In June I found 4 contractors via kaodim.com, to come over to look at one subsale property I bought and give quotes. Only two came over, and the other two when realised the jobs are quite extensive, did not reply after that. I finalized one main contractor EA Alam Reka located in Wangsa Melawati. Quite established with a few ongoing projects. Have own website and Facebook as well. Even saw their profile in Houzz. So I thought it should be secured. But I was wrong. Job started in June and I have just ended their 5th attempt on "rectification job" this afternoon, for a property less than 950sqft. Basically, they have this smooth-talker Hafidz to source for projects (even created a subsidiary company from the main company and called it "MamyHome" where he calls himself the COO) and then marked-up the price and passed it along to a few sub-contractors to do the jobs. This is where the problem started. From the onset, the quotation was supposed to include full plaster ceiling replacement. Not knowing that I have myself a spare key, they went ahead and patched up the old downlights and created new slots. I went to the site a few days later before they were able to patch it up. Confronted the same chap, and he said he is not aware. Of course he is not aware, no one was actually supervising the job at all! Basically, they came out with an architectural drawing and passes it around to the sub-cons. Without changing the plaster ceiling, the two ceiling fans I bought ended up too low and not practical to be installed, unless I decided to have ad-hoc haircut every morning when I wake up from the bed. Both fans are now sitting in my living room as ornaments. Then one of their sub-cons hacked and routed wrongly the hot water piping. Halfway through, managed to forget to install the drainage trap, and installed the wash basin too low that I can actually kneel and brush my teeth. Their electrician is another wayward fella with enough creativity to pull and run wiring at his own liking. One downlight in the bathroom was installed at one random area of his liking as he needs to fulfill the minimum number of downlights and even took the liberty of removing one essential downlight from the proposed location (I did not find out until the completion when I checked against the original proposal). Best part about these electrical wiring was that he pulled everything in that bathroom (5 lights and 1 exhaust fan) into a single switch when I originally requested for 2 lights to 1 switch. Pendant lights on top of the island were pulled to the main door entrance light. 4 lights to one switch across the living room. And all lights in second room to a single switch. The ONLY thing he did right, was to split the master bedroom 2 lights to one switch. I mean, seriously... if he can see the needs to comply for the master bedroom, why not the rest of the house??? Then the same Hafidz claimed this was not written down in the agreement and he forgot what was discussed earlier. Halfway through the renovation, I was thinking of changing out the two exhaust fans (one in kitchen and one in the bathroom). But before that, I requested that they check and ascertain that both can be used. They quoted around 1K to change out both fans and claimed that the hoses were defective and better to change out. This is when I decided to make a trip to the site again. I was lucky that they left the ladder after work. So I climbed up and was shocked that both exhaust fans are high quality blower type with the "hoses" made from stainless steel, also in stellar condition. Took the photos and WhatsApp to Hafidz and he said he was not aware and merely following the suggestion of his sub-con. He even quoted an additional 1.7k to replace my MCB, claiming that it will not be able to take the load. I was pondering about the additional charges when I bumped into the building maintenance folks, who then told me that the original MCB is designed to take additional installations without changing out. Even quoted examples from some other units they have recently serviced. Painting was done poorly, with visible patches. They even forgot to paint one of the walls they plastered! Floor was supposed to be washed, but after 4 times of washing, you know they are simply not interested. Smell of urine from the "newly" renovated bathroom, white plaster stains all over the house, poor patch up jobs on walls, dirty and occasional paint marks on newly installed switches, faceplates from switches not properly aligned (zero alignment ruler used) and poor painting job (previous paint still visible!). At the end of the renovation, we went through the costing and found out that I have overpaid as some of the items were changed out and delivered sub-standards. He refused to give back the refund and said his Finance Department (sounds like a huge company, right?) cannot refund the money, despite this was what he promised earlier. He even added on additional charges that were not discussed beforehand (one of the items were double-quoted) in order to make up the amount to match the previous numbers. Last minute add-on (unprofessional stuff) like RM450 to even out cement surface across a 250sqft area, he claimed he gave free for the tiles skirting installation charges as his original quote is only for floor tiles and not including the skirting, around RM300 to pick-up the tiles from ground floor into the apartment (distance of less than 10m). So I asked for his boss's number to request refund. He gave Amin's phone number (one of the owners of EA Alam Reka). This guys picked up my first call and claimed he was driving and will call me back later. He never did, so I called him instead but he did not bother to pick up my 2nd call and only sent an SMS a day later that he will call me. That was 5 days ago. I tried again today but to no avail. Lessons learnt are many. I might edit and add more stuff if I happen to recall. But all in all, this is one heartache journey. At the time of writing this, I am in the midst of sourcing for independent electrician who is able to rectify the problems without incurring too much cost and some odd-jobs worker to help re-paint and really clean the apartment. This is an example of how things can go wrong if you leave it entirely to the main contractor, if he/she happens to be an unprofessional one. Websites and internet can be misleading. To safe-guard yourself, it is always advisable not to rush into renovation work. Let the quotes come in, then understand each item. Write down each item as detailed as possible, do not let rooms for unwanted creativity. You might portray yourself as over-cautious, but this will save you in a long run when defining tasks in any renovation projects. I wish anyone of you who are about to embark on this renovation journey to have a better and wonderful experience as you see your dream home turning from ideas to reality.

Best wishes,
Van

This post has been edited by vanhelsing007: Sep 30 2015, 10:17 PM