Vesak Day At Sakya Tenphel Ling (Tuesday, 17th May 2011)

I have decided to start a topic on the recent Vesak Day dated Tuesday, 17th May 2011 at Sakya Tenphel Ling (The Singapore Buddha Sasana Society).

The photographs that I have taken at the temple on this eventful day are so rich in colour and beautiful. It'll be a great waste if they were not uploaded or shared with others.

I hope that you will enjoy the vibrancy of colours as many of us had during this festive ocassion at Sakya Tenphel Ling.

Although I had been visiting Sakya Tenphel Ling for several years on a regular basis, but this is the very first time I have visited the temple during Vesak Day.

It was already quite crowded by the time we reached the temple at about 11.45 AM.






And as we hung around after eating vegetarian beehoon, large groups of people came in for prayers and pujas. The counters for donations, sponsorship, devotion to deities simply got congested with huge crowds that formed long beelines.

The festive mood was indeed infectious and everybody on the temple grounds were smiling, including myself. Both my hubby & myself couldn't help but feel fascinated by how colourful everything was on the temple grounds. It made us feel like the 7 rainbow colours had been blended into the scene, which was imbued with such intensity that we could only say that everything was simply so so beautiful and exciting to us!

These beautiful & breathtaking array of colour palettes ranged from flower arrangements, fruits, candles, toma offerings (which will be featured in this thread) and other offerings which were made to the deities.





The cabbage flower looks really gorgeous with 2 of such bouquests flanking both sides of one of the altars:


And this is the very first time that I came across such huge versions of "huat-kueh". Perhaps the size of smaller honeydews or rock melons... No exaggeration!

They were really huge and caught my eye while I was praying at the makeshift altar.

I just found out from a brochure that this is known as the:

Shakyamuni Buddha Sand Madala : The celestial abode or mansion of Shakyamuni Buddha


Isn't it beautiful? Sand mandalas have also fascinated me because it's amazing how it could be produced with coloured sand with such precision... as if it's printed by a computer or a machine??



And I saw many devotees circumambulating the Shakyamuni Buddha Sand Mandala while I was busy clicking on my camera to take photographs of the sand mandala.

Photograph (attached below) of Venerable Khentrul Rinpoche and reincarnation of previous high lama Tashi Gyatso Rinpoche.

He is currently one of the resident teacher at Sakya Tenphel Ling and takes care of the Centre. He does daily rituals and provides blessings & consultations, conducts Teachings, and performs Changchog for the deceased and other religious activities.




Photographs showing Venerable Khentrul Rinpoche, blessing the devotees :


The jar with a spout & peacock feathers is known as a Bhumpa, or Ritual Vase or Tibetan Buddhist Healing Water Vase. I think it contains ceremonial water or nectar and is commonly used during blessing sessions:


Another snippet of a blessing session of an elderly devotee:

This another altar that has been temporarily set up for this special ocassion and I spotted many devotees queuing up to offer stalks of fresh flowers to the deity. The combination of colours make it look so rich & vibrant:


The flowers offered to the deity is then distributed out to devotees for the purpose of a bath. A sort of cleansing ritual through bathing with flowers which were blessed by the deity.

Volunteers helping with the packing of small bags of flowers mixed with perfumed water:


 

This is another altar that has been set up in the open for this special ocassion.

The Thangka (mural) and the statue in blue represents the Medicine Buddha and to statue on the Medicine Buddha's right is Tara; and to the left, The Jambala (Dzambhala).




There are also very colourly stupa-like decorations which were being placed in front of the deities as offerings. They reminded me of colourful jewels because they are so intricately made by the lamas.

I think they are known as toma offerings and the 8 auspicious symbols (http://www.buddhanet...ry/b8symbol.htm) in Buddhism are featured in the form of colourful intricacies which I would be uploading here in the next few clips for visual appreciation. They must be so difficult to make! And so so beautifully done!

These photos of toma offerings were taken before Vesak Day.

