Like any other new homeowners, Cheng Wee Hong and his new neighbours eagerly began renovation works when they first moved into their new build-to-order (BTO) flats at Treelodge@Punggol late last year. The initial excitement, however, turned out to be short-lived. Works on their new walls are leaving bigger holes than originally intended, chunks of wall were breaking off and requiring extensive touch-ups with plaster.

After a long day of ceremonies, chatter and running back and forth, plenty of newly-weds just sign the bill at the end of the banquet without scrutinizing it in detail. Some hotels capitalize on this, especially if you don’t purchase packages that include a free flow of beer and wine.

According to a report published in The Straits Times in April, complaints regarding furniture purchases have hit a record high. Statistics from the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) revealed that the consumer watchdog received a total of 1,190 complaints in 2010 a 40% leap from the 867 cases in 2009.

Motor Insurance; apart from mulling over our most worthwhile options within the saturated local insurance market, we don’t put much thought into it. So as long as if you’ve your CI in hand, you can assume that he has you’ve all the accident coverage you need, right? Wrong.

As you probably might’ve noticed, Beds.sg has been looking a lot sexier recently. Our staff worked around the clock to widen our catalogue and improve our site. So what has changed?

With the hot and humid weather in Singapore, the last thing you want is for your air conditioning to fail on you … or to fall prey to air conditioning cheats.

So you’ve read all four parts of the “Contractor or Conman?” series and learnt how to deal with sly contractors in your future home renovation projects. Unfortunately, you’ve read it all a little too late and have already fallen prey to some unscrupulous scum. So what do you do now?

Contractors will say pretty much anything to get that a signed piece of that chequebook in your pocket. But as soon as your eyes get all dreamy, you’re letting your guard down; and that can have disastrous results. So wake up and take notice of what’s going on around you.

Time is money, and when it comes to renovating your home, the more of your time your contractor wastes, the more money you’ll be doling out to him.Time has you wrapped around the contractor’s finger. After all, he’ll have nothing to lose if the project ends uncompleted. He has plenty more clients to direct his temporal, unsustainable attention to.

All home renovation projects start out bright and chirpy; you’re bursting with plans and ideas and the contractor you’ve engaged is nodding, smiling and telling you every plan you have for your home can be done.
But hold your horses and don’t get too carried away.

You’ve installed fittings that were promised to be of the finest quality and cost a bomb to match, but after some time, you realize that these materials aren’t really worth the price you paid. Chances are that you’ve fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book; something we like to call Material Fraud.

Local contractors often hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Beds.sg exposes some of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of Singapore’s building and engineering construction industry in this three-part series so you’ll be well informed and prepared for any tricks a contractor has up his sleeves.

Buying things online has become very popular and is rapidly becoming a part of our daily life. For some, online shopping has become a habit and a routine.

Buying online saves time, is convenient and easy.

However, there are still a few points to note before making your purchase online, especially buying household items and furniture….

Getting married? Buying a mattress would be one of the first things you need to think of in the run up to the big day. If you have limited budget and having a lot to spend on, do you know that you can actually make substantial savings if you had all the required information about the mattress industry in Singapore.

How long is the warranty of your mattress? 10 years? 15 years? 30 years? If you are expecting your mattress to last through the warranty period, be prepared for the bad news, a mattress shouldn’t be used for more than 5-7 years!