3 Common Renovation Myths Debunked that Malaysians Must Know
by Lanny Ho
It’s not everyday you get to renovate your home so it’s understandable that your knowledge about the craft is near to zero. But like many things, there’s always pre-conceived ideas we’ve gathered from one of those “he said she said” situations or just popular marketing schemes spreading false information.
It is incredibly crucial for a homeowner who plans to embark on any scale of home remodeling projects to fully understand the kind of processes that would be involved. The reasons behind the importance of researching and properly understanding the processes should be glaringly obvious. Renovations tend to require you to invest a large amount of your time, energy and, of course, money, varying depending on the options you decide to go for (Ie. interiors require more money and significantly less amount of your time and effort but contractors would require less money and significantly more amount of your time and effort).
In this article, we want our fellow Malaysians to become a little more aware of common misconceptions surrounding the act of renovations. So without further ado, let’s debunk some misleading home common renovations myths! Here are 3 Common Renovation Myths Debunked that Malaysians Must Know!
DIY saves money
This myth is considered one of the most widespread misconceptions regarding renovation.
The thought of doing your home renovation is definitely a terrifying yet invigorating concept in any way or form. Sure, there are things you can “do yourself” but that doesn’t mean it can be done well. It is definitely satisfying to admire images or watch videos displaying other people’s DIY projects, the before and afters, and even the process is entertaining. While observing this as a bystander, you don’t realise how much commitment it takes to remodel your own kitchen. Not to mention, how dangerous it could be if you are not doing it correctly or are not equipped with the right tools or materials.
The reason why there are professionals who dedicate their career life to creating aesthetically pleasing yet functional spaces for you is because the task requires an expert eye with high proficiency and expertise in the field. They are there to save us our money, our times, our effort, and add value to our lives and our home in whatever way they can through the renovation process.
If you were to do-it-yourself, you would need to ensure that you spend countless hours of your own time and effort on research upon research on the who, what, when, where, whys and hows of renovation. Even then, you likely won’t be able to produce quality work because you were not trained to do so.
So don’t try to impress anyone by doing-it-yourself, WOW them with professionally done, beautiful and high quality interiors instead. In the long-run, you’d see how much money you’re saving on repairs or malfunctions in your home.
You don’t need any permits
For Malaysians, the thought of permits probably don’t even cross their minds when doing renovations. But, if it comes up, most of us probably think there isn’t a need for permits when trying to do renovations because well… the topic rarely comes up at all! The truth is for certain renovations in Malaysia, there may be permits required to be passed before the project can proceed. If not, the government literally has the right to pull a “Ctrl-Z” on your whole project even after it has been completed. Trust me, you wouldn’t want THAT to happen. Especially after spending all the time and money on it.
Much of our lives have laws that govern it, but we just don’t notice because of how these laws have already been imprinted and ingrained into our systems. We treat these laws as the norm, as if it’s normal and most of our lives, we probably never question them.
The act of renovating our homes would mean “to change the whole look of the surroundings” or “affect how others are able to use the property.” Therefore, the Street, Drainage and Building Act 1974 has detailed what is allowed and not allowed for renovations. Failure to comply with the laws can result in large fines, demolishing of your renovated property, and difficulties when trying to put your house up for sale in the future.
That is why you really MUST double, triple, quadruple check whether or not you are allowed to be renovating in a certain way before proceeding. Check out this article we found to help you get an idea of what to look out for: Click here
It is expensive to go green
This is a juicy one! A majority of people still think that going green is unreasonably expensive and not worth investing in when renovating their homes. That could not be more far from the truth. Green technology can still be considered quite new when compared to the traditional and conventionally used technology but it HAS been around for a number of years. We want you to understand that going green is an investment. It can actually save you money in the long run.
As suggested by the U.S. Department of Energy, when you are shopping for appliances, you should consider two separate costs. (1) The cost at the point of purchase of the appliance and (2) The cost of utility during the lifetime of the appliance once it has been purchased. For many years to come, you will be coughing up money to cover for the second cost of the appliance every single month. That is why when you’re purchasing an appliance you should also consider how energy efficient it is. A good way to identify an energy efficient appliance is through the “ENERGY STAR” logo.
It is even possible for you to power your entire home with a solar panel due to the advancements of technology. Although the cost would be in the range of RM50,000, you could sell any excess energy that you have accumulated with the panel you have installed to offset your costs.
This is made possible with the introduction of the Feed-in Tariff. Depending on your usage, it has been estimated to take as little as 4 years to up to 11 years to pay-off your installation costs. In just 4 years! Then after that, it’s just profiting from selling the excess energy your home is producing. If you are interested, you can apply to be a Feed-In Approval Holder (FiA) by visiting the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) Program by Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia.
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For now, that is all the myths we will be debunking for this article. We should always question the things we read online and confirm the facts or reliability of the sources that are presented to us. We hope that you were able to learn something new about renovations and also about our beloved nation, Malaysia. Thank you for reading.