It so happened that I was at Sakya Tenphel Ling when one of the lama was putting the finishing touches to the toma offerings. Oops missed the major part of it when he was moulding out the intricacies.

I think this tall stupa-like dough is used as a "base" for mounting on the beautifully crafted decorations.


These are parts of it which had just been prepared & pending "installation" onto the "base" & isn't it beautiful?


A pair of golden fish (matsya):


The Treasure Vase (bumpa):

The mystic/ unity knot, also known as The Auspicious/ Endless Knot(shrivatsa):



The mystic knot is one of my most favourite symbols. It is a classy symbol which has been highly adapted in the fashion industry. It is said to promote a strong & positive affinity with people - but I would like to add that it also depends on the person's attitude in life too!

The Conch (shankha) :


The Lotus (padma) :



The Umbrella or parasol (chhatra):




Photos of the completed Toma offerings :

I didn't stay on to see what the lama went on to make but here's what he was doing, probabbly shaping out another design :






Hopefully I would have another chance to take photographs of the full suite of process in making the toma offerings in the near future.

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DISCLAIMER:

Permission has been sought from Sakya Tehphel Ling for photographs to be taken.

Kindly note that this thread is not catered for the purpose of promoting the temple or anything suggestive of religious inclinations. As such, any insinuating or insulting comments will not be entertained.

Additionally, I do apologise for any inadequacy in explanations pertaining to rituals & practices as shown in the photographs.

Thank you for your kind understanding.

POTEX water closet from LUCKY KHOON @ Joo Chiat

After much deliberation over which brand of water closet (WC) to purchase, we've finally settled on getting a POTEX toilet bowl from Lucky Khoon at Joo Chiat.

Well, the transaction was not exactly a breeze and there were exasperating moments when it came to after-sales service.  However, before I dish out my verdict for Lucky Khoon's plumbling service, I seek the kind patience of all readers to walk through this blogging entry with me.

The birth of a "thesis" for WC ...

We had embarked on a draggy journey of scouting around for a reliable brand of toilet bowl.

  

I had done such a thorough research on the different brands of toilet bowls, including their respective  mechanism's "strength" in flushing to the extent that my hubby told his friends that I had already earned a PHD certification in WC.

We were extremely tempted to settle down for a Maclaire becox of the brand's raving reviews over the forum.  The so-called originals were operated on using Geberit's system which unfortunately, wasn't endorsed by the Geberit South East Asia that was headquartered here in Singapore.  However, we decided to pass up this brand in view of any potential expensive maintenance issues in the near future.  Replacement of parts could ring up to a hefty amount ranging between S$70-120.

The receptionist for Maclaire (Singapore) had directed us to Universal Union to take a look at the Maclaire WCs.  They have a huge variety of WCs & service from the staff was not bad.

However, we decided to throw in our lot with our contractor who reinstated the wall between our MBR & common room, when he recommended us to Lucky Khoon.

After much consideration and delays in sprucing up our flat, we finally settled on Lucky Khoon becox we observed that they seemed to have a thriving business in the showroom with the IDs who brought along their clients. 

As such, we had the idea that their plumbing & installation skills ought to be decent.

Shopping for a WC at Lucky Khoon ...

My hubby & myself made our way down to Lucky Khoon's showroom at Joo Chiat Place during a weekend.

We walked around the showroom, sat on almost all the display sets of WCs.  Apart from the much sought after POTEX due to its comfort when sat on, LUCKY KHOON carries its in-house brand, namely CP-UNO and Lucia, which we suspected were OEMs manufactured in China.

When we sought the expertise & opinion of their sales representatives, they had recommended these in-house brands.

However, we noticed that their toilet seats were cut out for those who had petite bottoms and some of these models had seats that were jarring into my buttocks when I sat down. 

Well, I wouldn't want to risk getting injured if I need to spend alot of time sitting on it.  There would surely be days where errr, I suffer from constipation & I would want to add on further injury on my bums!

