The renovation has now completed the electrical transformation and carpentry ceiling. Although these two tasks were finished in a week, once these tasks were done and the tiles and latex paint were decided upon, there was a sense of major decisions being made. The remaining work can be done slowly by the tiler and painter. Looking back at the completed projects, I have a new understanding.
1. Electrical and Plumbing
Cost: 6600, including labor 4000, material 2573
The key to electrical and plumbing is to fully consider the needs. Designers and workers will only design and construct according to normal templates. For example, next to the bathroom cabinet, I left two sockets, considering that the charging toothbrush base needs to be plugged in all year round, and the other socket is reserved for electric shavers, hair dryers, and other appliances, and even facial cleansing devices, who knows what new products will emerge in the future? Therefore, reserving sockets is never a bad idea.
1. Labor Costs
The electrical and plumbing work takes the least time, but the labor cost is significant, and the charges are clear. The project includes:
(1) Water pipes and wires are charged at 15 yuan/meter;
(2) Socket boxes and top junction boxes are 10 yuan each.
These two items basically cover everything, and the wall grooves are included as well.
Be careful about whether the elbows and other fittings are interchangeable; don’t buy Weking and have someone replace it with Gongyuan.
2. Material Costs
Purchased according to the electrician’s list, using Weking pipes and Philips wires.
(1) Water Pipes.
Let’s discuss only Weking pipes; the various colors of pipes are played to the extreme by Weking.
First, the Weking pipes from Zhejiang are for home decoration, while the Weking pipes from Beijing are for engineering use.
Secondly, blue is for export, orange is the most expensive, green is universal, yellow is designated by the decoration company, white or brown are engineering pipes, and red is not commonly used.
Finally, green pipes can be surface-mounted, while yellow and white cannot (the pipes are labeled).
In terms of price, they are 7-9 yuan/meter, and fittings are 3 yuan each. The prices on JD and Tmall are slightly higher, but they usually have discounts, so after the discount, the price is not much higher than the market on Changsha Road.
(2) Wires.
In the Qingdao area, wire protection is dominated by local enterprises. The common wires are Hanhua and Great Wall, both local brands. A 100-meter roll of 2.5 square wire costs about 160 yuan, 4 square wire costs 210 yuan, and 6 square wire costs 450 yuan. Hanhua usually sells a 200-meter roll, while other brands are 100 meters.
I ultimately used Philips wire, which increased the total cost by about 400 yuan, but the quality is indeed much better than Hanhua. I recommend purchasing first-tier brands such as Far East and Panda on JD, with prices generally around 190, but the copper core quality and flame resistance are much higher than local brands.
2. Carpentry Ceiling
Cost: 4400, including labor 2400, material 2000
The ceiling is mainly to cover the central air conditioning ducts, and also to create a false wall using OSB and gypsum board at the entrance to separate a small room that can be used as a storage room.
1. Labor Costs
The ceiling costs 50 per meter, a flat ceiling is 50 per square meter, OSB partitions are 55 per square meter, and air conditioning openings are 40 each (usually one air conditioner has three openings: air outlet, return air, and maintenance, totaling 120 yuan).
2. Material Costs
The worker provided a material list stating the maximum cost would be 1000, estimating that 800-900 would be enough. I ultimately spent 2000, with the main price difference being in the keel.
(1) Gypsum Board.
Gypsum boards come in 3 meters, 2.4 meters, and 1.5 meters, with quotes based on 3 meters. Saint-Gobain is about 60-70 yuan per board, Longpai is 39 yuan, and Beixin and Taishan were not inquired about, but they are cheaper.
(2) Light Steel Keel.
There are two types of keels. The national standard is very cheap, U-shaped edge keels are about 4 yuan each, but Longpai’s costs 25 yuan each, exceeding the budget by six to seven hundred.
(3) OSB.
