Reno Week 0 & 1🏡: Our First Aircon Dilemma

Yayyy! We finally collected the keys to our little nest! 🎉

To speed things up, we asked our ID to meet us on the same day for the defects check. After going through everything together, thankfully we managed to book a BSC appointment a week later since our ID was overseas (his wife had just given birth).

During the BSC inspection, we review mostly minor defects and were told the rectification should take about 14 days. Our ID also reminded us to quickly schedule the aircon piping since installation slots usually get snapped up fast — sometimes up to 30 days in advance! Luckily, the team from Audio House contacted me shortly after, and we managed to secure a slot the following week.

During this time, we also went around visiting furniture, electronics, and laminate stores like Admira and Lamitak to explore our options and get ideas for the design.

💨 Aircon Piping Day — Our First Reno Dilemma

We paid $130 for an additional trip since we scheduled the aircon piping and installation on separate days as we preferred to have the installation done towards the end of the renovation.

First hiccup of the day 😤

The aircon team was supposed to arrive between 10:30am and 11:30am, but by 11:15am, there were still no signs of them. My fiancé asked me to give them a call, and that’s when the lady informed us that the installer’s vehicle had broken down and they would only reach around 12 to 12:30pm.

We were honestly quite frustrated — they could’ve at least informed us earlier! We’d been waiting there since 10:30am, and only found out about the delay after we called to ask. So… no choice but to wait 😮‍💨

Finally the guy arrived and we started discussing.I thought it would be a straightforward process… until we encountered our first dilemma 😅

I’ve always been against boxing up aircon pipes after hearing so many horror stories about condensation and mould. Everyone around me advised not to do it, so I was pretty set on that decision.

Everything went smoothly for the living room and the two common bedrooms — until we reached the Master Bedroom. As seen in photo 6, the beam there was so low! This left only a tiny gap between the beam and the door frame.

The installer explained that if we chose not to box up (meaning we’d use exposed trunking), the trunking would overlap with the door frame — and every time we opened or closed the door, it would scrape against it 😭

At that point, my fiancé and I just stared at each other like, “How ah?” 🥹 I asked the installer if that meant we really had no choice but to box up, and he said yes. As much as I didn’t want to, we eventually decided to go ahead with the box-up. It would look odd to only box up the master bedroom and not the rest anyway 😂

🚰 The Outlet Piping Dilemma

Next came the outlet piping into the toilet. Unfortunately, we couldn’t choose between the common and master bathrooms — the installer advised that the only possible route was through the hole shown in photo 7, leading to the MBR toilet.

So comes another decision to make.

Piping goes down on the left side to ground then to the right (blue line).

That left us with two concerns:

1️⃣ We didn’t want to leave a visible gap — we prefer the carpentry to run all the way to the wall.

2️⃣ We didn’t want to drill the carpentry vertically into the countertop.

After some discussion, we decided to go with the alternative option suggested by our ID — the red dotted line route. This way, the pipes could be hidden neatly behind the carpentry. We’ll just need to inform the carpentry team (who’s outsourced and not under our ID) to do a cut-out at the back of the top cabinet for the piping. Fingers crossed this works out — I’ll share more in another post once everything’s done! 🤞

Since the piping work was expected to take quite a while, our ID brought us to EDL to look at laminates before heading over to view some sintered stones. Surprisingly, around 3:45pm, the installer sent me a video update of the piping — we honestly thought it would finish much later, especially since they started late!

After that, our ID had to leave for another appointment, so my fiancé and I decided to head back to the unit to take a look (and also because we suddenly remembered we’d forgotten to close the windows 😅).

Everything looked fine overall, except for a noticeable gap in the trunking near the master bathroom. We contacted the installer right away to have it patched up.

💡 Tip: It’s a good idea to drop by your unit after the piping is completed, just to double-check everything — that way, any issues can be rectified quickly!

Do your homework and plan ahead before installation day! Sometimes things don’t go as expected, but stay calm and adaptable — there’s always a solution. 💪

Adulting can be tough when you have to make all these decisions on the spot, but… jiayou! We’ve got this! 🥵💖

#renojourney #btorenovation #RealTalk #renowoes #renovationsingapore