Latest with the roofs over the front and back completed, and ceiling works has begun. The walls have also been cement screeded.
Polycarbonate end of the back roof completed.
Ceiling boards being installed.
Cement screed for walls are done.
Gate on the side ready to be installed.
My mail will reside in here in future.
The saga of bad bureaucracy, and cover ass like no other, continues.
I posted before about HDB being so kia si and made us go on a merry-go-round, first directing us to URA for approval, and now to BCA. And guess what … BCA now says no need to come to them in the first place. This is what my contractor wrote to my PE after consultation with BCA a few days ago …
‘As spoken this afternoon, I had went down to BCA this morning to seek for pre-consultation. I was told by the BCA officer that our case not required to submit for BCA approval subjected that the PE able to confirm with cover letter and endorsement stated that this additional clay tile roof at the front entrance is only a light weight structure 9(<3m) which consider as “insignificant” works that not required any submission under Schedule 1.
As such, we appreciated your PE is able to give us the above letter for our onward submission to HDB to settle the case and obtain the clearance from HDB ASAP.’
How wonderful, HDB, and our bureaucracy … more time and money wasted … and my poor contractor having to run around like a fool because of their ineptness.
Works are going fast and roof is up. Jordan thinks it’s slow so that’s good. Always good to have a contractor on the ball.
As I went behind I noticed that we were about to seal up by back wall. As you can see from this picture below, my neighbour, the unit opposite me whose back wall is adjacent to mine, had sealed up her side of the compound up to the edge. However, for reasons only known to herself, she decided to create a window, be it to allow access into my unit, or for ventilation, I don’t know. One things for sure, now that I am the new owner, I ain’t allowing my privacy to be invaded this way so we are sealing up the wall like her for sure, but no, ain’t leaving an opening for this window.
This is my backyard before construction started. The wall on the left belongs to this neighbour opposite mine with adjoining backyards. They have put the wall up to seal their backyard but created the window there assuming there would be no one ever living here, or rather, they don’t care … too bad.
I saw the owner of this unit today when I was taking photos on the second floor. She was peering out from her second floor window, calling out to my worker who was doing some welding to be careful not to burn her awning with the flakes from the welding. I decided to walk across to her front door to say ‘hi’ and tell her myself that we will seal up my side of the wall, out of courtesy.
I introduced myself and before I could say anything, she quickly rattled off that she was telling my worker not to allow the flakes from the welding to burn her awning. I assured her the flakes from the welding won’t be able to do that but she said the same thing again, in a very earnest, ignorant and maybe slightly self-believing manner. I knew there and then that I was up against it, a different wall, and nothing I say is gonna get through to her, and she is the type who believes what she wants is absolute and there will be no regard for others’ inconveniences. I cut her off and just told her I was gonna seal the back wall on my side and wanted to let her know. She didn’t hear me well at first, and probably only heard the words back wall and rattled on again to explain that she had put up the wall because the unit was empty and it was possibly breeding mosquitoes. She included a window there as a fire escape. I told her again I was sealing up my side, and that includes sealing her window. She then had a horrified expression on her face and said,’but what if there is a fire?’ and went on to say she’s selling her place in 2 years cos she bought an EC and that she will have to take down the wall and restore to original condition as per HDB’s ruling and that will effect me blah blah blah … I had to cut her off again saying, ‘What you do is your business. If you sell, HDB tell you to do what, it’ll be at your end, your wall. If HDB so decide to tell me to do so as well, that’s my problem and also the same for every single unit in this neighborhood who have done likewise. So I don’t see what your point is. I am not asking you, I am here to inform you nicely I am putting up the wall. Thank-you.’ … she then tried to play daft saying, ‘really? I don’t know that everyone here has done likewise …’ I just smiled and said goodbye. Went back over and told Jordan and Wee Keng (who came to look see) about the conversation and had a good laugh.
I’ve met some of my other neighbours around here. Most are rather nice. This is the first one who is a little off … The thing is this. I come across such people more often than not. People who presumably want their way and have no care for other people’s rights and privacy, much like my current landlord (I’ll talk about in my next post). This woman expected me to keep that window there so that she can continue to peer into my house as and when she wants??? With a f***** up excuse that it’s a fire escape?? She must be mad.
