Zane Chua

Accidental Guide to Project Managing a House Rebuild in Singapore

houseconstructioninfrastructurearchitectcontractornew erectiondemolitionlandedsemi-detachedproject managementbuilding a landed house in singapore

23 June, 2025 • 15 min read

Accidental Guide to Project Managing a House Rebuild in Singapore

Building a house in Singapore is a very uncommon journey, and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of resources for someone to even begin figuring out how to do so or project manage it. This is my attempt at documenting the process and how I've approached it.

Journey

I want to make this essentially a living blog post. As I'm going along this journey, I may add new sections and find new ways of organizing this project. I will update this post in-line so that it will benefit future readers

I have been evaluating my housing options for a few years now and had been considering a private condominium here in Singapore. The prices of a condominium in Singapore have been pretty much skyrocketing year over year that owning your own house might seem like an impossibility for the newer generations.

I did not begin 2024 thinking "Let's go build a new house", but after evaluating all the options. It turned out that demolishing our landed property and rebuilding on it made more sense for us as a family as it would have cost the same amount to buy a condominium. I know that it's not an apples and apples comparison as I'm not factoring in the land cost for the landed property. However, in my eyes, I am factoring in the cost that actually needs to come out of our pocket to "have" a house.

I'm writing this post to document the journey as well as provide guidance to future folks who are looking to build their own home. This post will mainly focus on the project management piece. I will write subsequent posts on the various aspects of the whole journey, e.g., tender process, selecting an architect, choosing a window vendor, determining solar vendor, etc.

So let's begin from the start as much as possible. To be very clear, my background is in tech not construction, but I would consider myself to have a little bit of "DIYness" in me, so take that as what you will.

Getting Started

Before we start engaging any professionals, you must have a rough idea what you are setting out to achieve.

I have 3 ways of managing the information I need for this project

  1. Project Document - Google Docs
  2. Project Spreadsheet - Google Sheets
  3. Project File Organization - Google Drive

You don't really need to use Google, but that's what I went with. You should easily be able to replicate this with Microsoft Word, Excel and OneDrive or any other equivalent.

Project Document

I used this document to mainly store text or picture-based information about the house either for myself or to be shared with the professionals that I need to work with

I have 5 tabs in this document

  1. Main Tab (Address of House)
  2. Regulatory
  3. Design Ideas
  4. Topics
  5. Tender Variations

Main Tab

Within this main tab, I broke this down into four sections:

  • Tentative Requirements
  • Plans
  • Notes
  • House Facing Direction

I included a picture of the Certificate of Title at the top of the document which is essentially the title deed to the house, in there you should have the Lot No, Area (Sq M). We will use this information in URA Space to gather the following pieces of information:

  • Land Use
  • Gross Plot Ratio
  • Building Height Control
  • Setback Requirements

Take note of the url that contains the information and include it in your document.

Tentative Requirements

The Tentative Requirements section is essentially the preliminary information that you want to communicate to the professionals to help you help them.

Here's an example of my Tentative Requirements that I have iterated on thus far:

