Starting this thread to consolidate and share my unit renovation progress for all to see and comment. Any constructive criticism is welcomed.

Summary of Unit:
N'dira Townhouse intermediate lower unit (Type A) with built-up of 2,207 sqft
Obtained keys: Dec 2020
Defect check completed: Jan 2021
Reno start: Late Jan 2021

Defect Summary:
Minor pipe leak at toilet bidet
Misalignment of shower heads and taps
Minor tile cracks
Minor paint stains, chips & dents

Reno Scope of Works:
Interior Design - self
Kitchen & Carpentry Work - Kitchen Contractor
Plumbing (Hot & Cold) - General Contractor
Lighting & Electrical Wiring - Electrical Contractor
Air Conditioning - AC Contractor
Plaster Ceiling - General Contractor
Flooring - General Contractor
Painting - General Contractor
Curtains - Curtain Contractor
Grill/Mesh Doors - TBD

List of Items to be Purchased
Living room furniture
Dining table & chairs
Fridge
Washing Machine
Master bedroom, bedroom 2 & study room furniture
All lighting & fan fixtures
Kitchen sink & tap
All shower fixtures
Hot water storage

There would be no changes to unit structure so no permits are required other than renovation documentation and deposit submission to JMB. Hoping to keep total budget around RM 120K (fingers crossed)

Attached is the perspective drawing for the unit for reference.

This post has been edited by xerofear: May 27 2021, 11:02 PM


Attached File(s)
 Perspective_Drawing.pdf ( 1.95mb ) Number of downloads: 153

Before Reno

GF Living, Dining & Kitchen


DB Box in Utility Room under Stairs


GF Bedroom


Bedroom 2


Master Bedroom


This post has been edited by xerofear: Feb 24 2021, 02:56 PM

Start of Renovation

Start of Reno


Plaster Ceiling & Kitchen Subway Tiles


Master & Bedroom 2 Plaster Ceiling Works

Reno Update 24 Feb

GF Plaster Ceiling Completed


L1 Plaster Ceiling Completed



Hot Water Tank Installation



Wiring, Lighting & Fan


Have yet to purchase T5 lighting for the L-box plaster ceiling. Not sure which colour temperature to go with. My eyeball lighting are 4000K. Is it advisable to go 3000K for T5 or would it look weird?

This post has been edited by xerofear: Feb 24 2021, 03:54 PM

Why not use LED light strip

The T5's I'm planning to use are LED type. Noob here, whats the pros and cons between the T5 LED and LED strip?

W.r.t the DB box
This is why get an electrician is better.. gen con

1. No 10mA RCD for water heater is against regulations.

Electricity Regulations 1994
Regulation 36. Protection against earth leakage current.

For an installation in a place where the floor is likely or where the wall or enclosure is of low electrical resistance, protection against earth leakage current shall be afforded for any final circuit supplying electricity to any equipment, either individually or in a group, by a residual current device having a rated residual operating current not exceeding 10mA.



 ST_Guideline_for_The_Design_Installation_Inspection_Testing_Operation_and_Maintenance_of_Water_Heater_Systems.pdf ( 4.49mb ) Number of downloads: 15


2. Priorities in the wrong place (w.r.t wire sizing for AC and WH).

WH current model (instant heater) 3600W Pana/Hitachi, 3800W Toshiba/Rinnai. Easily 16Anominal running current. Only 2.5mm cable for such heavy load device? ST recommends 4mm.
WH current model (storage tank) 3000W Joven. Also not a light load device.

Aircon current model only use like 5-7A nominal current (1-2hp) need 4mm cable?
It has peak load only at the point when motor start but if inverter (VFD) model the current draw is the lowest among all starting method.


3. For the 100mA whole house RCD, its a waste of money putting that in (alongside a 30mA whole house RCD)

100mA is the legally maximum allowed tolerance for the fixed apparatus (lights AC and fan) portion, meaning, instead of using two blocks 30mA and a 100mA, the single 30mA can easily do the job to cover the entire house circuit.
30mA for 13A socket safe. But what if you got distracted or someone turn on the switch by mistake when you change a lightbulb? That is on 100mA...

The 100mA is NOT a required "must put in parallel item". Historically back then (20-30 years back) people all use flourescent tube, non-inverter AC, non-inverter fridge. These (back then) tend to trip sensitive RCDs because they were rather lossy devices.

