I'm glad my nightmare is ended.

The Indon contractor recommended to me by a close friend, that he did some good jobs. I trusted my friend's referral and hire the contractor.

In the early phase, things went well. You see progress every week. Work slowed down in second phase with occasional excuses not coming to work. Things get worst in the final phase. He do not turn up for work as if he come in as will. As a result, my reno took 5.5 months (without touch ups) to complete. They asked for payment fast.

I thought that sub labor is a good approach as one has the choice of building materials. Well, I do not think so any more simply you do not have control over them. They lure you with a good quotation and compound with every changes. In the end, there would be any savings. You get headache and tremendous risk. My hardware supplier told me that it is one in a million chances that you get a good Indon contractor. This has got nothing to do with
nationality or what.

Sub labor + risks + your time = Completed Project

The risks with sub labor are :
They might abandon the project and vanish in thin air.
They might use your materials for other projects.
They tend do things the way they feel right.
To my amazement, they throw the problems to you (especially with materials selected by you).
They played the blaming game.

I'm a reasonable guy with reasonable expectations. I did PR, spent them meal and even give ang pows for CNY. I tell you, they will exploit your kindness. You would not like to have confrontation with them as you do not know what is in their head. They might duplicate keys for future break in. So, taking precaution measures like changing lock is inevitable.

So speaking from experience, I rather engage a reno company than sub labor. Things will get even worst if you do not have time to supervise. Do the rich man do, pay for professionalism and save cost.

I'm sorry if my post upset you. I just feel glad that my reno is done and pay the contractor off because I do not like their attitude. I could do the touch ups on my own.

hi limch, so can you recommend any good contractor that does grilling, kitchen cabinet, wiring, sliding door and other misc things ?

Hi lim, I m glad that ur Reno is done.
I heard so many stories about indon contractor.
I m also looking for reno, I still go with Msian, though
There are same % of good indon contractor.
At least yours is completed, I heard sometime
they go at the last phase of the project as
they ran out of money or cabut.
Good advice!!

Please for all of you who wants to Reno, please please just hire a main con/Reno company. More importantly hire a good experienced designer. Unless of course you have a lot of time. And I mean a LOT of time.

The money you save by hiring sub contractors yourself is not worth the time nor your sanity.

Very important that you hire a good designer. It is very well worth the money. Think of it this way, you are going to spend lots of money on doing your house, what is 10% more. A good designer will give you better value for your money. Spend RM100k but look like RM200k. They will find creative solutions that will give value to your home.

Think of a sub con like a driver, he knows how to make the car move, but without a good navigator(designer) he will not know where to go or what to do. A good navigator(designer) will make sure you get to where you want to go. A driver with no directions is useless. Unless of course you want to be the navigator and sit beside the driver pointing and screaming all the way...

Grilling : ThreeKim. Contact Ivy 0122149382. Good price, above average workmanship, good installtion. Really good one are those apply putty at welding joint and sand off to give a smooth finishing. Much like car muggard. Harp Seng Alloy, Stephen Lee 0122313672. Specialises in wrought iron. Finer finishing, expect a steeper pricing. I visited their factory.

Kitchen cabinet : Crimson Enterprise. Contact Max Ong 0122823830. I used stainsteel steel kitchen. Double the price of standard MDF. Good workmanship, good build quality. Just don't get door for concrete kitchen table from them. RM180 per foot run. Your friendly glass shop can get for RM70 per foot run.

Wiring : Mr Chan. 0192757593. Standard price, flexible. I changed the location of switches many times. No extra charge for me.

Door : I get a Wangli China made door. The thing with chinese metal door is the lock. It is not that secure as people can still break in especially door with chinese lock. Wangli uses Abloy lock. For good quality Nyatoh wooden door for reasonable price, Winwood Ent Many Kwan 0122388981.

Alu window : Teamhouz Alu Glass work. Contact 0127908633. The popular one thick alu frame with light green glass, you can not find better price than him. RM30++psf, other quoted me RM50++. They came and touch up paint work.

Ceramic tile : Go to White Horse showroom in Selayang and Kimgress showroom in PJ. Otherwise, kena chop also do not know. For polish tile, visit Sing Mee in PJ 03-77810985. Good variety.

Carpet : Wait til they install on Tuesday. They are clearing some carpet, really really good deal.

Sofa : I bought leather sofa from Futuresofa. I pay attention to structural, padding, thickness and quality of leather and stiching. The guy almost wanted to hire me as I tried his sofas and give him my opinion. Haha! Other branded one, will not come near. Please go to Klang branch and mention my name Lim from Puchong.

I got some of the lead from this very forum and others from close contacts.

Cheers.

SP Motion Sdn Bhd
Eric @ 016 211 2359
Vincent @ 016 211 2361

call either one , said Koo from salak south recommended ,

they were fast with their jobs , bringing in 4-5 workers everyday ...

quotation wised very detail of every aspect of material and finishing

Agreed with Bishop, go for a local main con/ID (if you afford). I made a mistake of engaging them. You see, I planned structural changes without realising the beam locality. Get the main con/ID to the house and identify the beam and work out if the beam could be removed. And sometimes, the beam play hide and seek with you. The unexpected hidden beam right in a wall, not a the corner but half way the wall.

