Anybody Engage Id Note

[Home169 0]

settled

Edited July 22, 2011 by Home169

[0my5 0]

My house also done by him.. was recommended by one of the Reno talkers here. I did see quite a bit of comments about him (neg & pos) & of course, I would still proceed my assessment meeting all of them b4 I commit.

Although his quote may not the fastest compare the others.. but the lowest & importantly he is flexible to work within my budget.

However, there are also some issues along the way; washing machine base laid incorrectly & window grille not properly installed. I called up to him & he immediately rectify with his subcon & get it fixed quite quickly.

I'm not sure how his clients think about him.. but personally I find he is quite a fast acting person & probably the rapport we have established that I don't doubt his responsibility.

Nonetheless, I hope you guys will get your problem rectified & solved.

[Errandz 0]

Its always interesting to see two sides of the coin.. Every bit has its own touch and design to it..

Its even more interesting to see such emotional support both for and against Henry..

I suppose its for this very reason that across renotalk you see the golden rule repeated, 'Make sure you find the contractor/ID meant for you'. I just hope everyone finds the contractor meant for you. Referrals and 'stardom' should only lead you to meet the respective contractors/IDs. Beyond that, everyone should have their own personal reason for choosing, beyond 'came recommended' alone.

I am in the midst of my reno. And yes, I am now with Henry. This is after having read both the +ve & -ve comments to date. In my case, I met Henry, Mr Yeak, and a couple of others after reading about them all and getting referrals from all over. And none of them gave me a reason not to take them. Just that Henry could work with my very minimal budget so he topped the list of potentials. So far everything is smooth and problem free. Hence the decent/nice posts on my tBlog. If problems do arise, I will be open about them there too. If they cannot be resolved, I will see what Henry has to say and probably so will the world on my tBlog.

Obviously I hope to have only praises to sing and none of the hardships some others have faced. And I just hope everyone else finds the contractor meant for you.

***************************************************

I remember reading something on a car forum which i took to liking.

Cheap + Fast >> Cannot expect Good

Cheap + Good >> Cannot expect Fast

Fast + Good >> Cannot expect Cheap

As Singaporeans, we always want all three.. But whether it is realistic, I cannot say. I do not think it is. Those who do, you have to find it, and maybe fight for it. Those who have found it, I am envious truly.

[friends78 0]

Hi

Don't think u will need to forfeit your deposit. I remember Henry telling me that as long as the date of the reno has yet to be confirmed or set, he will return the deposit to owners if they feel not comfortable. But he also said that must be reasonable lah, don't reno going to start tomorrow then today u sudden say u want to pull out everything. Perhaps u can call to tell him that u want to pull out and see what he says?

oh no... i just signed with ID Note too... am not too pleased also...

got several add-ons here & there, and the quotes are ridiculous lor... i looked back at my other contractor quotes also cheaper... when i ask them to relook, they challenge me that can't take item by item.

so disappointed. after paying deposit, they say give me reno schedule. until now, i haven't even seen anything... so hurry collect my cheque, 1 wk later still no schedule. poor follow up, dun like to chase...

worst, tell them i got budget constraint yet tell me 'dun do also can, up to you lor...' so sarcastic. if i have more $$, of course, i whole hse do. but all these come only after i have sign the quote...

i'm now contemplating to forfeit my deposit and find another contractor. anybody know how can i get back my deposit? since they haven't even started work.

[kenkoh88 0]

Hi,

Anyone mind to PM Henry's contacts?

Thanks.

[nirvana 0]

wah.. I so long never come renotalk.. henry thread becomes so happening! Supersimon, *wave* good to see you still around.

Hi everyone my reno was done by Henry in year 2009. you can see my renoblog for the work he has done. It has been about a year plus since and so far so good. My house is still in one place. everything still worked well. So for post reno wise, I am satisfied with his work. If you read my blog, I have my fair share of complaint and grievances, e.g. my reno took longer than expected, was not happy about some of the carpentry don't have ABS (is it correct? means the furniture's edges are raw kind.. not covered) but it was all about expectations and after i moved in, seriously, it did not bother me one bit. I did quite a fair bit of customized carpentry and kitchen cabinets are ikea system so we need to work very closely with Henry and Ah Fai (his carpenter then) and all turned out well.

On hindsight, I have to say the working relationship with Henry and his sub-contractors are pleasant. so I would call myself a satisfied customer.

To be fair, no one is perfect. I don't think there would be any ID or contractors who will be able to do 100% perfect job all the time. There will be certain % who would, unfortunately, suffer the brunt of the not so efficient side of Henry and his team. So for newbies who want to engage ID or contractors, we need to be aware of the risk. You can source around for the ID or contractors with the highest % of satisfied customers but need to be aware that when it comes to reno (which is itself is a nitty gritty cumbersome project) everything can happen. Plus the mis-alignment of expectations would cause you more grief.

