Dollar and Cents- Reliable Handyman Services

Here is another post for the Dollar and Cents series, where we have touched on cost-effective and good recommendations for things like Scrapping a Car, Buying a Piano, Repairing a Car in JB, Renovating a House, and Kid's Golf Lessons previously.

Given the numerous providers of handyman services, I thought it would be great to share a good provider who is able to not only provide quality work, at a reasonable price and gives a professional diagnosis.

The usual route when we have some handyman issues is to google for service providers and get quotes from at least 2 to 3 companies. For those who are not too savvy, you could be fleeced and it is not a good feeling after you discovered it.

I have engaged this company for a number of works and their price is reasonable (could be 30% lesser than those who are trying to carrot me) and quality of work have been satisfactory:

1) Replacing Water Tank (There was a 30% price difference from another vendor but waited 2 weeks for the appointment)

2) Rectifying Leakage from the water pipe (Needed drilling as pipes are hidden while another vendor suggested putting up exposed pipe that will uglify my bathroom lol)

3) Light Switches- Use the Honeywell Brand where the previous vendor use the MK brand that is not durable ( Got a quote of $129 for 2 switches as compared to another vendor that quote $130 for just 1 switch)

The downside is that their appointment slots would at times not be immediate and so for those situations that cannot wait, they might not be suitable.

I am not getting any benefits from doing this recommendation but just want to recommend a good provider and give credit when it is due.

Here is the link to their website:

https://www.everyworks.com/

Anyone who has other good and credible vendors can share in the comments section as sharing is caring. :)

Dollar and Cents- Kids Golf Lessons

Just thought of sharing since i am at the range whereby my kid is taking his golf lesson,

Happy Weekend Ahead!

Dollar and Cents- Scrapping A Car

Recently, I just bid farewell to my Toyota Altis after 10 good years of service. There have been many memories but decided not to renew the COE and get a new ride.

Would just like to share the process of scrapping my car and hope it will be useful for those whom might be going the same path in the future.

As a general rule, you will usually get back around 50% of your car PARF value and a token sum for your car body upon scrapping your car.

For my Altis, I got all in around 9500 with car body raking in 800 dollars as i have changed the original colour. If not it would have fetched around 1000 dollars.

So the usual path is to drive to a scrap yard and you can actually drive in at the last day of the month of your de-registration if you want to max out your car usage. They will process the paperwork and you can get your car body value from the scrap yard while the PARF rebate will come in 2-3 weeks later from Land Transport Authority.

Do take note you have to get a transaction pin which you can do it online at the onemotoring website and will take around 2-3 working days to reach you.

I have google and checked with different scrap yards and found Absolute Motors to be more approachable (This is just my personal experience).

However, I decided to go with EC Scrap eventually as they provide me with the convenience. They will come to your place and take over the car. Moreover, they will pay you upfront in cash the PARF rebate and car body value. The customer service experience is also very pleasant. The car body value they have quoted is also quite competitive as I have done some comparisons. My scrapping deal was coordinated with Eugene and his mum Elaine.

For those, who want to keep the number plate for memory sake, guess driving to the scrap yard will still be a better option.

Happy Scrapping for those who are near the 10 years cycle.

Dollar and Cents- Buying a Piano

Just a couple of months back, we got an upright piano for my daughter who is enjoying her piano lessons. Therefore, we would like to share our experience in shopping around for the best value that we could find in the Singapore Piano Market.

For a start, there are many brands available such as Yamaha, Kawai, Hailun, Steinberg & Song and etc. Our main criteria are that it must have good resale value and would be able to last till Grade 8. We do not want to have the hassle of changing to a new piano and at the same time not able to sell it should my daughter lost interest in playing the piano.

We finally decided to get a Yamaha U1 which will cost around 10k Sgd if we get it brand new. With such a hefty price tag, we opted to get it from the resale market. We search all the classified websites (Locanto, Craiglist and Carousell) and Google on second hand piano shops. To cut the story short, these two second hand piano shops were shortlisted by us, Asia Piano and Piano Gallery.

At the end of the day, we got a Yamaha U3 which cost around $4900 Sgd as it is of a higher calibre and it would have cost 11k-12k for a brand new one. The Yamaha U1 was going for around $4500-$4600 and the Yamaha U1 tends to have a higher pitch sound while the Yamaha U3 has a more mellow sound. Each U3 tends to have a sound of their own but the U1 have a more universal sound. The age of our piano is around 26 years old and it is imported from Japan (domestic use). To know the age of the Yamaha piano, you can just look at the serial number and you can go to this link to have a gauge of how old your piano is:

http://www.markgoodwinpianos.co.uk/info/yamaha-piano-serial-numbers

As part of the package, we have two free tunings and several freebies thrown in. We got our piano from Asia Piano.