My Indon contractor started asking money the third day he worked and fly back home to Surabaya just a little more than 1 month of work. Came back 2 weeks later to continue work :-(

I have heard this "Do not mess with Maidura people."

Good to learn some construction knowledge. Go buy yourself a long water spirit and use them with every site inspection. They will know you are knowledgeable and would not be funny with you. Before painting, skim coat all the wall. People can tell if your house is of a good reno job.

Hold payment until your instruction is carried out.

---

Added on May 1, 2011, 9:35 amYou are absolutely right about this.

This post has been edited by limch: May 1 2011, 09:38 AM

Hiring the sub con direct 'might' save you some money. The extra that you pay for the main con/ID is for coordination and logistic. Also for accountability.

You hire sub con direct, when something goes wrong the they blame that the previous contractor didn't do it nicely. Then you will get passed around a lot. If you get a main con/ID then you just deal with one person. He will organize everything for you and if anything goes wrong you just hold him responsible.

More importantly if you get a good ID you will get a better Spatial layout. I see many DIY Reno where the extension and layout is so bad that they waste space or make some very uncomfortable space.

You will actually save money because you will get clear directions and only do something once. No rehacking, no moving wall because after you put it up it seems too small/tight or something can't fit in there. No selecting colours or tiles that you thought looks nice in the showroom/catalog but when you put it in your house it looks like crap. Get it rite first time. Good ID will also show you artist impression before you start, then you know the out come, product you will be getting.

And if they are good then your budget will be tighter. They will know all the scope of work that needs to be done and get costing for it. You will get minimal budget "surprises".

This post has been edited by Bishop: May 1 2011, 12:16 PM

I think this is the keyword here. There are many lousy IDs.

I'm not sure how is it in other states, but in Penang, there's many of those IDs specializing in kitchen.
Indeed the kitchens are all very nice, but then you realized that they are all modular kitchens. Just buy and install. Very minimal design ideas.

This post has been edited by xecton: May 4 2011, 06:04 PM

Hi, May i know what is the normal charges for wiring services.I'm doing major renovation for my house and i need to rewire the whole house,my contractor quote me about rm70 per plug point,rm35 per light & rm150 for aircon.is it reasonable pls advise,thx

It is about right. All socket and switches of Clipsal were included. He helps me to install all electrical items incl. water heater, lighting, fan and etc. Go with the contractor you most comfortable with.

In my case, I asked my contractor for separate line for my home theatre room. My bill came up to RM7k+.

Alternately, he could charge you daily labor charges. You supply accessories. In my case, I trusted him. Funny thing is he will hack but your construction contractor to patch.

My advise to you, plan your socket. Probably every 10 ft per socket. Also plan your unifi wiring too.

---

Added on May 4, 2011, 10:40 pmThe home owner must know what he wants first. Reading helps. Then throw the concept and budget to the ID.

In my case, I know what I want and there is little to do with ID.

However, there are many pantang for Chinese. I doubt that many ID know. However, Fengshui master can correct the wrong too. Modern designs ignore these pantang.

This post has been edited by limch: May 4 2011, 10:40 PM

Also depend if the socket points are looping or direct. My quote are RM 150 per socket, no looping. Meaning if you have 20 sockets without looping you get 20 din fuse.

My wiring cost is about 12k, all entire house redo, with 2 DB box.

Same nightmare of reno work



their way of thinking is entirely different from us, for whatever reason.

i paid off the contractor too, and doing the finising and touch ups to my house with the kids

Hi, Lim.
Thanks for your share about the experience.
No doubt, engage with subcon may save $$ if compare with main con/ID
but have to pay more time to do inspection

bear with only one person, will save a lot of hassle.
some more main con/ID can give useful advice, that is what we dont know 1...since we're not familiar with this field, right?
but in fact, we had to pay more $$ on main con/ID bcoz ppl use their time/experience/money to share with us....

pay less $$ = troublesome
pay more $$ = more senang a bit
can i do the equation like this?

how about chinese contractor but all his worker are indon?

If they Main person hold responsibility, than is ok. Else is hard to chase them.

Yup. It's depend on the character of the person in charge.
but there must have some lucky guy over there

This post has been edited by jforjean: May 5 2011, 05:31 PM

Yes something like that.

To know to quality of the ID is very easy. Listen to the questions they ask. A good ID will need to ask many questions before they can do the design.

What style you want?
What space you want?
What space you need?
What you want to put here?
Why you need that?
How you want to use this space?
What you plan to do here?
Etc....

Imagine the ID like a doctor, need to know what is the problem before giving the medication.

I bad ID won't ask anything. You tell you want living and bedroom and he will say ok. The he give you design.

Imagine you go to doctor and say you are sick and he said ok and just give you Panadol .

Listen to the quality of the questions asked, will tell you the quality of the ID.

well said, can't agree more

Yeah...Really well saying! :
you seem like very familiar with this? are you working in this field or hav any special experience with subcon/maincon/ID