Anyway, I am back in the renotalk forum because I am looking to engage Henry for reno my mum's kitchen. was hoping to see some of his recent work and see if he becomes liked another "ah soon" and disappeared from the reno industry. I see quite a number of recent customers and Simon still around so for that and my past experience with him, i am definitely still going back to him to see if he can squeeze in my new project.

I am not related to Henry at all. And Simon helped me alot in my last reno. i think he is a kind and generous person who has been helping us newbies with loads of tips. So i don't understand why ppl would be upset with him who is just volunteering his help and advice.

If I get henry to do my new project, will do up a separate reno blog to keep you guys posted.

[FriendUnited 0]

Hi Waikwok, Simon is right, I had my reno started since 7th Jun (with another ID), the work is still not completed till today. I just had a big argument with the contractor over the delay on last week end. They had promise to hand then delay, promise then delay...its almost 4 month already. Omg! I had asked for a change of move in date from my FS mAster for the 3th times already... Honestly, I hope they will reject my job if they cannot delivery on time. I could have Enage someone else. Good luck to you cause going through Reno is a big headache.

[Supersimon27 2]

wah.. I so long never come renotalk.. henry thread becomes so happening! Supersimon, *wave* good to see you still around.

Hi everyone my reno was done by Henry in year 2009. you can see my renoblog for the work he has done. It has been about a year plus since and so far so good. My house is still in one place. everything still worked well. So for post reno wise, I am satisfied with his work. If you read my blog, I have my fair share of complaint and grievances, e.g. my reno took longer than expected, was not happy about some of the carpentry don't have ABS (is it correct? means the furniture's edges are raw kind.. not covered) but it was all about expectations and after i moved in, seriously, it did not bother me one bit. I did quite a fair bit of customized carpentry and kitchen cabinets are ikea system so we need to work very closely with Henry and Ah Fai (his carpenter then) and all turned out well.

On hindsight, I have to say the working relationship with Henry and his sub-contractors are pleasant. so I would call myself a satisfied customer.

To be fair, no one is perfect. I don't think there would be any ID or contractors who will be able to do 100% perfect job all the time. There will be certain % who would, unfortunately, suffer the brunt of the not so efficient side of Henry and his team. So for newbies who want to engage ID or contractors, we need to be aware of the risk. You can source around for the ID or contractors with the highest % of satisfied customers but need to be aware that when it comes to reno (which is itself is a nitty gritty cumbersome project) everything can happen. Plus the mis-alignment of expectations would cause you more grief.

Anyway, I am back in the renotalk forum because I am looking to engage Henry for reno my mum's kitchen. was hoping to see some of his recent work and see if he becomes liked another "ah soon" and disappeared from the reno industry. I see quite a number of recent customers and Simon still around so for that and my past experience with him, i am definitely still going back to him to see if he can squeeze in my new project.

I am not related to Henry at all. And Simon helped me alot in my last reno. i think he is a kind and generous person who has been helping us newbies with loads of tips. So i don't understand why ppl would be upset with him who is just volunteering his help and advice.

If I get henry to do my new project, will do up a separate reno blog to keep you guys posted.

Hi gal , glad to see u again

I am still around , not so active but still hanging around to keep upself update so I can help my friends around who need reno experience .

Recently more into photography then reno . Ha

[ayukie 0]

Hi actually i am not suppose to post on other contractor's thread, Very no respect.. <img src="http://www.renotalk.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />

as a contractor myself, i do admit that i will overlooked some of the enquiries requested by customers sometimes,

you might want to send a friendly reminder to recall your enquiry just incase the contractors were being tied down by something? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

my contractor do kinda quite overlook my requests but at least in end he either gets it done or give suggestions on how to go about it or solution to rectify the problem of his oversight .. so im still ok just that i need to be patientttttt wahaaaa

[ayukie 0]

Hihi, I seriously pity your situation. Anyway you are not the only current owner I know who encountered the same situation as you. But no choice, you can refer to few posts above me, his ex-supporters are still widely advertising for him and im sure there will be more "victims".

Just curious, why you so fast make 90% payment to him, thought the payment is progressively ? Secondly why you let him start work without his basic design comes out ? Im quite sure he will delay your drawings till the last minute and end of the day you have no choice but to accept whatever he design..

Hope more "recent" owner will step up to give their review of Id Note, we are not here to flame him. I know that Henry do read the forum and hope he wake up his idea and start to do your reno soon. Renovation cost itself is a big amount and we pay for it and deserve a good job from them. A good contractor deserve our praise & recommendation and a lousy contractor must quickly be warn to others, that's the purpose of the renotalk forum.

