A compilation of hidden costs

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p2me1a

New Member
hi guys,

the best thing is if you guys can go to all your friends' house, examine their finishes, right down to last details like laminate floor capping, kitchen cabinet door finishes, interiors, ways in which cabinet doors are constructed, ways in which beams and columns (problem areas) are circumvented... everything and anything ...

and see what applies to your own home - and decide in which manner you wish to solve your own ticky bits (coz there's always more than one way in which to solve a problem mah...) or what kind of finishes u prefer - coz again, more often than not, there's always more than one option...

then u can advise your ID accordingly to which methods u prefer...

and also, you can fend off excuses from your ID that : -
"this is NOT available in Singapore"
"this has NEVER been done before in Singapore"
"nobody in Singapore does this method"
"this thing doesn't exist"

etc...

I have been getting sooooo many of these excuses from my ID - everytime I have to show trump card and say :"But I have SEEN it before in Singapore in my friend's/cousin's/mother's house before..." only THEN, they will go and search for the sample...*roll*eyes*

now, we get VERY WARY whenever my ID goes:" no, that one is STANDARD one..." hiaz...

recently, I had to resort to going to my friend's house to take a picture of her finishes to show my ID the photos in order to convince them the item EXISTS in Singapore...

Then again, maybe they'd tell me that they dun consider Choa Chu Kang part of Singapore??? hmmm... that could be their new excuse...

pst
 


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p2me1a

New Member
hi guys,

I've said this before, I'd say it again.

Please PM (private message) me in order to get this list.

A good proportion of the threads here in this forum become useless after they degenerate into a thread which is full of email addresses of people asking for lists. Let's not let this thread become like that.

How to PM? To PM any forummer,
STEP 1: Click on the nickname of the forummer found on the left hand side of the message post (which is also found on the LHS of your screen).
STEP 2: Click on the "Click here to send private message to *nick of forummer*"
STEP 3: Type in your message, type in your ID and password. and click send.

Easy 3 steps.
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From now on, I shall not send the list to anyone who doesn't PM me.
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pst

p.s. please also read the rest of this thread to know what list we're talking about here... plus there's lots of useful information from other forummers in this thread too. READ...
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For those who've already completed their reno... Share your experiences too
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roo

New Member
Hi, I am currently talking to IDs and contractors for quotes. One problem I am facing is space planning & designing. All the IDs and contractors usually talk to me about my plans and quote me on a list of work items that I mention. I provide them with my floorplan but none actually presents me with a design concept. I am told that they will do it only after I sign on the dotted line. How am I to know if their ideas are good before confirming to use them? How am I to know that I wont be overcharged for additional things that we dont forsee in their design at this point in time? Please advise on how I can get them to provide me with more concrete information before I make a decision. And if I am reasonable to expect this.

Thanks
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afcai

New Member
Hi jukeboxcranberry,

not really true, my carpentary IDs take the initiative yto do the spacing planning for me though l did not ask for. at that pt of time, I only signed for their kitchen design.later on, we asked them to do our display cabinet and walk in closet.

compare more quotations with diff ids/contractor and ask more qns cos normally they won't tell you unless one asked.
 
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p2me1a

New Member
jukeboxcranberry,

you may have to explicitly TELL them that you are looking for a design concept. openly hint to them that your decision on which ID you would appoint is LARGELY based on whether the design concept they give you is good or not ;) hehehe... but seriously, that would probably work. and also, a lot of people have what they want in mind now, which is why IDs are so used to just doing whatever you want them to do instead of suggesting ideas... so they think its not worth the effort anymore...

alternatively, you can go and look for those young looking designers - find those super young ones - "young punks" was what we used to call them hahaha... they usually fresh from design school - so have great ideas. you talk to them see what kinda ideas they have. then incorporate all the ideas that you like - then get a more experience ID to do it. so u get good ideas but yet experienced people to manage the project. that would be ideal. but of course would be more tiring coz u have to talk to many IDs to glean info off them...

pst
 
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miralyn

New Member
Hi, im getting my hm keys soon but having headache
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Went IMM got a few quotes but all ID firms which will get a cut without doin designing since my bro-in-law is designing.

