faucet for kitchen from Ginmit Kempas JB, they are good quality stainless steel and is heavy.

I bought mine at iconichaus located at joo seng street. After surveying around, they have the cheapest full leather L shape sofa. I bought mine for $1.5k, it's 2.7m long. Why not go over there to check it out?

I just had my renovation complete a month ago and had a very bad experience with the electrician my contractor engaged. After that I eventually did some studies myself too and found out that the recommended lifespan of electrical wires are 25 years. My resale hdb is 17 years old and I redo the entire electrical wiring before moving in. Inclusive of all electrical data points our electrical was about $4k for a 5 room. The price was reasonable but the work is shabby. Better do a regular follow up of the entire renovation.

Hi daninabae, Engaging a contractor is just like engaging an ID without the design work. Their role is to manage the different professionals like carpenters, stone workers and etc for you. If you have the time and effort to manage the different PIC, I would suggest you to engage to the respective professionals personally. The reputed ones will have their own website and factory. For e.g. iQuartz is only carried by a few company in Singapore.

Do not recommend.

Eventually, I gathered my uncle and aunty, brother in law and sis in law to accompany us during the handover to have them as witness if anything goes south. We actually just let him go and made the final payment even though there were a lot of leftover work not done. For e.g. paint splatters on window grills, floors and walls; after chemical washing stains on pipes and walls; discolored kitchen quartz top; unfilled gaps by the door frames and much more. Our ultimate goal was to just get over with him asap, so that we could move in. After moving in for about 3 weeks, both my hubby and I are still touching up after their shabby work. We fill up uneven gaps and holes on wall with putty and silicon, polish the metal pipes and etc. It was a lot of work!

Sigh.. It really takes away the joy of owning a house. I hope this post will be bumped to raise more awareness.

Due to their barbaric and threatening behaviour, I'll rather not post their name here in public but I had PMed you the name of the contractor.

Hi All, Just want to share my renovation experience and hope it creates awareness to others and not to repeat the same mistake I made. 1. Just because the contractor is recommended by someone you know doesn't mean they are good. My current contractor is introduced by two of my colleagues, both of them said his pricing was reasonable and his work is not too bad. It was a terrible mistake made by me for not doing more research by checking their reviews online prior deciding. After my first misunderstanding with my contractor, I found many more complaints about them online. Their quality of work has deteriorate over time after they had receive more exposure on corporate and private projects. 2. Not having the proper documents to protect my rights. My contractor only offer an itemized quotation to sign on to act as confirmation of renovation. After reading on CASE, we are advised to sign on a proper contract like this (https://www.case.org.sg/pdf/model_renovation.pdf) and attaching the proposed timeline, quotation and 3D drawings if any. Right now, my contractor is dragging my renovation although he verbally agree to complete by end of July. Since nothing official has been written down, he is taking advantage of it. 3. Do site visitation as often as possible. Initially I trusted the contractor and only visited my place once a week. This has caused me the wrong trunking position that could not be changed and slacking of work of contractor as I did not follow up with him as often as I should. I recommend to visit your place at least 3 times a week to make sure what they are doing is aligned to what you want. 4. Do markings on wall with masking tapes and marker pen. While walking through my house with the contractor on my requirements, he did not pen them down nor did he do any markings on wall. He even confidently told me that he can remember everything in his brain. Right now, he is denying some of the things I had mentioned and I had no proof against it. 5. Ask for a new quotation or invoice every time when there are changes or when they offer to do something for free. Some of the things we thought are meant to be free are no longer free after renovation has begun. We have to pay extra for patching of wall (after removal of old electrical trunking) and patching of gaps behind new trunking. His reason was we did not do wall / ceiling plastering, thus, patching of holes and gaps are not inclusive. They left the wall looking ugly and uneven. 6.Request for walk through with electrician, plumber and carpenters. My contractor is not able to juggle his work load and does not take extra care for my design preference. He made the decisions for me, e.g. pulling the trunking in a certain way, or installing the bidet at another location and etc. He was not keen when I asked him to change and he becomes offensive and unprofessional with his words and behavior. 7. Put down your feet and insist if you want things to be in a certain way. Ultimately, you will be staying in the house and not the contractors. A good contractor should advise you but not to force you to give in to their opinions. 8. Do not put personal belonging in the house until renovation is complete. Unless you are fine with them using your item (e.g. extra light bulb, plastic stools or cleaning products), if not, do not leave any personal belongings in the house's storeroom. Because of the delay of our renovation, we had shifted some of our belongings to the storeroom, but found that the workers are using our items without permission. They did not even bother to clean up after and put it back to the original position after using, which created much more work for me. 9. Record every discussion or conversations. I am not sure if this would violate any law but I felt that I should have recorded both the phone conversations and verbal conversations we had with the contractor so that we can report him to the police after the renovation. He brought another gangster like person with him during one of the meet up at our new place, the other person just stood in our house and smoked in our house. We were disturbed by this and he forces us to shut up with such barbaric threatening behaviour. Not to mention words he uses like "Want to fight", "You think you use measuring tape to measure you can talk a lot", "I'm older than you and you should respect me", "I haven't hand over to you why are you complaining" and etc. He is also a sexist, he targets on me most of the time even though it was usually my husband who handles him. He even threaten to terminate the renovation half way through it. I only have partial whatsapp voice message which I think is insufficient to make a case against him. Both my hubby and I had learnt all of this in the hard way and hope none of you had to go through what we had. It was a heartache and traumatizing experience for us. It kills our joy of owning our own place. If any of you would like to know the name of the contractor, please pm me and I will revert to you. The contract office is located in the Serangoon North area, in a private building and he is HDB certified.