  • Budget: $2,000,000
  • Demolition
  • Construction:
  • House 3 + 1 (Attic)
    • Tiling
    • Lighting
    • Lift
    • Toilets (Sink, Toilet, Shower), Separate Toilet + Sink/Shower
    • Kitchen
    • Electrical/Plumbing works (No hidden wiring/plumbing)
    • Infrastructure works for solar panel/water collection
    • Simple Lighting
    • Networking Room
    • Aircon for Living Room, Dining Room, Bedrooms
    • Ceiling fan for Living Room, Dining Room, Bedrooms
    • No Smart Home
    • RC Ledge on the side of the house for aircon compressor
    • Electrical Load (3 phase 100A)
  • Levels Breakdown
    • Level 1:
      • 1 x Master Bedroom with built-in toilet (Toilet should be big enough to accommodate for wheelchair)
      • 1 x Bedroom (Helpers Room)
      • 1 x Living Room
      • 1 x Dry Kitchen
      • 1 x Wet Kitchen
      • 1 x Dining Room
      • 1 x Utilities Room (Distribution Box + Networking Equipment + Solar Equipment)
      • 1 x Common Shower + Toilet
      • 1 x Laundry Area?
      • 1 x Backyard
      • 1 x Bomb Shelter
    • Level 2:
      • 2 x Master Bedroom with built-in toilet
      • 2 x Bedroom
      • 1 x Pantry/Lounge Area
      • 1 x Common Toilet only
      • 1 x Common Shower + Toilet
      • 1 x Accessible balcony extending over the porch area
    • Level 3:
      • 2 x Master Bedroom with built-in toilet
      • 2 x Bedroom
      • 1 x Pantry/Lounge Area
      • 1 x Common Shower + Toilet
    • Attic
      • 1 x Study
      • 1 x Alfresco BBQ Area
      • 1 x Pantry
      • Roof Access

Plans

This section is used to store any plans that are available via SLA and BCA.

Required Plans

The following are mandatory plans that your architect or builder will definitely ask you for, so please go ahead and purchase the plans. You will need them to kickstart a conversation when you're trying to appoint an architect/builder.

  • Road Line Plan, Purchase from INLIS for $54.50, please buy the .dxf version
  • Sewerage Information Plan, Purchase from INLIS for $3.55 under PUB Plans
  • Drainage Interpretation Plan, Purchase from INLIS for $3.55 under PUB Plans

Include them as screenshots in your document once you've obtained the plans.

TBD Plans

Depending on when your house was built, there are likely some BCA plans as well. Some of these may be really old or may be overlapping over each other in terms of content. Instead of buying all the plans, I paid BCA for the search fee and got the list of BCA plans available for the property. I took some screenshots and sent them over to the structural engineer and asked which plans he needed me to purchase. If money is no concern, just buy all of it that comes up in the search with BCA.

Notes

This section essentially is to store some additional notes about the project. I came up with the following methodology, but you may choose to work with what's best for you. This was meant as an initial entry point to help me kickstart my thoughts and what else I needed to consider, there's still a lot more depth into the various sections that you will have to go into.

  • General, which was just a header for items that applied to the entire house
  • Brands, which brands did I want for the appliances, drawers, etc. in the house
  • Processes, to note down e.g. profit and attendance, or how the flow to building a house is like, etc
  • Electrical, Technical Specifications like the size of wire, or you want neutral for the light switches (for smart switches), etc.
  • Kitchen, the type of cabinetry you want, details about measuring drawer inserts, what type of counter-top material, type of floor tiles
  • Bathrooms, what type of tiles you want, DCOF (Dynamic Coefficient Of Friction) level you want to ensure you don't slip on the tiles, Toilets to be P or S-Trap
  • Rooms, Specific details about each room, e.g., spacing of the door from the wall (if you hang stuff behind the door)

House Facing Direction

This section stores information on the orientation in which your property is facing and how the sun will hit your property. It's important to understand so that you can take it into consideration for the house windows, type of curtains, solar, architectural design and more.

There's a great article from Stacked Homes that gives you some information about the sun and how it will hit your house, I suggest you take a quick read. Here are the links to a few tools I've found to help you better visualize how the sun hits your home:

The following tabs are meant for after you have engaged either an architect or builder, the main tab above is enough information for either an architect or builder to start with

Regulatory

This tab is used to store links to various agency regulations that are useful to know/follow.

Here's my regulatory section

MOM

URA

PUB

NEA

EMA

SCDF

BCA

MSF

SP Services

Other

Design Ideas

This tab is used to store pictures about certain areas that I am taking inspiration from e.g. the ceiling, bathroom, living room, external look, etc.

Topics

This tab is used to store certain topics around the house that don't really fit into the above tabs, e.g., Rainwater Collection, Accessibility, Catalogs of Lights, Fittings, Fans, etc.

