Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by hoera75

SPC flooring: bad experience w Floor World Cheras

hoera75 — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 23:00:27 +0800

I would like to share my bad experience of installing SPC flooring with Floor World Cheras. There are a lot of flooring shops out there, I hope this sharing will help you guys to avoid those shops that only cost you money and troubles, one of them is this shop.

I had them install SPC flooring for my 300 sqr ft bedroom early last year. The price was RM 5 per sqr ft for 4+1 SPC flooring, made in Korea. The initial service was good, I was under impression that they had expertise on SPC flooring. Response was fast, installation arrangement went smooth, and I was a happy customer.

After the installation, that bedroom was empty for quite some time (the property is for rent, and there was no tenant during pandemic); during that period I did not notice any issue with the SPC flooring; a little over a year I had one tenant staying, and within one month the flooring was visibly warping quite badly and chipping off. I contacted the shop; they concluded that the SPC flooring had expanded but they were quite adamant saying that any SPC material is expected to expand so there was no material quality issue; they blamed me for not informing them when the expansion happened within the 1 year warranty period; they said SPC usually expands and "adjustments" are sometimes needed. To my defense, I am not an SPC flooring expert, it was difficult for me to identify whether expansion had happened and whether it was under normal tolerance or there was a problem. When I asked why I was not informed that SPC flooring might expand and adjustments might be needed (otherwise I could have been more careful in monitoring it), their answer was "we could not tell customers like that because it does not always happen". When I challenged them whether there was installation problem, their reply was "our installers are experienced".

The shop contacted their supplier to get some material compensation. As I don't want to wait that long, I asked them for a reasonable solution, however they came back to me quoting the same amount of cost like what I paid for the initial installation (but this time without any warranty!); they were not willing to share any responsibility to help solve my issue. The shop then told me that the supplier would be willing to get me material replacement if the moisture level in the room is below 8%; I do not know about this measurement, and whether this is the right threshold, at the end they came to do measurement on my subflooring; their reading was 15%, and they concluded that the room was too humid and there is nothing wrong with the material.

I then engaged 3 other flooring companies to do a site visit and they all shared the same conclusion that the issue was likely caused by
1) some humidity (the room was unoccupied for some time). My property is a condo unit on the 6th floor; the room was never under direct sun light

2) bad quality material where the SPC flooring easily expands. Before this I had laminate flooring in this bedroom for 10 years and there was no expansion issue due to humidity. One of the 3 flooring companies mentioned that for such a small area (300 sqr ft), they do not expect SPC flooring to expand that much.

3) most importantly: wrong installation! All 3 flooring companies mentioned that the floor condition of my bedroom was not even and thus not suitable for direct installation of SPC flooring; floor leveling should have been recommended first before the SPC flooring installation, otherwise all the SPC flooring clips will be broken due to uneven surface (that was the reason once the room was occupied within 1 month the flooring was visibly warping and chipped off). Floor World installer also unnecessarily used 2 layers of foams, making it too thick and bouncy, and combined with uneven surface the SPC flooring became unstable and led to broken clips.

When I challenged the owner of Floor World on the floor leveling issue, she claimed that sub-flooring was not their responsibility, what they did was to remove my old laminate and install SPC flooring. That reply summarized it all: bad quality material, lack of expertise, and unwillingness to help solve customers issues. Think twice if you want to engage them.

Water-based varnish for timber flooring

hoera75 — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 01:05:32 +0800

Hi guys,

I am planning to do varnishing of my timber floor. Developer has done the grinding and varnishing before my renovation started, now I am done with my renovation thinking to reapply the varnish.
Does anyone know good water-based varnish for timber floor, and where to get it?

Thanks!

IP vs analog digital cctv

hoera75 — Sun, 08 May 2016 14:19:47 +0800

Hi guys,

I am now looking for cctv systems for my new house. I went to Homedec last week, some people suggested me to take IP camera while some suggested the analog digital ones (AHD, HD-CVI, HD-TVI).

I am wondering since mine is a new house where I have to lay cables anyway, should I still consider analog digital system? Some people said that analogic digital is developed for those who have old analog systems in their house and would like to have HD quality using their existing coaxial cables.

I appreciate any your advice on this. I would appreciate if you could suggest good affordable brands ( there are so many brands out there, not sure which ones are good) as well as good installers ( I bumped into E&E automation in homedec, if anyone has experience engaging them pleases share it)

Manu thanks!

Forex specialist in KL

hoera75 — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 11:18:27 +0800

Dear all,

I just moved to KL from Europe and brought some of my EUR saving here. I have now the money in a EUR account at the local bank here in Malaysia (HSBC).
Since EUR value is dropping, I would like to convert it to USD and Ringgit. Instead of converting it directly, my HSBC relationship manager suggested me to do 1 week dual currency pairing to convert EUR - MYR and EUR - USD to give me better rate, but so far it does not work since EUR is getting weaker every week and my dual currency pairing never got converted.
So instead of trying it for another week with another pairing, while EUR continues dropping and USD is getting more expensive, I am planning to convert it directly.
Is there anyone here who can give advice the best way to do this other than convert it at the bank (since the bank rate will be very low)? Can a forex specialist company do this ? Since it is saving the amount is quite a lot ( > 50k Euro), so I cannot just go to money changer, any transaction should be done by bank transfer.

