The Minton: Ideas and Renovation – 48 – Post Mortem: Regrets

If we could turn back the clock…

We would have got the fan manufacturer’s electricians to install fans. As with many homeowners and usually because it’s convenient, many renovation projects routinely engage the designer’s electrician, or a general electrician to install all the wiring, lighting and fan fixtures in homes. The installation of lighting fixtures and placements shouldn’t pose difficulties, and in my observation, it’d make more sense even to get the designer’s electrician to do such – since the designer will be able to project manage the electrician and negotiate hidden wiring with false walls and ceilings, integrate the placement of power-sockets and switches alongside carpentry work and so on. Fan installation is a different matter though.

Of the five fans we installed, three were good choices and their installations were done correctly without issues by the designer’s electrician. The study/+1 room fan was a different matter – it produced cranky noises when turned on at high speeds and our designer’s electrician couldn’t figure out why. The manufacturer’s electrician came by, poked around for quite a bit, and concluded that the noises were produced by turbulence from the lack of sufficient space around the fan for air to circulate, and that also in turn caused a lack of wind circulation within the room itself. Who would have figured! The ideal solution was to relocate the fan slightly, but this wasn’t preferable as it would had meant adjustments to our intended use of the full-height cabinets there. The manufacturer electrician eventually eliminated the noise by readjusting the fan blades and adding small weights to some of the blades. Ingenious.

Our workroom fan seemed correctly installed to us initially; but likewise, the manufacturer’s electrician took a 10 second look at the fan spinning at its top speed, turned and asked “Do you notice that your fan here is wobbling?” *Groan*. 5 minute fix involving adding some weights to one of the fan blades, and all was fine.

We would have explored more options for grills for the bedrooms. Our appointed contractor for invisible grills did a great job for both of the yard balconies, but we were less satisfied with the grills in all the bedrooms – and only on account that the tension of grill cables did not give as much confidence as we’d like. To be fair, the contractor’s workers tried their hardest to tighten the cables as much as they could, but I guess they were limited by the method of installation – mounting onto the window frame instead of the bay window surface. One of the other grill contractors we invited for site measurements were proposing to do exactly just that; mount their grill frame onto the bay window surfaces, which should have allowed for the cables to be pulled tighter.

We would have rethought our lighting system in the workroom. This was a real challenge for our designer. The room wasn’t big, we wanted it to have up to three seated persons to work in it, it would had to be sufficiently lit, we wanted plenty of shelving, and we wanted a ceiling fan too.

We couldn’t place the four downlights above at each of the respective extreme corners of the room, since the light produced would had been obstructed by the wall-hung cabinets. However, their subsequent proximity to the fan blades also meant that there would be some light flickering when the fan is spinning. It’s not enough to be seriously annoying, but it’s noticeable nonetheless. The four 12W downlights also produce enough general illumination – as in no chance we’ll be wandering around in the dark – but it’s still not sufficiently lighting the table surfaces for written work i.e. additional lighting is going to be necessary. We ended up getting two LED table-lamps for our two worktables that thankfully work very well.

We would have thought harder about power switch placements. This is one of those other things you only realize after you actually start living in the place! Basically; our fan regulators in the two bedrooms are on the wall near the rooms’ entrances – not where they are most convenient to be use i.e. near the beds themselves!