Asian Renovations

There are fewer times I notice as much difference between Asian and American cultures as when having renovation or repair work done on your house. Here are a few examples:

1. Every room has it's own air conditioner, and therefore in the wall of every room there is a hole roughly the size of a large fist that allows the hose to go out of the house. The hose however is only about 2/3 the size of the hole, so you end up with a partially open hole in every wall. When asked if they could seal the rest of the hole sometime, the reply is "nothing we can do about it" (you hear this phrase on an almost daily basis if you spend time around renovators much). The suggestion was to shove some rags or bits of plastic into the rest of the hole.

2. Two days after we move in, we notice water running out of our fuse box and also out of the ceiling in another room. Reason? When they installed our bathtub upstairs, they used a hose a half-foot too short to reach the drain. And they didn't seal the hot water faucet so it was continuously leaking water into the wall.

3. When in need of a ladder the workers didn't have, they took some pieces of metal railing and metal wire and created their own ladder. Let's just say not the sturdiest looking structure to use while standing over a stairwell.

4. Every building in this country is made out of concrete and rebar. So when our neighbors decide to convert a basement window into a door, you get at least two solid days of having to shout at the top of your lungs in order to be heard by the person next to you over the sounds of sawing and hammering. They might as well be doing the work in your own place. Jeff using the concrete drill in our own apartment was less noisy than the neighbors construction.

5. When they lay the carpet in a room, they just sort of unroll it and glue the corners down. No stretching or anything. Eventually with much pressure they actually stretch it a little and glue it down better.

6. When they tile the floors in a bathroom or kitchen, they use grout that just chips out after a while. They have no sealer that you can put on the grout, so after just a few days the grout looks dirty. I haven't been able to find anyone who doesn't claim that they don't have sealer in this country.

7. When they paint they don't actually stir the paint very well, so by the end of the can the color is slightly different than when they started. Making it impossible to do touch-ups because the paint is all a different shade now.

But on the positive side, labor costs virtually nothing here. :)