Anyway, here are more picture of the progress on site.
Latest look on site.
More stuff, cement, tiles, etc. had arrived.
Just thought this is an interesting shot. The image in the reflection didn’t turn out as well.
Current condition of the backyard.
Welder working on the roof structure at the back yard.
Pipes being laid upstairs.
I now have a roof over my head … for when I am downstairs at least. 🙂
Underside of the roof.
Just loads of pictures this time so show the progress on site. Pictures taken on Sunday, 1st Sept 2013.
Works in full swing.
Walls for toilet and dad’s room are up, roof tiles ready …
Closer look at the roof tiles.
Letter box relocated. Not sure if the mail man knows now where to deposit the letters …
Dunno why I took this shot …
View of the back of the house.
Upstairs … ready for waterproofing, sand and screed.
Structure for the shower and toilet on the left side are up …
Ceiling opened up to be extended to the pitched roof. The low level trusses have been removed and the higher level trusses reinforced.
Roof structure up in the front yard.
Just demonstrating depth of field. Nothing special here …
I’m a sucker for lines in pictures … this one literally … :-p
Roof structure at the backyard up as well …
We finally started the construction phase on 15th Aug, Thurs. Within 2 days this was the result. I have to say, they are very very fast. These pictures were taken on Sunday 18th Aug.
Front of the house, walls down and demolished, yard flattened in no time.
Vegetation removed, front yard flattened.
Walls upstairs hacked. Ceiling opened up to the roof.
Layout plans for the demolition works.
We were concurrently submitting for clearance with BCA. We had this discussion a few days before and I still shake my head bewilderment … what has BCA got to do with his? Even the contractor guru of Jalan Bahagia was baffled when I told her. In essence, even though HDB has given in-principle approval, they stated they wanted BCA’s endorsement for final approval (I smell a very smelly backside … needs to cover, man …).
I was there on site with Vincent, my liquid paper flipping, nonsense spouting partner in crime from secondary school. He is now a professional photographer, a very good one at that.* He wanted to come down to take some shots and do a before / after project. I was of course more than happy to let him take a stab at it. We were there at 3pm and while the photos were taken, with our usual fair amount of bantering, I was also waiting for CK to come by in the meantime to update us and talk about some site issues.
By 4pm, Vincent was finishing up and I had called CK since 3pm and texted him, but he hasn’t replied. By the time Vincent left at 4pm, I was wondering if CK was gonna turn up … Shan was getting tired, and my dad was getting hungry (at home waiting for me to buy dinner back). I was about to text CK that I’d had to leave soon if he wasn’t coming when my phone rang. It was CK. He had gotten into an accident and was in A&E of TTSH. Asked me to call his wife, gave me her no.
I called her number a few times but it was off, so we decided to head to TTSH anyway to make sure he was ok and if there was anything we could do to help. Called dad to tell him we’ll be a little late and to have a few more pieces of bread first, ‘Remember there’s ham in the fridge’, I said.
Got to the hospital and managed to get through to CK’s wife. Her phone was charging. And she had received a call from a stranger earlier telling her CK got into an accident, and she scolded the man ‘神精病’, thought it was a hoax, given CK just dropped her and Ryan off 10 mins before. She was clearly shaken and made her way to the hospital immediately. We got to see CK briefly in the meantime and told him that his wife was on the way, and put his mind at rest. Seems that some stupid driver came to a T Junction, did not stop, dashed out as CK was on the straight and could not avoid. Airbags deployed during the collision and while he was largely unhurt in most areas, the airbags caused his left hand which was on the handbrake to drag back and caused a gash on his arm, and his right hand on the steering was pushed back but in an awkward manner, causing 3 fingers on his right hand to suffer fractures. We waited till his wife got to the hospital to direct her to CK, before we headed home.
