My House Renovation Project

Discussion in 'Adrian Wong' started by Adrian Wong, Oct 30, 2012.

  1. ZuePhok

    ZuePhok Just Started

    progress is looking good! :thumb: how much time do you spend per day on site?
     
  2. Falcone

    Falcone Official Mascot Creator

    Guess you have to be there everyday to supervise. I'm suprise they steel now for the roof, what happen to wood? :p :p
     
  3. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Unfortunately, not fast enough... but I'm not going to rush them.

    Well, I cannot afford to go every day but whenever I'm there, I will be there about an hour or so, longer if I need to discuss with the architect/engineer/contractor/ID.
     
  4. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Ahh.. no, I go whenever I can, which is like 3-4 times a week. But you are right - we have to go everyday (if that's possible) because they can make mistakes, or find surprises (like an extra column that wasn't in the plan!) that need on-the-spot decisions.

    Well, the original wooden trusses are in excellent shape but I needed to change the roof design to fit the skylight so they recommended I switch to galvanised steel trusses because they are termite-proof (obviously!).
     
  5. yorker

    yorker Newbie

    next step for full solar panels to sell back to tnb? :)
     
  6. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Thought of it... but it will cost anywhere from RM 50-100K to set up and it will take at least 8-10 years to pay off. Would love to do it, but I don't think my finances permit. :(

    Are you considering it?
     
  7. yorker

    yorker Newbie

    yeah... cheapest is around 30-50k, depending on the kW. I got a friend working in a company that deals. I might consider, but just saw my house roof, if angles downwards towards the back and the house faces north! no sunlight haha... mabye have to install extra trusses to prop the solar panels up.

    btw, u mentioned clipsal for switches. Tried schneider?
     
  8. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Falcone - this is the kind of problem we have to deal with when renovating an existing house.

    1 - The column on the right could not be removed because of the high load, so we had to extend the wall by about a meter into the house. Otherwise, there would be a gap in between the two columns. Argghhhh.....

    2 - Then we discovered that the old column was not where we thought it would be. After knocking down, we found that it was off by about 8 inches!

    3 - 5 - Worse of all, its actual orientation was perpendicular to what we thought it would be (because it's rectangular in shape, not square). So it now protruded an additional 5 inches into the dry kitchen. What a headache!
     

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  9. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    I think for terrace houses, TNB will only accept something like 4 kWh of power? I'm still interested if can get a good deal. But I believe we also have to see if SEDA accepts our application. Otherwise, we cannot sell the power back to TNB.

    My house faces north too. And I have two trees on the east side. LOL!

    No, I don't think you need to install extra trusses. The original trusses should be able to withstand the weight. After all, they can stand the weight of solar water heaters with their large water tanks.

    Clipsal was actually renamed as Schneider Electric, so they are the same thing.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2013
  10. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    BTW, I will probably use one of the Schneider Electric range of switches. Probably the Pieno series. But I'm not sure if the light will be distracting at night.

    It also depends on the cost. If it's too expensive, then I may just opt for the cheaper Vivace series.

    What about you?
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2013
  11. yorker

    yorker Newbie

    hmm.. your metal truss u dun have to worry, mine is wood. MY house is blocked by a hill lolz.. I think 10am onwards then I will get the sun .

    No idea on the sockets. Have to go see the dev or the show house to identify. Some developers opt for self brand sockets, they will brand the socket with the house project name.My friend's house uses developer sockets, no light, just a plastic red strip to show if the switch is on or off.

    Ps.Just browsed the schneider site, found my friend's house sockets, ZENcelo...
     
  12. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    There's actually nothing wrong with wood, if it's good wood. It should be able to withstand the weight.

    The only concern about wood is termite. If it's resistant to termite and/or you are not living in a termite-infested area, wooden trusses are just fine.

    In fact, as I understand it, wooden trusses are safer in a fire, because they will last longer and not buckle under the heat.

    Ahhh.. ZENcelo. The flat switch. Looks nice but more expensive. You want to get that? I think they have two models - one with fluorescent indicators, and one with a neon light.
     
  13. Falcone

    Falcone Official Mascot Creator

    Haha that is why nee dto full time there, our malaysian standard. :p
     
  14. yorker

    yorker Newbie

    hmm... it was the fluroscent. neon are overkill IMO. haha

    the solar panels are supposed to with stand snow of afew inches. so monkeys and heavy winds are no problems. Might ask my friend for a quote.:)

    mine is metal roof. dunno if roof tile or just straight pieces. better go find out . most likely steel or zinc or alum. saw in adverts they using metal sheets below the roof tile. dunno how effective. think ur insulation is better.
     
  15. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Sigh... yeah, what to do. I can get a design and build firm to do it BUT we tried that with the clinic and they still screwed up plenty of times and we ended up having to babysit them anyway.

    Found a couple of mistakes recently. Had to go and "fix things" almost every day this week. :wall: :wall: :wall:

    The good news is we sort of came up with a solution to partially fix the odd set of columns I posted above. Will post the pictures soon.
     
  16. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Does the fluorescent version actually use power? Or does it use luminous paint? I didn't have the opportunity to check out a working model.. and it's not stated in the specs.

    Hey, I would like to get a quote too. But you should find out if we can get the SEDA quota. Otherwise, it won't be worth the cost.
     
  17. yorker

    yorker Newbie

    luminous paint.

    yeah. .will get back to u on that:)
     
  18. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    We partially "fixed" the problem of the two stupid columns by adding an additional layer of bricks.

    Together with thicker plastering, we cut down the difference from 8 inches to a more palatable 4 inches.

    And by adjusting the thickness of the plaster, we cut down the protrusion of the second column from 5 inches to 4 inches.

    So instead of the second (furthest) column protruding 13 inches into a standard 24" table top, the column would only protrude 8 inches, giving us extra 5 inches of table top.

    Not the best solution, but a "better than nothing" solution.

    PS. This creates a much thicker wall, but what we will do is add a bar counter to the other side, so it won't look so odd.
     

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    Last edited: Jan 13, 2013
  19. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    My fengshui sifu says that it's bad to install a TV in front of the bed, because it's like a mirror? Sigh... but it's something we will build into the house first and then maybe work around or mitigate some other way.

    If you guys have any ideas of how to make the wall-mounted TV more "fengshui-friendly", let me know.

    Anyway, to circumvent the problem of placing the media player(s), I designed an embedded console which would go into that hole you see in the picture below. This is where my media player, Astro decoder and whatnots will go, so they won't protrude into the room.

    On the reverse side, the console will double-up as a sort of table top in the bathroom.
     

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  20. yorker

    yorker Newbie

    tv in bed frame .. lolz

    [​IMG]
     

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