What deterred me further from selecting these 2 brands were the sizing of their toilet seat covers.  The plastic seats were smaller than the porcelain rim (edges) of these brands such that the edges of the seating area were left exposed & not covered by plastic.  The design was understandably made to accomodate to the seat cover, when it has to be closed.

One of their sales represantative directed us to the toilet of Lucky Khoon's lighting shop (a few doors away) to test out the flushing mechanism of their one piece LUCIA which spotted a rectangular button on top of the water tank.

We visited the toilet in their other lighting shop and yes, it is true that the flushing system was strong.

But since I'm a bottom heavy person whose not willing to compromise on the comforts of answering nature's call, we settled down for POTEX.  That's even after POTEX Singapore has liquidated.

And moreover, many heartlanders used to swear by POTEX which is a brand name that was found in the toilets of many older HDB flats.

We have decided to bear the risk of installing a POTEX since Lucky Khoon is a legitimate seller for WCs & relatively popular with IDs.  The sales representative collected the full amount of $320 (WC + installation fees) from us after we ordered the POTEX WC in the showroom.

Appointment on a Saturday was given as requested but their plumbers couldn't commit any specific timing becox time taken for completion of plumbing assignments is determined by the complexity of the works on-site.  And needless to say, it's also dependable on the installer's skills.

Day of replacing our old Potex WC with its new counterpart...

When the big day arrived for installation at our existing flat, 2 guys fitted in Lucky Khoon's black signature T-shirt arrived and because there wasn't much of a space for maneuvering at the kitchen balcony, I wasn't able to capture every single moment of their work procedure.

The younger of the two dismantled the old water tank which was still sitting on top of our existing porcelain toilet seat.

Then, he started hacking off the base of the porcelain toilet seat with a tool that looked like a hammer to me.

The loud clanking noise that was generated while he hacked the porcelain toilet seat was really loud!  However, it didn't take long for the porcelain toilet seat to be severed from what's stuck fast to the ground.

However, the air in the toilet & kitchen reeked of a horrible stench that was a familiar scent to those who were living nearby monsoon drains that were choked to the core & flooding with carcass & rubbish.





It suddenly occurred to us that the installation fee of $120 was justifiable becox the poor chap had to come into contact with both the stench and the dirty contents associated with the old WC.

(which in our case, was dysfunctional for the past 8 years or so...)

While the young boy continued in hacking off leftover porcelain, the installer explained to us that HDB's method for installing WCs in the past meant allowing the porcelain toilet seat to be balanced on to a pile of cement, which in his opinion, was not necessary.

The removal of cement that had hardened within the interior of the old WC was not easy.  The young boy continued to hack off hardened cement with a hammer as shown in this photograph.

Then finally, he resorted to an electric driller to break up this cake of hardened cement on the toilet flooring.

I was terribly concerned over any potential damages to our toilet flooring.  However, the plumbing team at our place assured us that there will be no such issues.

And true enough, no damage to the flooring occured much to my relief.

After cleaning up the debris in the toilet, this same young chap started installing the new pan collar.  However, we had "scars" of the old hardened cement which were too stubborn to be removed.

The installer started to prepare the water tank for mounting on top of the new porcelain toilet seat with his toolbag of "goodies".

More photographs of the installation process & the anatomy of the new POTEX water tank:

White putty cement was then prepared to seal off the base of the WC so that it sat well & steadily onto the toilet floor.

We were not supposed to use the WC until the following day becox this is to allow the white putty cement to cure completely.

However, before the installer sealed the base with putty cement, he had tested the flushing as many as 3 - 5 times to ensure that there is no water leaking out from the base.

If it does, this is a sure sign of misalignment between the pan collar and the "waste pipe" of the new WC.

Final snippets of our new POTEX WC ...

As readers of this blogging entry would have noticed by now, this POTEX WC which we have chosen doesn't have a glamorous outlook by today's standards.  However, the shape of the porcelain toilet seat promises to pay due respect to all buttocks, whether they are bony, fleshy or bouncy.