Too many irresponsible drivers on the roads these days. Even as I drive a lot lesser on the road now (largely on weekends only) as compared to 3 years ago, the number of idiotic drivers on the road that I encounter in my journeys seems to have increased many fold. So, this means that the number of idiots on the road has risen exponentially, by my observation. I tend to see it as very reflective of our society, middle income and above people who are largely oblivious to others. You see them everywhere on the trains, in the streets, and especially on our roads. Switching lanes without signaling, obviously not checking to see if there was space to change lanes and just switching as and when they want, not looking ahead and planning their routes. All things taught in driving schools, which are actually common sense, out the window. You know you are going to exit ahead and start filtering to the centre with ample time to switch lanes, not switch from right to left within 100m of the exit on the f******* expressway. Am pissed off this happened to my friend. But, it’s beyond anyone’s control if an idiot runs out like that … the chances of this happening is getting increasingly high on our increasingly congested roads and increasing number of idiots …
To all my mates out there, we’ll all need to be a lot more careful on the roads.
*Anyone needs photography services, do let me know and I’ll refer to Vincent… highly recommended and doesn’t charge an arm and a leg.
(This is a very wordy post with no pictures so if that is what you are looking for then wait for the next post).
Yes … when it comes to renovations, it’s fashionable to always blame the contractors. But in my case, I call it the Curious Case of Dealing with the Authorities, not Benjamin Button. But the concept is pretty much the same as Benjamin Button’s as it seems that while we have been progressing so much as a nation and lauded by our politicians blah blah and all credit to them blah blah etc … we are moving backwards to where we started in our public administration on the ground. Let me explain …
The amount of delays we have had since we signed the S&P Agreements have been well beyond what we could have possibly factored. And normally, from experience and from what everyone says, ‘it’s always the contractor’. If they say 2 months then better factor 3. If they say 3 months then better factor 6! This rings very true especially when I did my last reno with a certain well reputed firm here called OrangeCube, who delayed the hand over by more than 3 months and had a psycho ID (my close friends know the story and I can see them all laughing if they are reading this and will probably have a go at me the next time we meet …). But not for this case. Jordan, my contractor, is very fast and on the ball. The delays come from our authorities, from the time of the 1st appointment with HDB all the way to the submission of plans for the renovations / A&A.
After we signed the papers to begin the sale process, the first appointment with HDB was set in mid-May. On the day, the appointment was set in the early afternoon, around 2pm, and I was there early and met with the seller, Mr Tan, his sister and his agent. Mr Tan is an elderly man, in his 70s I think. He has not lived in the property in question for 5 years now and has been living with his sister who takes care of his daily needs and affairs. Upon being introduced, he apologized, for that he could only talk in very short breathes … he said that he was on a respirator for most of his mornings and struggled with his breathing without it, so he had hoped this would be quick and painless with HDB. He seems a chatty fellow and I could see from his eyes he wanted to genuinely have a conversation with me, but was really limited by his physical condition. Poor guy. Anyway it was supposed to be a formality with HDB … current owner goes in to sign the papers plus a 5 min briefing by the HDB officer, and then myself likewise.
Anyway, firstly, I recalled that the HDB officer was delayed by half an hour. After the delay, and after Mr Tan and team went in, my agent and I were kept waiting out there for more than an hour. So by the time I went in and took less than 5 mins to complete my end of the deal, we came out and found out why there was such a delay. You see, Mr Tan is the first owner of this property. Hell … the floor plan still says SIT and not HDB so go beat that. He had already finished paying for the flat a long time ago (about 10 years into the lease, something most of us will never dream of). Hence, he possessed the title deeds to his home. Most, if not all of us who can’t and probably never be able to afford to pay outright cash to buy property, will never live to see our title deeds cos it will reside with the banks. Mr Tan had this privilege of holding possession to his own title deed, a privilege he didn’t think much about and actually misplaced his title deed long ago. He had a photocopy which he presented to HDB in this instance. Fair enough in that HDB did not accept the photocopy and told him / them that Mr Tan would need to go through a statutory declaration to replace his title deed. And, a big point of contention for them was that the cost of this process to replace his title deed was around ($)700 freaking bucks, hence I see why and what they must’ve been arguing about.
On my part, what frustrated me was that HDB had to set an appointment for him to see the lawyers at HDB in another 2 weeks, and then allow HDB another further 2 weeks after that for processing, so overall the 2nd appointment with HDB to complete the S&P will be set back by slightly more than 1 month to mid Jul. This obviously pissed me off as every month’s delay meant extra month’s rental paid for the existing premises. So I guess my questions were:
– I’m sure HDB has a legal dept within the building. Could Mr Tan not have gone upstairs somewhere to have his statutory declaration done immediately? Are their lawyers or their legal admin that busy??!! Hell, even the officer there herself could’ve administered a statutory declaration as a public officer there and then. This would have saved us 2 weeks.