Thanks!

[WTS] Mosaic Tile: Vitro Stone Diamond Series

hoera75 — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 00:12:38 +0800

Item(s): Premium mosaic tiles, brand: Vitro Stone Diamond Series, Color code: VSD05 (Gray)

If you are doing home renovation and looking for nice mosaic tiles, I have 30 sheets of premium mosaic tiles which I would like to sell with below market price.
These mosaic tiles is from the brand of Vitro Stone. This is the premium Diamond Series, with diamond pattern. The color is Gray, color code is VSD05
Each sheet is 30 x 30 cm, so total this is enough to cover 30 sqr feet area.

I am selling this because I bought these mosaic tiles wrongly for my kichen renovation, I was supposed to buy another color. I about another color for my kitchen and I have these mosaic tiles unused. So my goal here is not to make profit, I just want to sell it to someone who might want to use it for reasonable cheaper price.

Price: RM 650 (original price RM 750)

Location of seller: Kuala Lumpur

Contact method/details: Please PM me

Age of item: Brand new, not used..

Item(s) conditions: Very good

Picture:

[attachmentid=3489469]

Recommended contractor

hoera75 — Fri, 24 May 2013 00:13:50 +0800

Dear all,

For those who are looking for a good contractor, I can recommend a good one. His name is Lim, from company UKEA Decoration in Puchong. This is a family business run by 2 Lim brothers.
I had my first experience engaging them for my renovation back in 2010 and it was a very positive experience, and mid last year I engaged them again for renovating my new home.

There are a lot of good comments about them in realestate.net.my, see here:
http://realestate.net.my/forum/viewtopic.p...r=asc&start=300

Their price is reasonable, and most importantly they are trustable and delivering good quality. Not like some other contractors who are only nice when they want to get your money and dissapear when they get it, Lim's brother shows a lot of commitment to deliver the project on time ( my first renovation project with him was for 1000 sqr ft condo, with wardrobes, tv cabinet, and display - was done in 1 month time; my recent renovation was for 2000 sqr ft condo with ALOT of carpentry work - was done in 3 months time ) They also gives good practical advices, listen to customers and find the best ways to solve whatever problems that come up during the work. When I engaged them I already had my design, and even though my design was not usual and straightforward one that Lim was used to build, they managed to deliver it with good quality. My project was done with the cost of 30% less than the quotation from the ID company that I engaged to do the design drawing!

Attached are some pics

Defect rectification Developer: what is covered?

hoera75 — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:16:55 +0800

Hi all,

I would like to ask your opinion/advice on the what kind of rectification is covered by the developer during the defect-free period.
I bought a condo in Bangsar South from UOA, it is a sub sale unit, the unit has always been vacant for more than a year (since the developer handed over the key). I still have the defect-free period from the developer until August this year.

Before I start my renovation, I have reported some defects to be rectified by the developer. Even though they always try to avoid it by saying that "this unit is already vacant for some time, it should not be our problem, but we try to help as much as we can", they are still willing to rectifty few things (bad painting on the door, uneven and dirty tiles, etc). There are 2 things that I want them to replace (because they could not be cleaned), but they did not want to do it : 1) my bathtub has yellowish color (as if someone has been using it for years), and there are some rusty bathroom fittings in the bathroom. UOA said that the warranty period only covers structural damage, and not fittings, and because in the subsale it is written in SPA that the purchaser buys the unit "as is where is", they have the right not to entertain my request. What do you think, what is normally covered in this warranty period?

I am quite dissapointed because I have difference experience with the developer of the condo I am staying now ( YTL), I get the feeling UOA is somehow trying to get as much profit as they can from the customers. When I asked the UOA guy "this thing is there for a year and no one uses it, and now it looks like this, so the quality of stuff that you use is bad", his comment was "oh...i have no comment if it is about quality " (he said that with raising both of his hands). I also know that for any subsale transaction, UOA gets 10% of any transaction price. I am not so positive about UOA. I have better experience with YTL. YTL also helped to arrange the management of the condo, so far it is going well, well UOA just leaves it and do not really care about it.

Simple home theatre system

hoera75 — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:24:28 +0800

Dear bros,

Would like to have your advise here. I am not the expert in home theatre system. I am going to move to a new house and would like to buy a simple home theatre system ( at this moment I have only TV and small DVD player, that is it :-). So I would like to have HTIB with blue ray dvd player and 2 speakers and subwoover. I have seen that many people suggested Sony BDV-E380, but for me it is already too much with 5 speakers ( it will be too crowded for my TV cabinet ), and I do not want to have home theatre system which requires speakers to be located at the back. Budget is RM 1000 - 1500 max

Would appreciate if you guys can recommend something...

Many thanks in advance!!!

Recommended ID company

hoera75 — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:26:05 +0800

Dear all,

I am currently looking for a good ID company for renovation of my house. I would really appreciate if anyone of you could share any recommended interior designer;)
Does anyone of you have experience engaging ID company callled Capsule Creative?