Comfort is guaranteed to those who are prone to constipation and we didn't have any regrets where the design of our new WC is concerned.

We also noticed that the POTEX WC which we ordered has serial numbers on both its water tank and the toilet seat; which according to the lady boss from Lucky Khoon, were differentiated with different code numbers as shown in these photographs.

And if you noticed from the photographs, this set of POTEX WC has got a very glossy shine to its porcelain.

To illustrate to those who might be interested in the potency of the flushing mechanism of our new POTEX WC, please take a look at these 2 short video clips which I had created to demonstrate both full & partial flushing:

Full Flush

Partial Flush (Sorry about the blury video & the background music wasn't my idea but it so happened that the music was caught on the video while I was playing this jazzy number)

Food for thoughts ...

PUB's rating of water saving for WCs are represented by the number of ticks found on pale blue stickers pasted on display sets in showrooms.

The greater the number of ticks, the lesser water the WC uses.  Our new POTEX WC has 2 ticks.  There were those with 3 ticks & we wondered if there was sufficient water for flushing down human waste.   :unsure:

My hubby said that I was driving him nuts with talks of the number of ticks while we were shopping for a WC.

A "Post-Mortem" documentation of our newly installed POTEX WC ...


Water Leakage issues

After we had happily gotten a new WC in our kitchen toilet finally, we had post-installation issues which were unveiled to us on the night itself.

We came back from a wedding dinner and out of curiosity, I lifted up the toilet seat even though we could only start using the WC the following day.

However, I was shocked when a steady stream of water being discharged (from the water tank) through the outlet on the inner rim of the porcelain toilet seat.  That was definitely abnormal becox nobody had flushed the toilet.  This was classified as a leakage.  :(

As water had been constantly leaking into the toilet bowl, water tank would have been continuously topping up water through the valve attached to the water pipes.

In view of such a situation, my hubby had immediately turned off the valve to cut off water supply into the water tank.

To our horror, the entire tank of water sitting on top of the new WC was emptied into the toilet hole within 2 hours.  :(

An unexpected ordeal of chasing for a plumber ...

As it was already late into the night, we decided to call up Lucky Khoon to feedback on the leakage on the following day (Sunday).

It was quite a nightmare because we were being compelled to chase them for a plumber throughout the leaking ordeal.

I called in on Sunday, quoting the invoice number of our Potex WC.  The sales representative who attended to me over the phone, told me that the plumbers' schedule were fully packed on Monday and that they would send a plumber over to our place on Tuesday instead.

However, the sales rep couldn't provide us with a specific timeframe as to what time we would be expecting the plumber to turn up at.

All she said was she would send a plumber down on Tuesday and I told her that this was unacceptable as it's not reasonable to expect customers to sit at home and wait.

Then, she told me that she would check and call me up again in the later half of the day.

I waited but by afternoon, no such call came in so I called Lucky Khoon's showroom at Joo Chiat again and was attended to by another sales rep, who told me that she would call me the following day (Monday) to let me know the approximate timing her plumber would be visiting our flat.

By 4pm on Monday, I didn't hear from Lucky Khoon again so I took the liberty to call the showroom again and the sales rep promised me that she would let me know in about half an hour's time.

I waited but no such call came in after 45 minutes so I called and the sales representative said that the 2 colleagues whom I have requested to speak to were engaged with customers in their showroom.

By the time I made this call and received such a response, I was already fuming so I told the girl that I wanted to speak to her boss, to which she promptly inform me that her boss doesn't visit the showroom as he is incharge of plumbing works on site.

And a boss who still cares about his customers ...

She gave me his mobile number & I got in touch with him immediately.  I told him in a very unhappy but calm voice that our WC was as good as a useless one becox of the leaking issue; and that until today, there was no confirmation as to what time his plumber was coming in to rectify the problem.

