Hi All..

Need all your advice.

I'm having an issue with the HDB contactors. After several weeks, our tiling works are still not completed yet. The tiles were uneven, and like when you walk, you will hit the tiles. (That uneven)

After several arguments, and the workers redoing, now they are saying we picked lousy tiles?

Firstly, is there such thing as lousy tiles? Lousy tiles defination to me is - crack easily, get stains easily etc etc.. but not laying uneven tiles.

I believe uneven tiles is caused by the workmanship (Mine is ceramic tiles). Even for ceramic tiles we get such workman ship.

The contracts now say we have picked lousy tiles according to him. The tiles shop is introduced by him. In the first place, if it is lousy tiles, he shlould have mentioned to us and adviced us?

Even the tiles supply by HDB are uneven, does that mean HDB is giving all the owners 'lousy tiles'?

Me and my hubby is pissed off with this issue as it has been almost 2 months, and our defects are still not rectify.

I'm thinking if this can't be resolved, shld we go to CASE instead?

Anyone met with such situation, can you adivce me, what is the best way to deal with unreasonable contractors?

yes there are such things as lousy tiles.

but;

1) tiles shope recommended by contractor - he should be responsible for it.

2) if the tiles alignment are all out - they should have notice it when they lay the first 3 pieces of tiles and wait until lay all house liao. this is an issue of IRRESPONSIBLITY.

3) if they still refuse to do anything and play TAI CHI, logon to MYHDB in www.hdb.gov.sg and send an email to your technical officer/manager within the interface - this way your email will be routed to the hdb HQ and a case report will be officially open.

FYI, during my reno - the whole batch of tiles were off alignment, my contractor even told me to change other colours/tiles. they discover that when they were doing a mock-up of the tiles.

mace,

how to tell if tiles are lousy type? is it see by price of what?

something to learn here, so during tile selection, i have to make sure we dun pick lousy tiles. :/

HI..

today i went to the house. THe tiles were uneve. LIke at the edge is pop up.

In one room.. i could literally feel a hump over the room!! Thats really terrible.

HDB officer is sort of siding the contractor. Coz our house is dragging for quite a while. Got a feeling he also want to close this thing fast.

haiz.. not simple having a house.

mace,

how to tell if tiles are lousy type? is it see by price of what?

something to learn here, so during tile selection, i have to make sure we dun pick lousy tiles. :/

no way to tell. this happens even to expensive italian tiles.(info from my tiler)

infact only those new design tiles got no problem, cos the tiler said the mold and cutter is still new and sharp.

HI..

today i went to the house. THe tiles were uneve. LIke at the edge is pop up.

In one room.. i could literally feel a hump over the room!! Thats really terrible.

HDB officer is sort of siding the contractor. Coz our house is dragging for quite a while. Got a feeling he also want to close this thing fast.

haiz.. not simple having a house.

said liao - go logon into MYHDB in www.hdb.gov.sg and file a complain.

My 2 cent worth....

Regardless of what tiles we choose, there bound to be a few pieces of tiles that is not straight, very very slight curve, you cannot feel it but when lay on the floor, then can feel it. Notmally, tilers will take it out and replace a new one.

Normally contractor will tell you that this tiles are not good due to not straight or will have problems.

Guess you contractor never tell you in the first place.

And the tilers must stop the work if more tiles are found not even.

Funny why the tilers keeps on doing it.

Yes, there are manufacturing defects even in tiles.

Actually a good tiler can advise the minute he c the tiles.

said liao - go logon into MYHDB in www.hdb.gov.sg and file a complain.

HI maCe,

Yup.. A TO was assigned to me. but then He is not being very helpful.

Today went to see again, told hubby say nvm lah..

Since many told me, that tiles does not come perfect, so we have to close one eye.

Only the 'hump' in the room, die die must ask them to change.

Guess we are unlucky to have picked a no so professional contractor and tiler.

HI maCe,

Yup.. A TO was assigned to me. but then He is not being very helpful.

Today went to see again, told hubby say nvm lah..

Since many told me, that tiles does not come perfect, so we have to close one eye.

Only the 'hump' in the room, die die must ask them to change.

Guess we are unlucky to have picked a no so professional contractor and tiler.

tiles are not perfect but for my case - my contractor returned all the tiles after doing a mock up of 3-4 tiles.

the TO are supposed to be HELPFUL cos we taxpayers are paying their salary - Just logon in myhdb and communicate with your TO thru the web base email - this way he will WAKE up cos the email will be routed to HQ before reaching them.

Hi Wendily, just curious why u need to choose the tiles?..

i also encounter problem with my house tiles.. initially were the tiling spacing we felt quite uneven, some big and some small. then HDB officer told us that these are not defects so they cant do anything. Then after that our ID told us to find defects try to find hollow tiles etc.

We found hollow tiles here and there in living rooms and a few pieces in bedrooms so we reported to hdb again. we also felt that the hdb contractor is not veri friendly and also we felt the HDB officer is sort of siding the contractor.