OSB is divided into imported and domestic, and by thickness: 0.9cm, 1.2cm, 1.5cm, etc. The first two can be used for partitions, while the last one can be used for curtain boxes.
3. Explanation
Longpai is a sub-brand of Beixin Building Materials, so be sure to distinguish between them; Longpai and Beixin are indeed different. Here is a picture of a real Longpai gypsum board:
3. Tiling
The tiles were introduced comprehensively in a previous article (Renovation Diary 4: Labor Costs and Consumption Downgrading), so there is not much more to say, just a few small details.
Buying tiles usually includes transportation costs but not moving costs. The standard moving fee to upstairs is: sand and cement 2 yuan per bag, large boxes of tiles (800*800 and other models) 4 yuan per pack, small boxes 2 yuan per pack. The moving fee at the community entrance will be 1 yuan more expensive; it should be stable and cheap at the community entrance, but the entrance of my community seems to be controlled by various village bullies. I will try moving sand and cement from outside in a few days.
4. Painting
During this construction, most people’s focus is on latex paint, but the construction and latex paint are equally important. I will mainly discuss the pitfalls here.
1. Construction
(1) A small detail.
A small detail is that when applying putty, hanging fiberglass mesh helps prevent wall cracks. The mesh is very cheap, but the labor cost should be checked with the workers. The worker I found charges 17 yuan/square meter, which is higher than the market price of 15 yuan/square meter, but he will prepare the fiberglass mesh himself and hang it at the groove. I plan to ask whether hanging mesh for the whole house will incur extra charges.
(2) A difference.
After looking at many materials, in foreign construction, the walls are not usually puttied; instead, a layer of gypsum board is laid directly on the wall, and the paint (latex paint) is brushed onto the gypsum board. Therefore, foreign brand latex paints are generally less diluted with water, and putty tends to be harder.
(3) A blind spot.
While everyone is struggling to study latex paint brands and comparing various certifications, after spending thousands on latex paint, the worker chose Hongfuju’s putty, making everything in vain. Knowing that latex paint is worth the price, but not hesitating to choose the cheap putty priced from 20-90 yuan per bag, unaware that this counterfeit is more prevalent. Manufacturers will recycle bags from domestic big brand putty powder, reuse them for low-priced putty powder, as I seem to have written in previous articles. For example, buying imported latex paint paired with cheap putty is like wearing torn underwear while looking glamorous on the outside.
(4) A lie.
During the painting process, workers may say that Baide’s putty, priced at 90 yuan per bag, is too hard and must be mixed with cheaper domestic putty to ensure wall flatness. Why is the expensive one not as good as the cheap one? This is just the workers wanting to be lazy; in such cases, firmly say no and push back.
2. Latex Paint Brands
This really is an intelligence tax. Currently, the popular imported paints in the Qingdao area are Dufa and Finncolor, while most decoration companies use Nippon and Dulux, based on my limited knowledge.
(1) Dufa. A third-tier German brand that markets itself in China, promoting German quality. I checked on German Amazon, and the price for a bucket of paint is around 18-25 euros per gallon, which is about 60-80 yuan per liter, but the domestic price is about ten times that. Be careful that Dufa has both imported and domestic versions; don’t spend imported prices for paint made in Tongzhou.
(2) Finncolor.A Finnish brand that has also done well in marketing, claiming to be used by royalty, but I checked and found that Finland is the only Nordic republic without a royal family. What to do about this? The intelligence tax will still be paid.
(3) Nippon.Nippon is not a domestic brand! It was originally a Japanese joint venture. I still remember a famous advertisement for Panlong; it was very creative but was misused as a derogatory advertisement. It used to have the largest market share in domestic latex paint, but now it seems to have no imported products.
(4) Dulux.Dulux is a brand under AkzoNobel, the world’s largest paint company (Netherlands), and is currently mostly produced domestically and used extensively by decoration companies.
(5) PPG Master.PPG is a large American company, but Master Paint was originally produced by a domestic company and did well in domestic sales before being acquired by PPG, essentially rebranding it as an American brand.
