Friday, September 26, 2014

challenges ahead (part 2)

continue from the previous posting....

well, base on our current collection rate, barring office staffs are too fearful to block defaulters access cards, our regular collection should hit 85% to 90%, which is good enough to pay those regular expenses such as utility bills, management service, lift vendor, guard, pool...., even to cover for general maintenance item like pipe or tap burst, light bulb blow, electrical components replacement.

but the real headache is those major items, the 3 items mentioned in the previous posting, lift, water tank, repainting.

in fact out of the 4 lifts in Vista Condo, 2 at blk k have been upgraded recently, with the help of state gov't. Another 2 lifts at blk j still in reasonable condition, which may only need gov't financial aid after 3 to 5 years' time.

this week let's talk more abt the water tanks.....

the 8 water tanks at the rooftop of blk j & k (4 each), immediate attention needed for at least 2 tanks, the rest also can't wait too long, in fact we should complete the changing of the water tank lining for all these tanks in the coming 3 years in order to make them serving Vista Condo residents well.

for these tanks, the outer layer, or the stainless steel panel still in good condition, but should put the new paint to make it lasting, but some of the top cover will need to be replaced not more than 2 years from now. and painting of panel & top cover replacement are still bearable as far as our management fund is concern.

but water tank lining replacement pose a great financial challenge for us, each tank will need 40k to 50k to have it's water tank lining replacement, together with those supporting structure attached to the lining, as said earlier, time is not at our side as we need to replace all of the water tank lining in this coming 3 years :(

so our plan is, run to state gov't for help, and in fact we have just got first approval from fund requisition from them recently, so very soon the first new lining is within sight, but let's pray that we will continue to receive kindness from them for the future requisition.

God, pls help us....

Friday, September 19, 2014

Challenges ahead (part 1)

one may wonder, what is the life span of the vehicle he/she is owning now, and all of us may know, there's no standard answer, your expensive imported car may only in good condition for abt 10 years if you don't maintain it well, but even the local assembled cars can last for more than 30 years if you do the regular service & necessary repair on time, many cars we see on the roads are actually hitting 35 years, which is much longer than the life span set by the car manufacturers.

well, come back to our Vista Condo, sometimes we do ask ourselves, how many years more this condo can be in the reasonably liveable condition? 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? 40 years?

according to our record, Vista Condo exist since yr 1993, which means it has reached 21 years of its age, younger than those in Rifle Range or Kampong Melayu, same era with Villa Condo, slightly older than Taman Desa 2, and consider as veteran if compare with those newly built & nice looking apartment in this area.

to maintain this apartments & it's facilities posed a big challenge for us in the MC, the building structure should be no problem for another 20 years or more, but the aging facilities are the one needed a lot of finance & effort to maintain/replace/upgrade, and if we do it right then Vista Condo should have many many good years ahead.

3 important facilities will critically define & decide how is the condition of Vista Condo, the lifts, the water tank, the outlook appearance (or the condition of the paint at the common wall), other facilities like car barriers, gutters, car parking lots, lights, etc, are also important but just not as critical as these.

share with our beloved residents in next posting (part 2) for more strategies & plans to prolong Vista Condo's good condition to make it a really liveable apartments for many many more years to come :)





Friday, September 12, 2014

water supply interruption & pump maintenance

some report on the water supply interruption incident & immediate measure to counter it.....

we were alerted by residents from blk k on Wednesday afternoon abt the low water pressure, and subsequently no supply at all at abt 6.45pm.

2 MC members went to the blk k roof top to checked on the water tanks, to their shocking, all the 4 water tanks were without any water, so they went on to check the main tank at the ground floor, the main tank is where the PBA supplied water be stored, before be sent to the 4 water tanks at roof top.

They found the water level at the main tank is full, which means the pumps didn't do the job of pumping the water to refill the roof top tank, and this condition should be at least 2 days already because it will take more than 2 days for blk k residents to use up all the water in the roof top water tank.

and it's true enough that, it was short circuit & the trip caused no electrical supply to the control panel which resulted pump not running, so we quickly reset the MCB at the switch room, and the pumps run immediately, water supply back to normal at 7.20pm, a bit yellowish, but quality of water improved over times & it's good at midnight hours.

in order to prevent the same thing happen in the future, we called few pumps experts to come in on 13/9/14 (Saturday) morning to check, assess all the water pumps, control panels, float sensors, valves and other related essential components, to produce a report to us which component need to replace or repair now, and even a long term maintenance contract to check & service the mentioned equipment on the regular basis, we hope can finalize the matter in the MC meeting this week & seal the deal, so that the pump vendor can start help to monitor & service our pumps & it's related equipment as early as this month.

thanks.



Friday, September 5, 2014

general updates as at 6/9/14

after all the excitement of the Residents' gathering, now got to shift our focus to the management & maintenance of the common facilities in Vista Condo our beloved homes...

here are some updates for our residents,

1) building supervisor, the new building supervisor has just reported to work 2 days ago, his name is Richard, a veteran with more than 10 years supervisory experience in this line, hope he will do well & enjoy his works in Vista Condo, he is to replace Ah Khye the former supervisor, we want to thank Ah Khye for his various contribution (especially the car park matter), as now he wish to change the working environment & the company granted him his wish & transferred him to another project, we wish him all the best in the new place.

2) we were shocked with another big PBA bill for blk j domestic use, RM8000 plus for abt 6 month usage, but after we check all the related facility and found there's no major leak (for info, only major leak will cause big volume & big money), so we contacted the PBA & asked them to check, and as they also found no major leak here, they went back & check their part, seems it's their meter recording system problem, so now the bill reduced to RM2000 plus, like to share this matter here to ensure our residents that we do check our facility regularly to make sure we can arrest the problem before it become big which will cost us big money :)

3) building repainting, we are at the moment calling those shortlisted vendors for interview, to negotiate further on the quotations sent by them earlier, besides asking them to reduce (if possible) the quoted price, also checking if they have done any projects in Penang, for even though we wish can submit the 3 quotations to the state gov't (as requirement) as soon as possible, we also want to make sure these companies have credibility to do the job, hope by end of September we are able to finalize the 3 quotations & send to state gov't for their consideration.


thanks.