Hard to find contractors only since majority changed image to ID firms liao...Any 1 can recommend reliable contractors???
 
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stormfall

New Member
Hi,

Hoping someone here can help me out. My renovation is complete but I have some outstanding problems (see my thread on "Carpentry Question on Treated Wood") and am witholding 10% still until that gets resolved.

I was going through my original contract signed in Oct against what has been constructed, and found, like what pst said, discrepencies. For example, I was supposed to have a 5ft run full height storage cabinet in the kitchen, with $200 per foot. What I have is a 1m or 3ft cabinet, which means $400 short. I will go through the rest of the origianl agreement but want to know how to deal with this. Can I point out the differences to the ID, or am I shafted? To be honest, we didn't measure anything or checked the measurements against the original drawings because everything looks to scale. And once they've been constructed, it's too late to tell the ID "Hey, you've built me a 3ft cabinet and not 5ft as agreed".

What can I do now?

Another hidden cost - untreated wood. I found out after the leaking pipe that my kitchen cabinet is not treated wood (according to pest control who came to stop the woodlouse infestation). This is really dangerous if in areas like kitchen and toilet they do not use treated wood to prevent pest infestation. Isn't this a case of cutting costs from the IDs point of view and we suffer in the long term?

Any help is greatly appreciated as the ID is chasing me up on the outstanding payment.
 
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afcai

New Member
Hi Stoormfall,
why not voice out to ID, we also voice out our unhappiness work tasks that are not done up to our expectation. Do withhold yr last payment, dun pay first. in the end, they waived off this and that and then they just bo chap the last payment(left only 2%) after waiving, there are some defectment that we just close one eye.

anyway, it is them who are chasing after yr payment so you can take yr own sweet time and then just voice out that the work task never meet yr expectation. see what yr ID can do.
 
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asura

New Member
Hi stoormfall,

About the cabinet length. My ID says he charge me according to length, so he quotes me the maximum required. Thereafter, the price would be adjusted according to the actual length. So i think there is no reason why your ID should bill you for all 5 ft. Do measure in front of him and ask him how he get the 5 ft.
 
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openh20

New Member
hi Stormfall,

how does one know if the carpentary at kitchen and toilet areas are treated or not? i m inclined to think that mine are not treated as my ID nvr mentioned anything abt this to me and it nvr crossed my mind. i suppose treated wood wld cost more and if ignorant owners like myself nvr asked the ID, an irresponsible ID wld nvr bring it up?


i TOTALLY agree with pst that one must make it a point to make a note of all details discussed with ID/contractor as a form of protection and reminder.also, it is always gd to keep any email correspondences or important SMS between your ID and yourself as proof.

My ID (recommended by forum users here) turned out to be a disappointment and nightmare. after my reno began, a lot of communication were via SMS, which i wld usually delete. also, i usually relied on my gd memory on the things/items i wld hv agreed on with my ID instead of putting it down in black and white. in the end, my ID made many huge "mistakes" with the choice of colour and materials - i m not sure if my ID is irresponsible and forgetful, or juz plain unethical. she claimed that she had followed my instructions on the choice of colours. but honestly, some mistakes are quite impossible, e.g., i chose a dark coloured solid top but she gave me a light coloured one!

like what Asura79 pointed out, always measure the items that you are paying by length/size (e.g. cabinets/ shower screen glass). my ID also tried to get away by providing me thinner tempered glass!! i insisted she came on-site to verify.

those who are doing reno must also look out for unethical business practice. an e.g. of such unethical act i encountered was providing indonesia parquet in place of burmese parquet. does any1 know how we can tell the difference between the 2 after it has been laid??? i paid for burmese parquet (which cost more than indonesian parquet), but found to my horror that i was given indonesian parquet when i casually asked the workers laying the parquet. i questioned my ID about it but as expected, she denied and insisted it was Burmese parquet!
 