(6) Fulege.A Danish brand that has overtaken the market with blackboard paint, and is similar to Finncolor in terms of environmental protection but is much cheaper.
(7) Other Domestic Brands.Such as Sanyuan, Jiabaoli, and Zijinghua, which I have not researched and will not comment on.
From the above descriptions, it can be seen that while brands like Dufa, Finncolor, and PPG Master may be slightly better than Nippon and Dulux, they are definitely not worth their prices, which is due to market monopoly. If latex paint were not considered hazardous, I would want to try purchasing it from Amazon.
Some of the most famous latex paint brands worldwide include: AkzoNobel, PPG Industries, Xuanwei, DuPont, BASF, RPM International, Diamond Paints, San Cai International, and Sherwin-Williams. The few that can be purchased domestically are often of varying quality, much like how Mengniu used to offer different qualities of milk in domestic and Hong Kong markets.
3. Latex Paint Certifications
When looking at paints, a bunch of terms will come out: Ten Ring Certification, German Blue Angel, American Green Guardian, Finnish M1, etc. From these certifications, it can be seen that there is no unified certification for latex paint worldwide; even within EU countries, there is no unified standard, so don’t blindly trust European standards.
Due to different measurement methods, simply stating that M1 is higher than Blue Angel is not significant. To summarize, the Ten Ring standard is somewhat low, Blue Angel is an entry-level certification, and M1 and Green Guardian are generally higher than the Blue Angel standard.
However, regardless of the standard, latex paint generally releases VOCs and formaldehyde, which will dissipate in about half a month, which is different from flooring and furniture. Therefore, regardless of the certification, it is sufficient, as long as there is good ventilation.
4. Differences in Latex Paint
Since the brands are all unreliable and the certifications are similar, how do we choose?
(1) For the average consumer, choose based on your budget. Prices generally correlate with quality, though not proportionally, they are indeed positively correlated, in the order of domestic brands < Nippon Dulux < Fulege Dufa Finncolor PPG Master (no particular order, basically ranked by price).
(2) For detail-oriented perfectionists who often touch the walls for inspiration, look at the paint film and choose one with a fine film, Dufa’s is the best.
(3) For those who want a sense of design and have strict color requirements, choose Finncolor; after all, other manufacturers like Dufa buy their color paste from Finncolor.
5. Smart Home
To be honest, current smart home products are mostly dumb products. As a seasoned digital product enthusiast, I have been browsing sites like Shaoshipai and Zhang Dama almost every day for many years (Zhongguancun has basically declined). As an investor, I have come into contact with various BP from companies dedicated to smart home startups over the years, but there has been no significant progress. Most smart home products on the market still rely on mobile phones for operation, with only lights being the most versatile.
Based on this, I only plan to install a few smart lights and smart switches, and maybe an electric curtain to play with. The rest will rely on Raspberry Pi or Xiaomi products.
Other products only need to leave enough sockets, but smart switches and smart lights need to have wires pre-buried during the electrical transformation, changing the single live wire through the socket or switch to two wires of zero line and live line. Just mention it to the electrician, and he will understand, as he has seen it all. Besides consuming a few more meters of wire, he won’t charge extra for labor.
As for smart refrigerators, smart air conditioners, and other products, I consider them an intelligence tax and will not elaborate further.
At this point in the renovation, I feel like it is almost complete. The total spent on electrical and carpentry work is 11,000, and I expect the tiling and painting to cost 12,000. The latex paint I bought during the promotion costs 4800 yuan, and the putty Baide is estimated at 2400 yuan, totaling about 30,000. The hard decoration quotes from renovation companies are all between 50,000-70,000. Doing it myself indeed saves some money, requires some effort, but the materials used are much better than those from renovation companies.
As for the subsequent soft decoration and other matters, there is no rush; I will take my time after the hard decoration is finished.