Dollar and Cents- Renovating a House (Choosing of House Furnishing and Accessories)

It had been a hectic time as I have just moved to my new residence. I have moved four times so far in my life and moving is really tiring and stressful while managing all the logistics. Hopefully this will be my final home where I can retire in, provided it does not get en-bloc.

As promised in my previous blog post, I will be sharing my experience of the renovation process and the purchasing of the different accessories and home furnishing. Sad to say, the renovation id that we got did not perform as expected. We have moved in for about 2 weeks but the carpentry works are still in progress. So we are basically still living on boxes as our consoles and wardrobes are still not up.

Lately, we have been busy sourcing out for the different home accessories. I would say we have more or less got what we wanted. Here are the list of vendors we purchased from and perhaps it could prove helpful to those who are in the midst or intending to do a renovation.

Aircon
Twin City Engineering Pte Ltd

We choose this company from the recommendation of our id and we did some price comparison with Gain City and Coolserve. Their prices are reasonable from the different quotes. We pay around $5000 for a system 4 Mitsubishi Electric whereby we change all the pipes and all pipes are concealed. We were deciding between Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries but choose Mitsubishi Electric after doing some on-line research.

Curtains
MGL Curtains

We were deciding between D Zander which is the sponsor for Xiaxue home curtains and MGL. MGL won us over as they have the fabrics that we want. Jimmy Textile in Katong seems to offer reasonably priced curtains too but we were to lazy to go over to do some comparison. We get MGL to do a wall paper, one set of master bedroom day and night curtains and three window blinds for the bedrooms and living room, we spend around 1700 dollars.

Kids Beds and Table
Piccolo House

We search quite a while for the furniture of our children's rooms. Piccolo House was our final choice as we feel their finishing and pricing are better.

Kitchen and Toilet Accessories
Adamas and GR Link

We kind of regret hacking away the toilet bowls as it seems to be of the Toto brand. Ironically, we got back the same brand and Adamas in Jalan Besar offered around 30% discount off the list price whereby the main Toto distributor, W.Atelier, offered around 20% discount. It set us back around 1200 dollars for two wc plus a Toto rain-shower set at 700 plus. A more high end Baron or Aquino wc would cost around 300 to 350 each while a less branded rain-shower set could cost between 200-450 region.

GR Link generally offered reasonable price for toilet and kitchen accessories whereby we got some of our stuff there too. The shop beside GR Link is also worth a look at.

Kitchen Stove, Oven and Hob
Mayer and Lion City Trading

We got a package which comes to around 1000 dollars for stove, hob and oven from Ariston which had got good reviews as compared to similar priced brands such as EF.

We got our build in microwave oven from Lion City Trading which offers pretty good deals.

Lighting
BL Lighting

We settled on BL Lighting (Jalan Besar) 5 inch LED downlight at 39 dollars each with 2 years warranty. The lights quality are pretty good. The normal non LED downlight would have cost around 26 dollars.

Store Room Racks 
Yee Sin

We got our bomb shelter storage racks form Yee Sin and they do have it in all white racks. I guess it looks more pleasing to the eyes.

Hope this list will be helpful for your renovation process.

Lee

Dollar and Cents- Renovating a House (Choosing Interior Designers and Contractors)

It has been a long while since my last post as I was away to France for a free and easy tour with my family which I will try to do a posting on it. Also, I am currently doing my renovation for my new apartment.

I hope to share my experience for the renovation process so others could perhaps benefit from it and be able do a better budgeting with cost savings in mind.

Before the renovation and short-listing of interior designers and contractors for our home, I have been religiously buying the Home and Decor magazines and also browse the other interior design magazines in the petrol kiosk rack since the start of the year to get ideas for our home. We also google and research on the web whereby renotalk and hardwarezone forums were very useful. There are also individual blogs such as those of Xiaxue and there is one which is really good whereby he actually went to around 10 interior designing firms to get a quote (I can't recall off hand his blog address but will upload it if I managed to find it). Along the way, my wife and I started to short-list those designers that we kind of have a good feel  from their portfolio showcase in the magazines and reviews from the web.

We ended up with a final list of 3 Interior Designing firms (1 is from the magazine approach, 1 is introduced by a client and another is my wife's contact) and 1 contractor (Recommendation by a friend).