<!--quoteo(post=622633:date=Mar 26 2011, 10:48 AM:name=deneiza)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (deneiza @ Mar 26 2011, 10:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=622633"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Dear bros & sis, please do not think that I am "flaming" I.D. Note as I am just relating my own experience to all of you. Its to your individual preogative to decide whether you want to believe me or not. We first engage Henry as our contractor in early Feb as we think he is very flexible in his contracts for he keeps on assuring us that we have the freedom to engage other contractors at any point of time if we think he charges too much for certain jobs. Well, frankly speaking, we have been to over 10 contractors / IDs and Henry's quote is more or less on par with them. However, during our first meet-up with him, he appears to be so friendly and is so accomodating to our requirement, we think why not give the job to him.

Right now we realise this is simply not the case but since its a bit too late to find other IDs / contractors, we just have to "suck thumb" and hope that everything can turn out to be fine. <img src="http://www.renotalk.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/bowdown.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="bowdown.gif" />

1) Its been already been one month and only the walls and the floor of the living room have been tiled and guess what? We had already paid 90% of the total cost of renovation! To make matters worse, we have been chasing him for the 3D drawings for many weeks and in the end he only manageed to show us 2 poorly design drawings of our master bed room and kitchen cabinet. I thought he should have planned for at least the toilets and living rooms?

We were thinking of making things easier for him and let him know our preferred designs. Therefore, we went to buy some home design magazines and even look through design books at the library and take lots of pictures before sending to him for reference. By right, a ID should do all these footwork for the clients and not the other way round, but then we just could not wait for his designs any more.

After 2 weeks later, we called Henry yesterday to check what is the status of the drawings? Do you know what he tell us? He told us we got send him anything meh? Wah lao eh.... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/curse.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="curse.gif" /> Is he so busy with other projects to even check his email or our renovation project is simply not making him enough money? Notwithstanding that, we are meeting him later and show him the designs again. What a waste of our time.

2) We are shocked when we asked him to plan the lightings for our living room. As we only have a L-box, we requested him to plan a simple light plan for us so that we would roughly know how many downlights to buy. But guess what, he plans about 20 downlights at the L-box alone! (we got the soft copy if you want to see)

Does he want my whole living room to be a suana or a stadium? Normally IDs would cut down the no. of light points for their clients as too many downlights would make your whole living room warmer and at the same time it wastes electricity as well. However, this is the total opposite. And 1 light point is not cheap you know. It costs about 35 on average to fix a light point plus installation (excluding the cost of the bulb). So you can calculate how much I would have spent on the L-box alone! Totally impractical...sigh

3) Water pipes are bent instead of using proper connectors to connect pipes at right angles. Therefore, we can see many grooves at the inner portion of the bends. We are afraid that that would cause stress to the pipes and it might cause a leak in the long run....

4) We have been wanting to meet up with him after work man times to discuss more of our renovation, but he either did not reply or pick us his phone. That may explains why only minimum things are done after 1 month of renovation. If he is so busy, he should reject our work in the 1st place instead of delaying our project for so long. So unprofessional.

In conclusion, I do not know if there are more misfortunates we would encounter during the process of the renovation. Lets pray everything can proceed smoothly and to the other forumers out there, my advice to you is there are so many contractors / IDs out there who would want to do your business. If they are not interested, why bother wasting your time and efforts to ask them for quotations etc...

Cheers and God bless.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

actually when you plan lights you should see what kind of lights you wish to see because diff wattage of the lights you may need more lights as well as size .. imagine if you use 3w light because of sizing issues you may need more lights i have 8 downlights (BIG 12w led) but if i use like my contractor home the lights same same ones i may need to increase to 16 hahhaa ..

[Supersimon27 2]

my contractor do kinda quite overlook my requests but at least in end he either gets it done or give suggestions on how to go about it or solution to rectify the problem of his oversight .. so im still ok just that i need to be patientttttt wahaaaa

I do agreed in some sense . ha

[BuyNow7 0]

Currently my house is under renovation. I have engaged ID Note from hacking to electrical works.

So far so good but the progress is moving a bit slow ( maybe I am too kan jiong).

Anyone like to share your experiences?

[thejabbox 0]

Currently my house is under renovation. I have engaged ID Note from hacking to electrical works.

So far so good but the progress is moving a bit slow ( maybe I am too kan jiong).

Anyone like to share your experiences?

hi BuyNow7,

how your nest progress? mine coming to the end... hopefully can end nicely... looking forward...

Edited December 8, 2011 by thejabbox

[BuyNow7 0]

Hi jabbox

Mine so far so good. No major hicupps yet. Two more weeks to go.

I don't find their tiling worksmanship good. Hopefully, they will rectify those lousy areas that I have highlighted.

[Can 0]

Hi can someone PM me Henry's contact? Thks!