There was alot of interference in the background becox of plumbing & renovation works over at this boss' end.  However, what surprised me was that he was very polite and apologised to me for the inconvenience caused.  And he assured me that his plumber would drop by the next day (Tuesday) between 1pm to 2pm.  He got me to send him my address & invoice number via SMS, which I did immediately, and called him up to confirm that he had received it.

And true to his words, a plumber who was in his early 20s, dropped by promptly at about 1pm. 

We were quite worried when he looked really young for his age.  However, when he filled up the water tank & detected the problem, he dismantled the water tank immediately & adjusted the black rubber gasket on the exterior of the tank's base.

After he flushed out the water from the tank, this plumber, my hubby & myself were seated on the floor revolving the Potex WC and staring hard to observe if there were any traces of water leaking out from the outlet situated on the inner porcelain rim of the toilet seat.

Yes there still was but instead of a steady stream of water, it was jux a small rivulet that died off into trickles of it.

Our "story" didn't end there...

Service recovery as promised by the boss ...

This young but experienced plumber wanted to replace our flushing mechanism with another brand known as "Showy".  However, we rejected his offer and told him that we wanted to replacement of the same model of the spare part.

He called up his office immediately and told us that he could do the replacement on another day.

However, he conceded and promised to drop by at about 6.30pm to replace the mechanism with the same model of "flusher" for our POTEX WC.

He even gave us his mobile number.

However, after that less than satisfactory experience we've had with those sales rep in the showroom, we didn't have faith in this young plumber.

We haven't a choice but had to wait at home to see if he turned up at 6.30pm.  Lucky Khoon got a brand new set of the POTEX "anatomy" delivered to our place at about 4pm.  Neatly packed & sealed up in a brown box.

And this young plumber didn't let us down becox he ended up at our door step bathed in perspiration & panting away at about 6.35pm.  He looked extremely exhausted but wasted no time in replacing the flushing mechanism with the new piece in the brown box.

However, the leaking was alot worse than our existing piece of "flusher".  So we told him that we were very sorry that we would prefer to stick by the original set that came with our new Potex WC.

And we apologised to him for this wasted trip.  Like his boss, he seemed to be very patient and understanding but we're not sure if he was chissed off deep down.

He told us to observe if the water leaking continued becox he suspected that the water trickling down bit by bit was a leftover that was collected at the base of the water outlet.  After that water clear out of that location, the dripping should stop.

My hubby turned off the valve that very night & after we were done with the final flush for the night, we woke up the following morning to check if there were water spots or droplets running down into the toilet hole.

Thank goodness, there wasn't any.  The porcelain above the toilet hole, was dry & clear from any traces of water.

Not sure if there'll be any relapse or not.  If it does, we'll update the problem here in this blog.

VERDICT - for POTEX WC :  SATISFACTORY - GOOD

Less than perfect even though the seat is very spacious & comfortable to sit at.  However, I presume that the ergonomics of the WC has it's own inherent fault which cannot be rectified as it's manufactured as such. 

To allow me to try to explain, water collected somewhere after flushing & this leftover water would take its time to trickle down the toilet hole.  This gave us the impression that it was leaking but as we monitored the water level in the tank (by shutting off the main valve so that water supply into the tank has been cut off), it remained stagnant without any decrease in water level & water trickling down into the toilet bowl would stop on its own.

As such, we could safely infer that there is no water wastages & cannot be classified as a leakage.

And if there are too much waste contents, including toilet tissues in the toilet hole, there would be "graffiti" swirling in the newly collected water after even a full flush.  However, no back-flow issues are detected thus far after flushing. (Backflow of waste upon flushing is every user's nightmare!)

I figured out that it's still preferrable to get a WC with 1 tick as this new POTEX WC has only 2 ticks.  Meaning that it has better water saving feature but lesser water to flush down contents.

VERDICT - for Lucky Khoon's plumbing service : SATISFACTORY

Their repair man wouldn't have been called in if their installer has tightened the black rubber ring below the water tank properly.