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p2me1a

New Member
hey mickey,

oh no, which ID did u go to? perhaps u shd tell ppl about this ID so that ppl wun go to her anymore...

hey, for those who have received my list - please bear in mind that they are only those I have seen before, and of them all - I only engaged one... always try to survey them yourselves and see for yourselves which ID u prefer etc etc...

hiaz some times these reno things all very heng/suay one (lucky or unlucky)... 2 couples can engage the exact same ID and have different experiences... really the only way to safeguard is really to write everything down B&W... all these IDs can't be tursted one...

mickey, maybe you should get hdbay to come do a check? or get another contractor or ID to check? I dunno if you have any contacts (can be your company's contractor or fren's father in the construction line etc)...

we were lucky in the sense that we knew of contractors (hehehe my company contractor and my FH's colleague's dad was in the construction line) so a few times when we think the ID is trying to pull a fast one - we called the contractors up to 'verify' facts with them... one example was about the kitchen doors. We'd described exactly what we wanted the doors to be. We now know it is called Membrane Doors, but when we explain to the ID - the ID say it's 45 degree doors. how in the world we know it's wrong terminology? so when they descirbed the doors to me (I made them describe and draw everything to me before we approve for them to start doing) I said it's wrong. and wanted a membrane door. They claimed that it is NOT AVAILABLE IN SINGAPORE. I didn't believe them, I remembered they were available here, but not cheap, that's all. So we checked with the contractors - true enough - they WERE AVAILABLE in Singapore - but they were very expensive. So anyway, conclusion is that I got a discount off my kitchen cabinets in return for them giving me ABS trimming. We still loogi (lose out) a bit coz ABS trim doors are one of the cheapest in the market. but I suppose I count myself lucky that I got a discount lah. but all these must fight one... FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!

all these technical things very hard for us to know... Mickey, maybe u should try searching the internet for pictures??? maybe they have them online *shrug*...

Stormfall, how did things go??? You managed to claw back some money???

BE VIGILANT guys!!!!!! DUN let these NONSENSE IDs take advantage of us!!!! :D

pst
 
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openh20

New Member
hi hi Pst,

it's me mickey, in case you r wondering..changed my nick
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hai, i was wondering if i shld put my ID coy name here cos i hv seen cases where gd intentions to warn others hv been regarded otherwise or treated as competitors. especially when some other users recommended her services.

i suspect it is because the scale of those users' reno are not as big as mine therefore not as problematic as mine. those forum users did minimal reno e.g. fixing L-Box, feature wall..no hacking works and no re-laying of tiles. hard to gauge service and quality standards when one does minimal reno?

my ID reads these forums and knew that she cld not afford to antagonise those who recommended her cos those users are super active in forums. this explains why she wld accommodate their requests and do everything to please them.

my ID knew i was only a passive reader of such forums and nvr thought i wld "contribute" due to my hectic work and she took advantage of our easy-going nature.
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the reno experience was truly a nightmare for us. even though our reno has been completed,many problems n faults are creeping up which were not apparent initially. we hv already made full payment (ID insisted we pay up on last day of reno! Really ridiculous now that i think of it. did not even hv time for inspection) for our reno which means no more bargaining power. it took forever for ID to send pple down for rectification works.

we thought of conducting an audit on parquet flooring by HDBay but no more $ liow...super broke from doing reno.also, knowing our ID, she would nvr refund us the $ even if we are able to prove now that the parquet she has supplied is from indonesia instead of burmese.
 
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p2me1a

New Member
hi steve, apologies, I only share with those who PM me. please refer to earlier posts on how to PM if you're not sure of how to do it.

hey openh20, yeah I understand your predicament. think u can only PM the name of your iD to other people when they ask u for it then. I suppose that's the easier way out. very unfortunate that you've had this experience...

the rest of you, why dun u PM mickey instead of posting in this thread itself. sometimes, I wish Chin Leng would 'clean up' the threads of all the posts asking for lists or whatever, after a certain time frame. *shrug* maybe I will msg him to suggest that... I suppose this is my pet peeve - that useful threads turn useless after many many people post simply to ask for stuff. probably a good percentage of threads all turn out like that. wld help if most of u turned on your PM/IM too...

pst
 
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godzillaoh

New Member
Aloha mickey...

sorri to hear abt ur case... yeah, i agree with adeline, you shld bring this up to CASE. afterall, u are payin for a service and its your hard earned $$$....i believe in paying for what you are getting....

do you think u can pm me the ID?
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thanks, appreciate it.
 