Thanks!

STAY AWAY FROM QQ CLINIC SG WANG PLAZA!

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0800

STAY AWAY FROM QQ CLINIC SG WANG PLAZA!

hoera75 — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:53:18 +0800

STAY AWAY FROM QQ CLINIC ( U-MOBILE COUNTER) AT SUNGEI WANG PLAZA GROUND FLOOR (Yellow zone)!!!

Dear all,

I would like to share my very bad experience in buying data plan from the above U-Mobile counter at Sungei Wang Plaza. They are working by CHEATING their customers, I hope those who are reading this post could stay away from them and will not become their victims like me.

The story....
This afternoon we went to Lowyat & Sungei Wang Plaza with my wife to look for data plan for our i-Pad ( we just bought the one with Wifi + 3G). We were considering to buy prepaid data plan since we do not use 3G that often (only when we are traveling on holiday - at home we have WIFI connection).

On our way to Lowyat we saw this UMobile counter on the ground floor of Sungei Wang Plaza (yellow zone): QQ Clinic. We asked for information on the pre-paid data plan from U-Mobile. One of the Chinese guys over there recommended us to buy prepaid data plan from U-Mobile, RM5 per day, data limit 500MB. When I asked what the price of that prepaid card was, he said "RM 38"!, with RM 5 topup inside. I dont know what happened to me and my wife at that time, somehow we did not question how come a prepaid dataplan card with RM 5 M inside could cost RM 38 (usually we were quite critical about this kinds of things). At the end we decided to take it and we topped up another RM 10 to the card. While activating the card, the guy asked the money from us. We gave RM 50, and got 2 RM back. Meanwhile his other colleague saw our i-Pad and tried to offer us the jailbreak software. He pushed us to have him jailbreak our i-pad with the charge of RM 80, by keeping telling us how fun it would be to have jailbroken i-Pad. I said no to him, in my mind I simply did not want to pay RM 80 for jailbreaking, I told my self "give me 1 day to look on the internet how to do that and I will be able to jailbreak my Ipad by myself!". He kept pushing, and he lowered his price to RM 70 and then RM 60. I said "no". Then my wife also asked about the screen protector for the i-pad. A girl who was also working there offered the screen protector with the price of RM 65. My wife did not want to take it coz she felt it expensive, and the girl kept pushing by offering price of RM 60. We told her "no". After that the first guy handed over the already activated prepaid card. I told him that I would like to test it, so I asked him to cut the SIM card to fit my iPad. He said "This costs RM 10". We were thinking "What???". My wife tried to negotiate, but he gave a reason that it is RM 10 because they bear the risk of spoiling the SIM card. Never mind, we paid RM 10, and the iPad worked. Again, this time this guy toffered the screen protector again, also insisting, this time he offered RM 50 price !!!

We then went to Lowyat to buy the screen protector (and we got it with the price of RM 40). But when we were at Lowyat we got to know from a guy from UMobile counter over there that he sells RM 8 with RM 5 topup inside. Realized that we were cheated we went back to that UMobile counter at Sungei Wang to ask the money back ( we wanted to ask back at least the RM 30). I told the guy that he cheated me, the prepaid should only cost RM 8, if he did not want to give back my money I will report the shop. He kept insisting that it costs RM 38. I then asked "I havent got the receipt, if you dare, then give me the receipt with RM 38 written on it". He then said "No problem, just wait a minute ok, we will explain, please have a seat". At that time I did not understand why I was supposed to wait, but after some time, there was this fat Chinese guy coming, he was the owner. He asked what was the problem, I asked him why I had to pay RM 38 for the prepaid. His answere was "Because we got it from other people". I complained to him that that did not make sense, I have never heard such an excuse, and I asked him "ok, then give me the receipt!". He said "no receipt!!". I asked why, he just kept saying "no receipt!" I then told him that he was cheating on us, and I will report him. Suddenly he behaved like a gangster, screaming "Dont you say that I am cheating you!", "You want receipt, FxxCK you!", "I call security guard", "Report me to police, I will wait you here". I knew that he just exagerated the whole thing just to threaten me and made me afraid ( btw I am a foreigner ). I cynically smiled to him saying that "So you live by cheating people, from this?? (I showed him the sim card I bought) - you will not have a good life later. He angrily came to me "Why are u smiling, if you dare..I wait here... I dont need to cheat people because I have a lot of money!!". I realized that there was no point I argued with him, so I just left and said I would report his shop.

Looking at how the people there reacted (the first guy whom I complained was so relax and asked his colleague to call his boss ), it seemed that we were not the only one who got cheated ( I guess it it happened quite often that they cheated their customers, and when those customers complained, this fat guy came and handled it with his gangster behaviour).
For us it was not a big deal to loose RM 30 (we consider it as getting rid of bad luck and bad karma:-), but of couse having confrontation with these kinds of people were not fun. I hope those who read this post do not fall to the same trap, and just stay away from this group of bad people.

Regards
hoera75

PS. Is there any effective way to report these kinds of naughty shops like this to authority / their dealer so that people would not become victims?

Attached are the pictures of the shop.