However, the installer & his junior assistant who did the removal & hacking of the old WC were very polite.

The repair guy from Lucky Khoon is a very honest & experienced young man probabbly in his early 20s or perhaps, jux 19-20 years old judging from his appearance.  He was very accomodating & patient; and we were glad that he took time to drop by twice on the same day to rectify the leaking issues.

Although this transaction wasn't a breeze, the boss had given us a fairly good impression in that he humbly apologised to us & was a man of his words when he fulfilled his promise in sending his repair staff down to rectify the problem.

According to my hubby whose pretty well-versed in DIY-ing, he told me that nobody could guarantee whether there would be leaking or not after installation of WCs.  Perhaps he had done alot of DIY for our flat to realise that it's not an easy job.

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Disclaimer:

Permission has been sought from the supposed proprietress (Madam Ong) of Lucky Khoon Bathroom Studio Pte Ltd for the hacking & installation process of their plumbing works at our home to be featured in this thread. 

Photographing of products in their studios is strictly forbidden.  As such, my thread does not contain any of such photographs.

Kindly note that this thread is strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of works and services provided by the aforesaid company.

I am not affliated to this company and am an existing client who bought a WC (glamorously known as "water closet" as compared to calling it a toilet bowl) for my kitchen toilet.

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread.

For the ease of viewing and reference purposes, photographs containing Lucky Khoon Plumbing & Renovation Pte Ltd are uploaded.

Selective photographs featuring their plumbing works had also been water-marked in view of copyright issues.

Thank you for your kind understanding.

Bedroom Door from Yontat Doors & Hardware Pte Ltd

After a hectic journey that entailed demolishing of wall and fabricating of hollow block walls in a bid to restore both MBR & common bedroom, we have finally reached this stage of selecting a bedroom door.

(For a review of restoration for our bedrooms, please visit the following section of my blog:

http://barbettey.blogspot.com/2012/05/demolition-fabrication-of-walls-in.html )

We have decided on Yontat Doors & Hardware Pte Ltd because this door company is supposedly reputable since it is very popular with many clients.

So we've decided to visit their workshop at Eunos so here we are!

  

When we entered their premises, both sides of their workshop were lined neatly with doors that were labelled with serial numbers.

We were later told by the sales representative (a petite & young girl, whom we address as "Shu-Ting") that they were doors which had been ordered by clients and home developers; and are pending installation.

In fact, when we entered the airconditioned office, we had to wait for our turn to be served.  So we sized up that their business must be very good.

Selection of Doors : 

Eventually, we were served by this young girl, Shu-Ting, who showed us Yontat's catelogue of doors.  We told her that we are going for decorative doors, of which she explained to us that the "Simpo door" for the design that we wanted is $260 and the "Nyatoh solid" would cost us $450.

We requested to see the difference in quality and she brought us to the showroom outside and pulled out doors which were presumably running on rollers I guessed.

As the "simpo door" was good enough since the "nyatoh solid" wasn't just expensive, it was extremely heavy and what good would it do for us if all we require was a wooden door for our bedroom?  Moreover, we had plans to shift to a new place in the near future.  So no point paying so much for a door when we're abandoning the flat for another during our old age.

Apart from the "simpo door", we also saw these other doors, namely:

Classic doors which are made of compressed wood but are simply lovely to look at becox it has a country living style to it especially when it is sprayed white in colour as shown in this photograph:

Veneer doors which according to Shuting are also made to be 100% solid wood.  However, we didn't select veneer doors even though they are probabbly in trend for the past few years; but the drawback here is that it isn't scratch resistant.

Should any "accident" take place, scratches, scuff marks & dents are not reversible.  The owners of veneer doors would simply have to live with its "scars".

We contemplated ordering a "Simpo door" but with no engraving of designs on it.  Just plain & simple.

However, since we've been using plain doors everyday, my hubby felt that it was time for us to use something different from what we had for all our bedrooms now.

