Design Zest Pte Ltd (UEN 201700620C)
Designer’s Name: Rafale Chua
Date of Renovation: Jan 2019 till May 2019
We got to know Design Zest from renotalk. Mr Chua is the boss and also the ID of the company. He was persistent and sincere in following up with us in the beginning and upon signing contract with him, things turn out to be a nightmare.
Due to his bad planning, incapability to follow up closely with his contractors, our renovation took close to 4 months to complete instead of the original committed 8 weeks! He is wasting our time and money to be the one following up closely with contractors --> bad project management and he is always not on site!
What went wrong:
- Despite me sending him the dimension of my Bosch built in oven for my kitchen, he mistook it as electrolux oven and got the dimension all wrong and results in cutting the hole to slot in my oven to be WRONG. he and the carpenter insisted that all ovens are of STANDARD SIZE and refuse to listen to me even though i had shared the dimension to him for more than 3 times via whatsapp! No apologies from him at all for his though in the end he rectified the job for us
- We were told that one part of the kitchen wall cannot be hack and as it is a concrete wall. but after looking at our neighbour unit who has the same floor plan as us and was doing renovation at the same time, we realise that the wall is in fact hackable! Went through many rounds or argument before he willing to hack off that wall for us. this results in additional cost for hacking work!
- Insist that my washer is too big (in fact it was pretty standard size and dimension is also provided) and thus the kitchen table where the washer is at need to be leveled in order to fit the washer in properly. this results in uneven kitchen table height. one part of the table is higher than the rest of the kitchen table! he told me this is pretty common but i could not accept, and demand for a change to even out the height.
- his tiler mess up my water piping and results in my washer pipe to choke and flooded my kitchen! He arrange for his plumber to come down to rectify but his plumber is always late and have to come down 3 times in order to resolve the issue. the workaround was to have a extension pipe routed from my sink (very UGLY!! and take up space in my kitchen cabinet)
- he has bad management of his contractors and never closely follow up with them. he was seldom on site and my husband need to be there to spot check his contractors on many occasions. there is once he mention his tiler will be there on monday to touch up my brick featured wall but did not turn up! he wasnt aware his tiler did not turn up till my husband told him! again, this delay our reno work.
- The reno was completed on mid may, last payment of 5% was made on 21st May and till to date, he have not return our condo access card and warranty documents back to us! he took our gas stove to sell to his client (but client rejected as not suitable for their kitchen) and that stove is still with the client and not return back to us yet as well!!
Throughout the whole renovation process, he always have lots of excuses/reasoning when things does not turn out well/or got delayed. For example, tiler did not turn up as committed date is because his sister got cancer and affect his mood! WTH!
He was suppose to return the stove, access card and docs back to us on multiple occasions but in the end didnt because 1) client celebrating hari raya, not at home. 2) client was back home late, couldnt get the stove from them in time 3) he met with an accident and thus couldnt return the items back to us! if there is a will, there is a way. I find it perplexed that this is not a one man show company, he has assistants and colleagues as well. if he couldnt made it, why cant he get someone else in his co to pass us the card and docs first? he can also mail us the items via registered mail or speedpost too! we always have to send him reminder messages but was ignored/delayed in responses a few times.
this ID is a thumbs down and highly not recommended! please take note and engaged on your own risk!