Then the HDB contractor seems abit impatient.. he said 'if u wan we can only change the living room for u then as for ur bedrooms we will cut out only those pieces which are hollow. 'Cos this is veri costly for us to hack the whole living room including bedrooms for u'. but b4 we proceed we have to find the same manufacturing batch of ceramic tiles for u but as from what i know ceramic tiles come in different manufacturing batches'. 'the batch of tiles ur house currently have i think no more, so we will find something SIMILAR, and b4 we do the retiling u come and take a look if got slight difference i cant do anything else'.

When the day of appointment which they ask us to go choose tiles, one senior officer came along then he told us they will rehack the whole house cos they really cant find our current batch of tiles. i also don know why suddenly they want to change for us btw that day the impatient hdb contractor was not here.

Now our issue is they will take 1 month to redo everything but we are afraid the contractor will purposely do a bad job. then we have to take it. so just have to pray they don play play with us.

Think like mace say email them let their HQ know what is happening cos u are not being unreasonable..u deserve what u paid !!

wendily, are your floor tiles layed straight, or have you asked for your floor tiles to be layed in a pattern?

HI Black Apple,

Maybe my initial post was not clear enough.

My home is a preium home. My tiles come together with the house. So initially, we found like what you said hollow tiles everywhere. So called the HDB officer, and they willing to change all the tiles for us free.

So we wanted other colors for our home. So the contractor told us, the labour is free, but we have to top up the new tiles ourself. Thus, he refered us to this tiling company.

We choose the colors we want and then they start the tiling works.

So all the tiles except the living room and bedroom floor tiles were purchased from the tiling company and were self picked by us.

BTW, i think its true that the tile were out of stock, coz for me i waited 3 weeks for the HDB tiles to come. The HDB officer told us out of stock also.

wendily, are your floor tiles layed straight, or have you asked for your floor tiles to be layed in a pattern?

Hi Chunky MOnkey,

My floor tiles are laid straight, no patterns one.

When i say uneven, its like when i walk barefooted, i can feel the corners of the tiles poping out. Sometimes not careful, can kick the corner and injred your toes.

I'm not so particular about wall tiles, but coz in laws staying with us, so all these safety concern we not able to compromise.

U can check out my T-Blog, can see the tiles we picked.

tiles are not perfect but for my case - my contractor returned all the tiles after doing a mock up of 3-4 tiles.

the TO are supposed to be HELPFUL cos we taxpayers are paying their salary - Just logon in myhdb and communicate with your TO thru the web base email - this way he will WAKE up cos the email will be routed to HQ before reaching them.

Hi Mace,

Yup, think we are going to do that. Coz they are getting lamer in their excuses. The contractor even wanted to bring his supplier to meet us.. We were like 'for what!'.

Communiaction with the TO was through phone, guess that give him the advantage. Bring nice doesn't mean ppl will be nice back to you. I think have to be more 'political'...

We also took pictures of exposed live wires which got one of my reno workers electrocuted. haha.. i think can use that on them..

HI Black Apple,

Maybe my initial post was not clear enough.

My home is a preium home. My tiles come together with the house. So initially, we found like what you said hollow tiles everywhere. So called the HDB officer, and they willing to change all the tiles for us free.

So we wanted other colors for our home. So the contractor told us, the labour is free, but we have to top up the new tiles ourself. Thus, he refered us to this tiling company.

We choose the colors we want and then they start the tiling works.

So all the tiles except the living room and bedroom floor tiles were purchased from the tiling company and were self picked by us.

BTW, i think its true that the tile were out of stock, coz for me i waited 3 weeks for the HDB tiles to come. The HDB officer told us out of stock also.

Hi Chunky MOnkey,

My floor tiles are laid straight, no patterns one.

When i say uneven, its like when i walk barefooted, i can feel the corners of the tiles poping out. Sometimes not careful, can kick the corner and injred your toes.

I'm not so particular about wall tiles, but coz in laws staying with us, so all these safety concern we not able to compromise.

U can check out my T-Blog, can see the tiles we picked.

Hi Mace,

Yup, think we are going to do that. Coz they are getting lamer in their excuses. The contractor even wanted to bring his supplier to meet us.. We were like 'for what!'.

Communiaction with the TO was through phone, guess that give him the advantage. Bring nice doesn't mean ppl will be nice back to you. I think have to be more 'political'...

We also took pictures of exposed live wires which got one of my reno workers electrocuted. haha.. i think can use that on them..

upload your pics to www.photobucket.com and put the pics' link inside your email(must email from myhdb).

some civil servants are nice but some think WE are just sheeps.

Something ridiculous happened...

Today hubby went to meet the contractor, who supposedly are there to clarify why they can't do the tiling works. Contractor brought along supplier. (Was thinking if it is in cahoots together)

Supplier proudly says 'Yeah, the tiles i supply to you is not good one'

OMG, i can't believe this is happening to me!

On a side note, i mentioned i notice a hump in the room, but today went, and the hump 'disappeared'. Is it due to like expansion and contractsion of flooring? Will the floor ecantually 'erupt'?

Even supplier says that, did you record down? then any payment, ask him pay is it???

Why no QC on tiles......