After quite a lengthy discussion with my hubby, we ordered a "simpo door" with such a design that has been dated quite sometime back.

I have tried my best to adjust settings for the photograph becox the real door looked alot better than what's taken on the digi-camera.

The colour didn't look right on photo too becox the actual piece is of a reddish-brown shade.

This design isn't my hubby's favourite because he felt that it is far too complicated and selected 2 other designs, which were simple and very popular with clients even till today.  However, I'm a superstitious person & didn't agree to engravings of designs that showed the outline of a tombstone, I was adamant that we reject those designs.

Yes this is an old-fashioned design which had been in the market for many years.

However, I liked the oval shaped engraving which reminded me of looking at myself in an elegantly shaped mirror.  Old gals at my age still love fantasizing as Snow Whites!  I am quite a romantic freak myself. :)

And Shuting has also highlighted to us that becox there are many grooves for this design, we might just require more cleaning with this door when dust settles onto it over time.

Installation Fees

She had also highlighted to us that since we are only buying 1 door, installation fees of $50 would not be waived.  The waiver of the $50 installation fees is applicable only to a purchase of 3 doors & above to be installed at the same premises.

As such, we bought this "simpo door" at $310 + 7% GST.

And what shocked us next was the installation date was 1 month from the date of purchase!  Shuting has explained to me that Yontat's hands are full & the schedule couldn't accomodate to orders that require immediate installation.

However, we still bought the door from them anyway.

Door Knobs

Yontat threw in the door knob & stopper for our purchase of the "simpo door" & we chose these accessories in matt silver even though I was tempted to go for a colourful, marbled knob (have to top up $18 for it).  My hubby wasn't agreeable to those marbled knob becox he felt that it wouldn't be as durable if we were to hit it by accident with a hard object.

It was when Shuting prompted us to select our door knobs that we started to recall that 2 sets of new knobs were required for the other 2 bedrooms.

We brought down the existing door knob and showed it to Shuting.  She introduced the ACE Entrance Lock to us.  The box came with the knob & other accessories e.g. instruction leaflet, screws & keys.

The ACE Entrance Lock was categorised as an entry level door knob.  The radius of the door knob was relatively small as compared to our existing HDB door knobs.

However, my hubby explained that so long as the door could be shut & locked up nicely; and reopened again without difficulties, then any door knobs are acceptable even if they were small in size. The quality seemed to be good & it is indeed value for money. It was such a real steal becox each door knob cost us $4.50 + 7% GST only!

(DIY Installation of Door Knobs)

My hubby bought additional ACE Entrance Lock and replaced the existing faulty door knobs for our bedrooms & here are some snippets of his hands & the door knobs:

Driving nails through a metal door frame was tough so my hubby had to mobilise a driller to do the job.

A successful replacement of door knob for one of my bedrooms.

Our bedroom door has finally been delivered to us today.

More snippets on our bedroom doors - sorry if the door looks slanted because of the angle of the photo-shoot :

However, the entire process wasn't a breeze.  There were hiccups.  And for the very first time, we had uneasy thoughts that such issues which we had already faced once with another door company (see my complaint on door installation under my earlier blog entry on demolition & wall fabrication) is inherent among door companies. :(

So if we had an ID, we would definitely get him/ her to clean up this mess.  Otherwise, it's really very stressful to coordinate everything on our own especially when there are glitches along the way.

At least, when the hiccups took place, YonTat was quick to rectify immediately when I alerted them.  The sales rep in the office was very polite & apologised.  She even explained to me about matters relating to the door fabrication industry.  As such, I cooled off as an angry customer becox they bothered to explain, apologised & were willing to accomodate to my request.

Despite the less than perfect experience on the day of delivery, I have to admit that YonTat's workmanship & installation is EXCELLENT. 

Especially for the price we are paying. :)  Cannot complain already.

Door Installation

Yontat's door installer is very skillful because we observed that it requires alot of skill & precision, especially when it comes to cutting off a rectangular groove to install hinges.