ID will usually ask you to go down to their office for discussion, contractors would prefer to go to your home. Both would take some time to revert their quotation back to you, some within 2 days, some would take up to 2 weeks. I had spoke with both ID and contractors prior to my home renovation, and due to cost constrain, I engaged a contractor that was introduced by my colleague instead of ID. Even so, I am having heartache and trouble right now with the contractor I have selected. From my painful experience, I felt irregardless of ID or contractor, what is most important is everything should be written in black and white. Before securing your ID or contractor, get a detail itemized quotation from them, compare not only the prices but also with what is break down in the quotation. Asks as many questions in the beginning as possible and whenever they agree to do a certain thing for you, make sure it will be reflected in the quotation, free or not. Once you had confirmed with one of them, make sure they provide drawings, work schedule and attached them with a proper contract which I found on CASE (https://www.case.org.sg/pdf/model_renovation.pdf). This is what I had missed out with my home renovation, I regretted it so much right now and it really kills my joy of owning my first home. Hope you had a pleasant journey of finding your ID or contractor.

I am so sorry to hear your experience. Did you sign on a proper contract like the one in CASE ((https://www.case.org.sg/pdf/model_renovation.pdf)? Ever consider to write to CASE about this?

If your new home is HDB, you will need HDB permit for wall hacking and tiling. If your renovation requires work like this, only HDB licensed contractor can apply the permit for it. Although my contractor is HDB licensed, he is giving me a hard time right now and is dragging my project. From my personal painful experience, what I find most important is that the contractor you engage must have a detail itemized quotation, a proper contract to sign on which I found on CASE and here is the link: (https://www.case.org.sg/pdf/model_renovation.pdf), a black and white copy of the renovation work schedule and drawings if any. Hope my info helps you.

Hi All, Just want to share my renovation experience and hope it creates awareness to others and not to repeat the same mistake I made. 1. Just because the contractor is recommended by someone you know doesn't mean they are good. My current contractor is introduced by two of my colleagues, both of them said his pricing was reasonable and his work is not too bad. It was a terrible mistake made by me for not doing more research by checking their reviews online prior deciding. After my first misunderstanding with my contractor, I found many more complaints about them online. Their quality of work has deteriorate over time after they had receive more exposure on corporate and private projects. 2. Not having the proper documents to protect my rights. My contractor only offer an itemized quotation to sign on to act as confirmation of renovation. After reading on CASE, we are advised to sign on a proper contract like this (https://www.case.org.sg/pdf/model_renovation.pdf) and attaching the proposed timeline, quotation and 3D drawings if any. Right now, my contractor is dragging my renovation although he verbally agree to complete by end of July. Since nothing official has been written down, he is taking advantage of it. 3. Do site visitation as often as possible. Initially I trusted the contractor and only visited my place once a week. This has caused me the wrong trunking position that could not be changed and slacking of work of contractor as I did not follow up with him as often as I should. I recommend to visit your place at least 3 times a week to make sure what they are doing is aligned to what you want. 4. Do markings on wall with masking tapes and marker pen. While walking through my house with the contractor on my requirements, he did not pen them down nor did he do any markings on wall. He even confidently told me that he can remember everything in his brain. Right now, he is denying some of the things I had mentioned and I had no proof against it. 5. Ask for a new quotation or invoice every time when there are changes or when they offer to do something for free. Some of the things we thought are meant to be free are no longer free after renovation has begun. We have to pay extra for patching of wall (after removal of old electrical trunking) and patching of gaps behind new trunking. His reason was we did not do wall / ceiling plastering, thus, patching of holes and gaps are not inclusive. They left the wall looking ugly and uneven. 6.Request for walk through with electrician, plumber and carpenters. My contractor is not able to juggle his work load and does not take extra care for my design preference. He made the decisions for me, e.g. pulling the trunking in a certain way, or installing the bidet at another location and etc. He was not to keen when I asked him to change and he became offensive and was unprofessional with his words and behavior. 7. Put down your feet and insist if you want things to be in a certain way. Ultimately, you will be staying in the house and not the contractors. A good contractor should advise you but not to force you to give in to their opinions. 8. Do not put personal belonging in the house until renovation is complete. Unless you are fine with them using your item (e.g. extra light bulb, plastic stools or cleaning products), if not, do not leave any personal belongings in the house's storeroom. Because of the delay of our renovation, we had shifted some of our belongings to the storeroom, but found that the workers are using our items without permission. They did not even bother to clean up after and put it back to the original position after using, which created much more work for me. Both my hubby and I had learned this in the hard way and hope none of you had to go through what we had. It was a heartache and traumatizing experience for us. It kills our joy of owning our own place.