Fetch

Be careful when playing fetch with your dog.

They should have known better!!

Today is the 3rd day of my toilet leaking fix process. After they hacked off my tiles and the cement on the first day, they did waterproofing yesterday.

Let me tell you something embarrassing. I always thought that for waterproofing, they would install a layer of special plastic across the toilet floor to stop the water from seeping down, then cement the area followed by the tiles. I was certainly wrong and had not idea where I got such a ridiculous impression, cos this is how waterproofing looks like:

It's this mixture of cement paste that they apply across the toilet floor, especially around the corners and the drain outlets, and it has this pungent smell. After applying this, it had to be left overnight to dry. So basically on the second day, the contractor only worked for about 2 hours.

After the waterproofing dried up, they did the tiling today. Once they have finished cementing and tiling the area, I went and had a look.

Okay...everything seemed normal...

Then, I saw something not right!!

They cemented the area to a level that is too high. So after tiling, the level of the toilet floor is only slightly lower than outside! So this would mean that water from within the toilet area can easily flow out.

I was like, are you kidding me??!! They are the contractors and would have done this a million times. How could they not think of this?!!! They should have known better!!!

Well, it's already too late and the best they could do was to create this border at my toilet door to keep the water in. I thought it looked ridiculous but what can I do? So damn "kik sim".


Sigh... just have to live with it la. Guess I need to make sure I am gentle when pouring water onto that area.

For you guys who have to re-surface your toilet in the future, please be sure to remind the contractors about the leveling of the toilet floor. They may not be as smart as you think.

Don't be like me as by the time you utter "They should have known better", it is already too late. :-(

They will come install my toilet bowl tomorrow. I am glad this is almost over.

Hacked!!...my toilet tiles ler

After dodging my downstairs neighbour's complaints on my leaking toilet for almost 6 months, I finally got the contractor to start work today.

Fixing a leaking toilet is not a simple and quick task. It involves the removal of the toilet bowl, hacking of the floor tiles and cement, re-waterproofing, re-cementing and re-tiling, and then fixing back the toilet bowl. All of these will take 3-4 days.

Yes...it is a very very troublesome process, especially when you stay alone and working. You would need to take about a week leaves to be at home. The cost too is not cheap and depends on the size of your toilet. Luckily I managed to arrange it to happen during my "in-between jobs" period. As for the cost, I guess I need to forget about a new PDA phone. :-(

The contractor and his worker turned up 2 hours late. They were supposed to start at 9'ish but they came only 11'ish. After checking my toilet, the contractor left his worker to do the work. The foreign worker then started his tasks and managed only to hack off all my toilet's floor tiles and cement for today. I believe he could have accomplished more if they turned up as initially arranged.

The drilling and hacking sound were soooooo irritating. I couldn't watch my taiwanese series as planned due to the noise and ended up playing games on my iPod Touch and chatting online.

Oh... and the mess it made.



At the end of the day, the contractor came and I chatted a little with him. He said that I was probably the 2nd nice person that he knew who are paying 100% for the renovation cost. Usually in cases like this, either the 2 units share the cost or the owner of the upstairs unit would totally ignore all the complaints, although by law the owner needs to bear it.

I wondered when he called me "nice", did he mean that I am a sucker?

Anyhow, I thought this is the right thing to do. Hmm... I am a nice person after all. ;-p