Is your flat like this one ?

[verykiasu2010]

Safety should come before style in flat design



I AGREE with Mr Ang Chin Guan's letter ('Focus on safety first in building HDB flats'; Forum Online, Wednesday).

My family and I, owners of a new Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) flat in The Peak @ Toa Payoh, discovered designs that create safety concerns.

The bay windows in the bedroom, while pleasing to the eye, act as a step to the window grilles comprising a series of four horizontal bars that lead to a huge gap at the top. Active children who love to climb may regard it as a children's gym meant for exploration. Diagonal bars, or even floral design grilles would have been safer.

The three- and four-room units have master bedroom toilet doors through which pregnant women, or larger people, cannot squeeze.

A folding or sliding door would have been more practical.

The gates of the flats are oddly designed. The padlock holders are not on the inside of the gate facing the interior of the flat, but outside the unit. The design makes it hard to lock and unlock the gate. If a fire breaks out, the occupants will have a hard time escaping because the padlock is located outside and at a height above the shoulders.

Residents whose units are perpendicular to each other have discovered that they cannot open their gates at the same time or keep the gates open as this will impede the movement of people from the other unit. The gates should have opened not towards each other but in different directions.

Huge planters are provided but not everyone has a green thumb, and as the planters are like drains, they are a hazard for children.

The HDB, the developer Hoi Hup, and the Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council should take a good hard look at how the units are designed.

Tan Xiu-Yin (Ms)

http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_814045.html

[fightingmom]

We don’t have any planters but been to some friends’ place where most of them decked it up in case the children accidentally fall into it (especially those in the balcony area). Like what the writer said, not all of us have green fingers. Those planters can be a place for Mosquitos to breed especially after a downpour so have to keep a lookout.

[concern2]

Wow, come to think of it, mine has padlock holder that's outside, just that we don't use padlocks...As for toilet doors, yes, we have the same problem. Good thing we don't have any balconies.


Sorry, my mistake - my padlock holder actually faces in! It just confirms that I don't use it at all. :oops:

[Funz]

Weird to have the padlock facing out. Thought one purpose of the padlock is to secure the unit so if it is facing out, it can easily be cut with a bolt cutter.


I remember grumbling about how it is so difficult to reach the padlock at my parents’ home last time, saying the space between the gate and the door is too narrow for one to manouver easily to reach the lock from the outside.

I always find bay windows a waste of space. If they can extend that part for the window why not extend it all the way to the bottom and give us more room space.

[tankee]

Horizontal window grilles are neat and ..... practical; can hang clothes to sun. :siam:

[schweppes]

lucky not vertical grills. :evil:


otherwise... one would feel like a prisoner in his own home. :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

[verykiasu2010]

schweppes:

lucky not vertical grills. :evil:


otherwise... one would feel like a prisoner in his own home. :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

may be Changi Hilton as horizontal bars, so it is still behind bars

[autumnbronze]

schweppes:

lucky not vertical grills. :evil:


otherwise... one would feel like a prisoner in his own home. :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:


Thats precisely why DH refused to have any sort of grills installed until the elder one was a couple of months old ... bo pian what

[Funz]

I never had any grills in any of my houses until this one and ironically, this one is on the ground floor so no danger of highrise falling. When we first moved in, we did not have any grills. But after an attempted break in, we put up some grills in the backyard.

[Funz]

Another thing I find ridiculous about the new designs, be it condo or flats. Windows that cannot be opened. Seems the trend is such that a huge middle portion of the window is a fixed glass panel and only 2 small side panels can be opened.