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queengal

New Member
Just to contribute to the list of hidden costs:

if you are hacking any wall in your flat, you gotta get a PE which costs around $300-$700.

Normally contractor will tell you an estimate but when it comes to the real hacking, the real costs may be higher, and this was not included in the quote earlier.
 
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openh20

New Member
hi all,

for those who hv pm-ed me or enquired previously, i hope i hv replied to all...pls check with me again if i did not respond as i hv been busy lately. paisay ....


hallo adeline,

i would honestly want to bring up the matter to CASE,except i m still in the midst of rectification works and can't afford to antagonise them yet!! can u believe it?! reno works have been completed more than half a yr ago, and MAJOR rectification works still on-going! during this time, we realised we were shortchanged in other areas too.

our ID is also shrewd enough to protect herself in the contract. can only blame ourselves for being too trusting in the beginning cos of the positive comments other forum users wrote abt our ID. all these while, we did not receive any receipts for all the payments we made even though we hv requested for them repeatedly. i m not sure if this is a standard industry practice. her reason for not issuing receipt was that payment was made by cheque - RIDICULOUS in my opinion.

on a separate note, does any1 hv any clue how wld CASE ascertain if my parquet is burmese or indonesian? does it mean i wld need to fork out more $ to engage an expert to determine? super broke from all that reno costs...sigh
 
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godzillaoh

New Member
Aloha openh20!
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Thanks for sharing the experience with us. I suggest that u shld bring up the the matter to CASE. they delayed ur time and shortchanged u! If this drags on, u nvr know if they will charge u on any MORE additional amounts that is not stated and said u nvr pay this and that? Also i tink it does help when u tell the id that u will move in by end of this year or something, so there is a sense of urgency(of course, not too urgent) cos usually the reno process takes abt a few mths? They will have to look forward to finishin the proj and handover to u. If after the handover u are not satisfied, u can always ask them to rectify... blah blah...

anyone have similar xperience here abt this type of situation? Mabbe can help her... cos i m not too sure abt the procedures....if go to CASE, at least u spend that amount of money to get back ur money or something.. dun let them get away with it!

I haven heard of the practice of issuing receipts (cos now i still sourcing for ids)but for me i will def ask for one. Its just to keep for records. I believe the company will have a standard invoice/receipt issued for all purchases. I suggest u demand for it. Who knows she said u din make payment? scary. Afterall its all abt protecting your interest.

Abt ur parquet, do u happen to have extra pcs left bhind by the workers? If not, I sugggest u ask for it. (make sure it matches the grains to the one u using for ur hse) I will bring that pc to ask ard in parquet shops or factories.. The one i always see is Jasonpar****... i saw their advt in home and decor mag.. probably u can go in ask them this pc of parquet is frm where... go to a few shops, i tink u will have an answer? Either way, I tink u can approach the shops and tell them abt ur experience, i believed someone will help u. U can pay them a nominal charge or pay them the fuel $$ to come down ur hse.. Def there is a solution. Do not worry too much...

Good Luck!
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Keep us posted abt ur progess.
 
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openh20

New Member
hallo godzilla,

its really nice of u to help me with ur suggestions
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i tried contacting wood/parquet specialist (one of which u hv mentioned above) yesterday to see if i can pay them to assess if my parquet is indonesian or burmese. (did not get to keep a spare piece)

the most these parquet companies can do for me is to tell from their experience if my parquet looks burmese or indonesian but can't guarantee/certify. all told me i hv no case as its their word vs my ID's word. UNLESS i engage a professional timber grader from overseas. so for now, i guess there's nothing much i can do except sulk
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this makes me wonder if there are other ID companies out there who wld have similarly ripped their customers off by providing indonesian parquet but charging burmese parquet prices! afterall, what recourse do we possibly have? and how many customers actually doubt their IDs when it comes to parquet? I wld have assumed mine is Burmese parquet if not for the fact that my ID's worker let the cat out of the bag.

i hope this bad experience serves as an lesson for all who are undergoin reno. do remember to look into details like this, make sure u get what u r payin for....
 