Here's my Topics section

Rainwater Collection

Accessibility

Catalogs

Doors

Windows

Air Conditioning

Solar

Tender Variations

This tab is used to store essentially my meeting notes with the different tenderer and details about what the specific contractors will use. E.g., what type of windows and the vendor that they are proposing, what material/size of water pipes will be used

Project Spreadsheet

So we have a document to store some unstructured information about the project, now we need a way to store the structured data as well as compute data to do evaluations. E.g., fees paid, comparing the tender submissions, keeping a list of items that you intend to purchase for each level

Here's how I structured the spreadsheet, you can see a sample here as well: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11-0-upHZkUyObYWtbdOeNqCqUSy_VKCarJmTPgd4Es4/edit

Fees

The first sheet was Fees

Item Description Price Status Paid Up Amount
Topography Survey $0.00 Fully Paid $0.00
Soil Investigation Report $0.00 Fully Paid $0.00
URA Planning Permission Fee $6000.00 Fully Paid $6000.0
Architect Fee $0.00 Partially Paid $0.00
QS Fee $0.00 Partially Paid $0.00
Structural Engineer Fee $0.00 Partially Paid $0.00
RE/RTO Fee $0.00 Unpaid $0.00
Asbestos Site Survey + Removal $0.00 Fully Paid $0.00
LTA Road Line Plan $54.50 Fully Paid $54.50
BCA Search Fees $35.00 Fully Paid $35.00
BCA Plans 1 Plan = $45 $90.00 Fully Paid $90.00
BCA Plan Fee for Structural Plan Submission $2400.00 Fully Paid $2400.00
BCA Fee for Building Plan Submission $2700.00 Fully Paid $2700.00
NParks Building Development Fee (Non TCA and Non Vacant Land) $1605.00 Fully Paid $1605.00
PUB Building Plan Submission $1450.00 Fully Paid $1450.00
PUB Sewerage Information Plan $3.55 Fully Paid $3.55
PUB Drainage Interpretation Plan $3.55 Fully Paid $3.55
SCDF Plan Fee $900.00 Fully Paid $900.00
NetLink Trust Fiber Removal $562.65 Fully Paid $562.65
Total $Total $Total Paid Up

Overview of Contractor High Level Comparison

I had the high level breakdown of the tender submission costs.

I had three tables:

Overall Summary

Contractor Total Preliminaries Main Building Works M&E Works Contingency & Provisional Total (Exclusive of GST) [SGD] Total (Inclusive of GST) [SGD]
Sample Contractor $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00

Main Building Works

Contractor Demolition, Excavation & Preparation Works Structure Works Brickworks Staircase & Railings Roofing Works Waterproofing Works Floor & Skirting Finishes Wall Finishes Ceiling Works Door Works (Supply & Fix) & Ironmongery Aluminium, Metal & Glazing Miscellaneous Works External Works Other Total
Sample Contractor $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00

M&E Works

Contractor Sanitary & Plumbing Works Electrical Works ACMV Works Total
Sample Contractor $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00

Contractor Detailed Comparison

This sheet was basically the equivalent of a Quantity Surveyor report after they tabulated all the tender submissions

Wall and Floor Finishes

The finishes section here allows you to calculate the tile costs for the floor area as wall as the wall area for e.g., bathrooms

Location Level Type Width Length Height Computed Floor Area (m²) Floor Area (m²) (Contractor) Total Wall Area (m²) # Prime Cost Floor Tile Cost Wall Tile Cost Alternative Prime Cost Alternative Floor Tile Cost
Sample Location 1 Common Area 2.4 2.2 2.1 23.7 32.00 41.79 80 $2560.00 $3342.20 40 $1,680.00

Level 1 - 4 + Network

These are just typical price comparisons of the items you would need to buy, e.g., Fridge, Oven, Washing Machine, Aircon, etc.