Nowadays all use very efficient almost lossless LED, no point risking it for 100mA, as 30mA whole house RCD safer (in case any appliance anywhere faulty you still can buy me a coffee).
100mA RCD cannot and will not save human life in fault condition. It only protect against fire risk. >50mA bye bye.
Only 30mA RCD can save human life. Its a very common thing to use 30mA in US, UK, AU especially for schools and residential installation.

This post has been edited by ceo684: Feb 27 2021, 02:50 AM

Hmm not sure if I'm getting your main point correctly
TS house electrical installation is not following standard and developer is cost cutting on electrical stuffs by using only 2.5mm size cables and higher amp RCCB?

This post has been edited by apalexar: Feb 27 2021, 04:43 AM

According to diagram
1. WH circuit not follow standard (missing 10mA RCD)
Fix: put in 10mA RCD (statutory requirement for wet floor circuit)

2. Heavy load wire smaller than light load?
Meaning to say..if its already like that n didnt hack (stuck with it);
But if already redoing wiring (insofar as relocate DB =redo wiring) might as well do it right.

3. The RCD higher delta (higher mA), is like sleeping security guard function.
1 sharp and alert guard is all you need.
No point to hire 1 sharp and alert and hire one more "sleeping on the job" although the "JD" allows them to sleep on the job while sitting at their post. You pay for the sleeping guard cost.

This post has been edited by ceo684: Feb 27 2021, 12:29 PM

Yeah for 1. is quite easy to fix (with some electrical knowledge), just replace the RCD will do, for 2. perhaps TS is only lay some new wiring due to lack of point(s) instead of relocate DB.

Anyway if the developer is following the standard instead of cost cutting then above works can be skip, but too bad this kind of info is not provided when purchasing the unit..

Going to check back my unit circuit diagram and DB RCD in case it's like what you said "sleeping security guard"

Cool. Thanks for highlighting this. Assumed developer DB box was as per ST regulations. Will relay this information to my electrician for rectification works to sort out the wiring.

Correct to say to swap the WH RCD to 10mA. Keep the other circuit as 30mA?

This post has been edited by xerofear: Feb 28 2021, 12:24 AM

If no WH RCD, then need to add in the 10mA RCD; else just hook up WH RCD if its already there.
Every WH need its own 10mA unit, so if 2 WH u will need two 10mA RCD ya.

For the main (whole house) just connect everything to the main 30mA (instead of some 30mA some 100mA). The main 30mA to cover everything (including the WH 10mA's, acting as 2nd line of protection for WH circuits).
See attached diagram.

This post has been edited by ceo684: Feb 28 2021, 01:28 AM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Finally done moving and cleaning. Here's the final look of the reno



This post has been edited by xerofear: May 27 2021, 04:40 PM

Wow congrats! Looks clean and beautiful. Considering the constant on and off mco, amazing to finish within 4 months. So you managed to get everything in under rm120k?

I think just your customized wardrobe and furniture tables etc should be easily 20k and above.

Yeah MCO was a huge pain to us during the reno and logistic wise. Total all in is about 130k.

looks very nice. your 130k is including fittings & furnitures, as well?

Yup. Incl light fittings and misc items.

any good contractor to recommend? and bad contractor to avoid?

Not sure whether I can call out contractors here but I'll leave the censored version here just in case (PM if you cannot figure out censored version ) :

General contractor / Electrical sub-con: Y*p (Rating: 4/5)
Pros: Progressive payment, friendly, decent quality finishing
Cons: Electrical contractor sub-con only can speak chinese and I'm a banana, pricing

Kitchen / built-in cabinet / TV cabinet: U***y K*****n (Rating: 2/5)
Pros: Good selection of wood finishing, anti-cockroach backboard
Cons: Price, communication between sales/project team (installation has slots and they are swamped with backlog orders due to MCO)

SPC Flooring: E***l F******g (Rating: 5/5)
Pros: Extremely fast installation (2 floors in 1 day incl stairs, door trim and skirting), decent price, nice selection of SPC.
Cons: None

A/C Contractor: C* P***r (Rating: 2/5)
Pros: Fast installation
Cons: Rude boss, finishing was bad (A/C ODU arranged back to back, wiring exposed, pricing

Curtains: J* C******s (Rating: 5/5)
Pros: Friendly and patient in explaining selection of curtains/blinds, pricing, installation speed,quality of installation
Cons: None

This post has been edited by xerofear: Jun 28 2021, 09:33 AM