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godzillaoh

New Member
aloha openh20!
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Great to hear from u! Did the jasonpar**** reply u? Are they willing to help u?

I wonder if u can get hold of the company that laid the parquet for u. In any case, I tink its best that u do not fret over the entire thing if u cant determined the source of ur parquet. I wld certainly hope that u can get over this entire experience and done with and forget abt this whole nitemare thingie. I tink for now, if the parquet has been laid properly and looks professionally well done.. let it go.

For us, initially we wanted parquet as well but until we saw Supr*** Laminated Hardwood Floors. We got a direct purchase(attractive pricing) frm them and the salesman that attend to us is great. He will help us to liase with the id/contractor later on in our reno process. there is no xpiry date of when we mus use this offer and no limitations of colors. It jus feels like parquet. the most attractive feature was it has a lifetime warranty. Heard alot of IDs uses them for laminated floors cos theirs is made up of hardwood. Heard there is a diff in usin theirs and some of the Ch*na made brands. We also gettin them to do our platfoam which is also marked at a discounted price too. Heard him sayin that goin thro them is better cos ID will charge higher for the same product u be getting...

Anyway, I realised that it seems better for certain items to be direct frm the company so that if any prob arises, u can look directly for the company that holds the warranty.

Stay cool and happy!
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cote_p

New Member
hi godzilla... sounds like you got a good deal! is it much cheaper than going thru the ID? how much are you getting it for? i also thinking of having a platform for master bedrm.. where you get thei lobang?
 
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alyssa

New Member
Godzilla,

Think you should be careful of the lifetime warranty stuffs. Most likely the warranty is for material and quality. Dun think they will replace your laminated floors when they all bloat up after being submerge in water.

Supreme is one of the more affordable brands of laminated in the market. Think many IDs use them not because theirs is hardwood but because theirs is cheap. Pe*go is the most well known and yet none of the IDs offered them. I dun think P*rgo is inferior to Supreme with their experience in the industry. Anyway, salesman duty is to sell their product, hope you dun get too caught up in what they can promise. I agree with you that is better to go through the direct dealer then the ID. Things like air conditioning as well.

Hee, I must also grab a piece of my parquet and check whether is burmese or not after the reno started....
 
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godzillaoh

New Member
aloha!

I m not doing any promo here. just sharing my 2cents here. best of luck to ur reno!

Open20, good luck and keep us updated of ur progress!
 
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openh20

New Member
hallo godzilla,

yes yes i contacted jasonp****** too
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they were pretty nice, told me the truth that there isnt much i cld do n the only thing companies like them cld do was give their comments based on their experience.

i have now moved on to other bigger concerns with my contractor.carpentary for newly installed cabinet is now wet/damp due to water pipe leakage !
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wondering how unlucky can 1 possibly get!

hi alyssa,
ya...i think its a gd idea to keep a piece of the parquet for verification purposes
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gd luck to all who are in the midst of searching for a gd ID
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p2me1a

New Member
hi daryl, I have stated this many times, I only share with those who PM me. please refer to earlier posts on how to PM if you're not sure of how to do it. :D

will ignore all such posts in future!

sorry guys! my pet peeve! hehehe...

pst
 
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stevy

New Member
Hi, I will be doing up my house soon. Hope those who have experience can share your views so that we can GUARD ourselves against those black sheep and also advice those inexperience ID!!!

One ID whom I haven spoken to give me a few pointers about "hidden costs"
One thing we need to take care of is the rubbish chute. For those resale flats, the costs of replacing a rubbish chute is often "left out" of the quotation. Only when your flat is halfway done, then they will advise you to change to a new one. (Extra Cost!!!)
 
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ahfaye

New Member
hi gals,

Would like to recommend my contractor . He is relaly good!! he is friendly and creative.. will inspire you with a lot of ideas... and he is flexible in terms of pricing!! let me know if you are interested to get his contact. [email protected]
 

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