This is the short-list of things we wanted to do:

1) Hack 3 walls and erect 3 new walls
2) Overlay Kitchen floor tiles and walls tiles
3) New wardrobe for master bedroom and two other rooms.
4) 2.2m full height console
5) 2m full height console for master bedroom
6) Hack master bedroom toilet and total overhaul
7)Overlay floor tiles for common bathroom
8)False Ceiling for Master Bedroom and Son's Bedroom
9)Polish marble floor, parquet and common toilet marble walls.
10)Custom made shelving and study table for son's room.
11) Custom made study table with shelving in master bedroom.
12) Kitchen Cabinets and a standalone cabinet for built in microwave and built in oven.
13) Electrical Works
14)Painting
15)Vanity top and mirror cabinet for common bathroom with a new shower screen

There were some good ideas suggested by the Interior Designers that we have met especially the one that was introduced by my client whom is very experienced in the business. We got quotes from all of them whereby the contractor came in with the lowest quote and we were tempted to pass the project to him as my friend have rave reviews of his work. However, my friend just did his kitchen and not the whole house.

We decided to go with my wife's contact at the end cause we feel an interior designer might be able to execute our theme better. Moreover, his rates are reasonable and not way off the contractor quote. As for the other Interior Designers, their quotes could be around 30-50 percent more than the quote I got from the interior designer that we went with.

Partly, they are from a more reputable interior designing  firm which means they do charge 7% GST which my current interior designer and the contractor does not charge as he just started his own company for around 3 years. This could be quite a lot of cost savings which you can utilise to make another wardrobe or for your furniture budget.

That's all for now and I will carry on with further posts on my renovation process. We are in the midst of buying the appliances, furniture, curtains and etc.

Lee

Dollar and Cents- Repairing a Car in JB (Is it Worth it?)

My current ride is coming to the 6 years mark and is starting to show problems due to wear and tear. I will just like to share my experience of repairing and replacing the different parts due to wear and tear through these past two months. For a start, I am driving a Toyota Altis 07 model.

I have re-sprayed the car earlier this year and have changed the colour. Due to the sky high COE price, I am likely going to drive it all the way till this car's COE expiry. Therefore, I guess this is a worthwhile investment to make me feel that I am driving a new car :). The cost of this vanity is around 1300 dollars.

The car started showing problems 2 months back with the battery first to go. I was unable to start the engine at all, I managed to find someone to come over to my place and replaced my car with an Amaron battery for around 150 dollars.

Next, my side mirror started to give a hissing sound and the root cause was a problem with the motor mechanism which means you have to change the whole side mirror. My fan belt is also starting to show cracks. The cost of replacing for the side mirror was 200 dollars and the fanbelt was 100 dollars.

After which I went to JB to do my servicing, it cost around 80 sgd whereas it cost from 140-160 sgd in Singapore. Thus, you can save about 50 percent. Also, I changed my air-con and engine filter plus a spark plug. On top of that, I change my car's auto transmission oil. All in, it comes up to around 200 sgd.

The mechanic advised me to change my front absorber but even though I did find the ride a bit bumpy but thought I can drag it for a while more. An important point to note, if your front absorber is starting to leak oil, do try not to jack it up as it will lead to the front absorbers getting spoiled at an accelerated pace. After the servicing, the car's front absorbers totally give way but as I have an engagement in Singapore so I was not able to do the change in JB. I was quoted around 220 to 250 sgd.

The ride was totally bumpy and feel like a boat ride after the front absorbers give way. I checked with a few Singapore workshop and decided to go with one that charges around 300 dollars for the original parts as it is not far off from the rate quoted by the JB workshop. There was one which quoted 588 dollars as they say they have to change the mounting rubber and etc while another quoted 445 dollars. All are before GST.

After I reached the workshop, I found out that the quote was without labour and so plus the labour and GST, the cost was around 385 dollars. Since I am already there, I guess I have to just go ahead and the car was in urgent need of a pair of brand new front absorbers.

I did some research while at the workshop and found that the cheapest cost is to get the parts from the stockist and get the workshop to fix it for you. I check with the stockist and found that a pair of original front absorbers was just 150 dollars. The workshop quoted me 300 dollars for it.  Based on a simple calculation, with the labour cost at around 80 to 100 dollars, the total cost using this approach will be similar to the JB workshop quote and I can save around 100 dollars.

This is a sum up of the recent repair costs for my Altis:

1) Battery                150 
2) Side Mirror          200
3) Fanbelt                100
4) Servicing in JB    200
5) Front Absorbers   385

Total costs              $ 1035

To conclude, it is advisable to do your servicing in JB if you know any good workshops provided your car is a normal and not a luxury car as you can easily save 50 percent. For repairs and replacing parts, if you get from the stockist, the pricing will be quite similar to what is quoted by the JB workshops. I feel it  is more prudent to change parts in Singapore. If you let the Singapore workshop get the parts for you, the total cost is likely to be 50 percent more than getting them from the stockist. If you happen to go to a workshop that is trying to make you a carrot head, it could be 80-100 percent more.


Lee