If the alignment is out, then, it'll look really awful.

And he is very careful in placing thick squares of carpets below the door to prevent our tiling from being scratched (see photo attached below).  That was a kind consideration.  And I think it is also to create friction so that the door doesn't skid off & come crashing down onto the floor.

Please see the photographs below where the door installer single-handedly dealt with the door.  The door is extremely heavy according to my hubby.

After the door was mounted onto the door frame, the installer used a cutter to drill against the door and a very neat looking round hole (for the door knob) appeared.

A round wooden block with debris.

Vanishing process:

After the installer left, the vanishing was followed up by his colleague.

This last finishing stage was a real shame as it was a letdown from my perspective as a customer.

Not that the vanisher did a bad job.  However, before we could stop him, he used a electrified gadget with sandpaper attached (to be known as the "sanding machine" in this thread) to smoothen the door and very tiny particles of saw dust flew all over our bedroom and landed onto the furnishings and personal effects that were found in there!  :(

I was so upset that I gave him a huge dressing-down, reported the matter straight away to Yontat who apologised and told me that they would speak to their staff about it.

We had no choice but to mobilise the opaque drop sheets which had been previously sponsored by our contractor for demolishing & fabrication of walls (see my earlier thread) for our bedrooms.  But it was pretty useless because everything in this bedroom was already covered with saw dust.  And the exterior of the bedroom too! 

I didn't take any photographs of the vanishing process as I was fuming with anger.  All I knew was that he mixed the colour tone for the vanish for code "number 2" which we chose based on the sample of the wood stains shown by YonTat's sales rep when we bought the door.

My hubby confirmed that the colour tone was ok and he started vanishing.  However, the vanishing process was a nasty job too because after the first coat, he had to use that "sanding machine" to smoothen out the door.  This process was repeated thrice. 

It was a lot of hard work & definitely not pleasant to be inhaling such chemical solvents on the long run.

Our noses were assailed by the strong pungent odour arising from the liquids used, which smell like they were thinner-based.  However, the smell was a lot stronger.

Post Mortem

Despite this unpleasant experience with the vanisher, we would like to provide an objective review that YonTat and all their staff did a wonderful job.  :)

And we were pleasantly surprised that YonTat's boss, paid us a courtesy call to find our what happened and apologised to us for any of the inconvenience caused.  :) :)

We weren't expecting to hear from him since we have only bought one miserable bedroom door which cost only $310 (incl $50 for installation which couldn't be waived unless we bought 3 doors for the same location) + 7% GST. 

It goes to show that YonTat's management does not belittle or take slight of any customer's complaint regardless of the transacted amount.  And we knew that YonTat's clients are in good hands since they are sincere and serious about making their clients happy & to top it all, they had good aftersales service too!

The fact that they could turn around a fussy & upset customer (like myself) and make her happy, then, they are worth considering if you guys require any doors.

We are very pleased with YonTat's products and services; at the end of the day, they did such a neat job that many of my neighbours commented on how beautiful our bedroom door is.  Worth the 1 month wait.

I just have to reiterate that the installation is professionally done & the vanishing is beautiful! :P

We would definitely consider engaging them should we require doors in the near future.

So please consider using YonTat Doors & Hardware Pte Ltd should you require a replacement of doors!

Verdict :  EXCELLENT!

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Disclaimer:

Permission has been sought from Yontat Doors & Hardware Pte Ltd for their products, namely bedroom doors & door knobs to be featured in this thread.

Kindly note that this thread is strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of works and services provided by the aforesaid company.

I am not affliated to this company and am an existing client who bought a bedroom door ("Simpo door") for my existing bedroom.

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread.

For the ease of viewing and any enquiries related to their contact numbers & address, photographs of their address & telephone numbers are uploaded.

Selective photographs featuring their doors had also been water-marked in view of copyright issues pertaining to the company's products.

Thank you for your kind understanding.