Item Type Tick Rating Power Consumption Description # Quantity # Price Location Source Picture Notes
Sample Item Sample Type 5-Star 1200W This is a sample item 1 2 1 $99.99 Sample Location sample.com [Sample Picture] This is a sample note.

Solar

Company Company Warranty System Size (kWp) Monthly kWh Generated No. of Panels Panel Brand Panel Model Panel Type Panel Power (W) Panel Efficiency Panel Width (mm) Panel Length (mm) Panel Area (m²) Facial Area Utilized (m²) Watt per (m²) Panel Degradation / year Performance Ratio 30 year Performance Panel Power Warranty Panel Material Warranty Inverter Brand Inverter Model Inverter Warranty LCOE LCOE (cents per kWh) Solar Cost per watt Solar Cost per kWp Amount (SGD) Amount w GST (SGD) Notes
Company A 2 year 21.84 1981 48 Trina Solar / JA Solar Vertex S+ NEG9R.28 / JAM 54D0 LB N Type 455 22.80 1762 1134 1.998 Mono 95.90 227.71 0.40% 77.20% 87.4 30 year 25 / 12 year Huawei SUN2000-17KTL-M2 10 year 0.035 22.83 $1.482 $1,482.280 $29,700.00 $32,373.00

Project File Organization

You are going to end up with many pieces of information that you should consolidate in one place to have a single source of truth. This helps you find the information you need, and you will definitely be looking up quotes, references, plans, etc. very often. If you intend to build a generational home, all of this information is crucial for the next generation to be able to understand what was done to the house and when. This folder should really be a living folder where you store any future improvements/maintenance you carry out on the house, which is easier said than done.

Here is the layout of my folder structure and what I store in there

  • Site Name
    • Approvals/Notices -> Official communiqué from the agencies, e.g., PP or WP approval, BCA approvals
      • BCA
      • URA
    • Catalogs -> Catalogs of Air Conditioning, Ceiling Fans, Home Lifts, Water Heater, etc.
      • Brand Name
    • Contracts -> Official contracts that have been signed with each professional
      • Architect
      • Asbestos
      • Contractor
      • Quantity Surveyor
      • Structural
      • RE/RTO
    • Design Ideas -> General look and feel of the levels in the house
      • Level 1
      • Level 2
      • Level 3
      • Attic
      • External
    • Guidance -> General Guidance or reference documents, e.g. Aircon insulation thickness, Rainwater collection, Book on Accessibility
    • Invoice References -> Invoices or Quotes that I've gathered from asking directly from the vendors or from friends and family
      • Air Conditioning
      • Doors
      • Interior Designer
      • Lift
      • Solar
      • Windows
    • Invoices -> Actual Invoices that I have paid out to the professionals
    • Plans/Reports -> Plans and reports from the various professionals that are needed for the project, architectural drawings, structural drawings, Bill of Quantities, etc.
      • Architect
        • Revision 1 (Start Date - End Date)
        • Tender Drawings
        • URA Submission
      • Asbestos Site Survey
      • BCA
      • LTA
      • PUB
      • Quantity Surveyor
      • Redacted
      • Soil Investigation
      • Structural
        • C+S (Civil and Structural)
        • Demolition
      • Topography
    • Regulatory -> Regulatory documentation around requirements/codes required for the house, e.g., accessibility code, lift, approved document, approved asbestos surveyors, cost of fees from various agencies
      • BCA
      • Joint
      • MOM
      • NParks
      • PUB
      • SCDF
      • Singapore Standards -> Codes required for the various categories
        • ACMV
        • Electrical
        • Fire Protection
        • Lighting
        • Lightning
        • Plumbing
        • Structural
      • URA
    • Vendors -> Architects that I have spoken to and Contractors that I invited to the tender, contractor tender submissions
      • Architects
        • Architect Name
      • Contractors
        • Contractor Name

Summary

I've detailed down how I've managed the information for this project. It's really a lot to take in, so I suggest using it as a reference point and come back to it as you're going along your journey. This is intended to be an exhaustive list of everything you need to help project manage your house build.

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