– And while the statutory declaration and verification and replacement of his title deeds are done, couldn’t HDB have proceeded with everything else concurrently? Are they so inept that the whole world stops until they see a physical piece of document? Surely they have it in their records who the legal owner of this property was and the old man in question was standing in front of them with his identification card etc. Is that not proof enough to cross check with their records that this is correct? So why could they not have continued this process concurrently?
– Does it really need to cost $700??!! If not for my general loathing of the legal profession’s high handedness, I would seriously encourage my children to become lawyers and swear to stop laughing at lawyer jokes.
Freaking so many years to fine-tune their processes to be more efficient and it now feels like the law of diminishing returns has set in … they have gone backwards and are doing a Benjamin Button. So while it seems to only have cost the Mr Tan $700 with this loss of a piece of document, it has cost me another $1,600 which HDB obviously don’t give a shit about. I’m so f****** glad I did not join them when I graduated. I might’ve killed myself by now.
So … even before reno starts, I already faced a one month delay. Thank-you, HDB! I love you so much!
So fast track to mid-Jul and we have finally completed the 2nd appointment at HDB on 9th Jul 2013. The day I started paying my mortgages for this new place and can’t live in it yet.
By then, I have appointed Jordan as my main contractor for this job. Not the cheapest quote. Not really cheap at all but I had assurances that he is good, and CK had worked with him quite often. This was key as even if I can get another contractor at a slightly cheaper price, no amount of money can make up for it if things go wrong. CK and Jordan have a good understanding and that is very important for me and so far CK has been spot on. Jordan is very responsive and once site work has started, he has been very very fast and ahead of schedule. (More on that in the next post).
Jordan submitted the drawings and plans to HDB for approval almost immediately and low and behold, they were summoned to HDB who told them they would need another few weeks to approve and also need to get URAs approval, as we need to replace the roof that covers the porch and the backyard extension. The HDB officer even said that they had no records of the back extension hence he said his superiors were likely to recommend that we go to URA (who then said it was HDB who needed to approve first before they can proceed, and so forth, and so forth …). This would set us back by another month. My question was that when HDB inspected the place, if they had no records of the back yard extension, then why did they not mention it?? In any case, we went ahead with all parties concerned but now told that rather than to go to URA, we should go to BCA instead. Even as a graduate from B.Sc.(Estate Management) and having worked in public agencies for 10 years, I really am lost with what the f*** is going on. What I do know is I have to incur another few thousand dollars in costs for submissions and more wasted time. All the years of handling projects of similar nature that these public agencies have gathered had obviously gone to waste. They could have learnt from past cases and help future cases avoid all the time wasting, but seems not to be the case. The joke was even that the HDB officer kept referring Jordan to talk to another contractor who has done some work in the area and is familiar with the process and procedures … I know this contractor (not nice to name to preserve her privacy) and we have spoken on a few occasion and has been very very nice to me and providing info wherever possible. But it is NOT FAIR that HDB keeps referring people to her to answer questions they themselves should be answering. Furthermore, the contractor is a professional, and has no need to share professional experience with anyone else. Professional knowledge means money, but it seems time and again our public agencies has little regard for that. Who does HDB think they are? I really see that as bullying and passing the buck to someone else just because they are lazy or inept, but are sitting in a position of power to do so. And being in the positon they are in, they know people don’t want to offend them either so they get away with it. Seems to mirror my frustrations as to what is wrong with our political climate but that’s another story for another day, though manifested in some form here.
Well, Jordan has gone ahead to get HDB and BCAs endorsements concurrently and also permission to proceed with wet works first. Hence we could finally get some work done on site and get things going in mid Aug. Even though it’s within the festival of the hungry ghost, Jordan did do some ‘symbolic’ work a day before to signify we started work before that … that should put the workers at ease. Based on his timeline we should hopefully complete all by 1st week of Oct. Given some buffer, I’m hopeful to move in on 1st Nov.
We shall see … hasta la proxima ‘post’ … In the meantime, this is the revised schedule, already delayed by one month … let’s hope there will be no more spanners from our dear authorities.
Living In And Around Happy Street 