Check up the hollow tiles in your new house

When you carry out your new house inspection together with the vendor during the handover process, don't forget to check for hollow wall tiles and floor tiles.

This is a common defect to many houses and apartments. You should get the developer to fix this problem before you move in, because it involves hacking the original tiles and replacing with new one.

To check for hollowness underneath the tiles is simple, but tedious. You just need to knock at the tiles with 50 cent coin, and listen if they give out sounds that indicate hollowness. Hollow formed when there is not enough plaster underneath the tiles. This problem might cause the tiles on the wall to fall off one day, and the floor tiles easy to crack or break, especially when hit by dropped objects.

You should knock at the 4 corners as well as the center of the tiles. Hollowness is usually found at the corners.

Sometimes, hollowness found in certain wall tiles could be acceptable, if you know there is concealed piping underneath the tiles which cause the hollow sound.

Using Power Saver to reduce electrical consumption and stabilize voltage

I have an MS188 Power Saver plugged into a socket near to the circuit breaker box in my house. This small device is effective, SIRIM tested, and legal to use.



This device works by fine-tuning the electrical system in the house. The fine-tuning process reduces heat generation, reduces amperage and results in reduction consumption of electricity. It causes less waste of electrical energy while increasing the life of the inductive equipment in the house. It protects against power surges for up to 400 volts and increases the capacity to the electrical panel by making it run cooler.

It helps to save in electrical bills quite substantially by reducing power wastage. How? It achieves this by increasing the Power Factor, which is the ratio of working power (kW) to apparent power (kVA).

I use this device for the following 3 main purposes:

1. Improve electrical efficiency and Power Factor, and hence reduce electrical bill charges.
2. Provide baseline protection against surge and brown to all electrical appliances in the house.
3. Stabilize the current and hence prolong the lifespan of electrical appliances in the house.

If you are interested with this Power Saver as well, click here for more info.

I notice it has a new look for the current version, slightly different from mine. The ads below shows its new look. You can place your order online there.

Tint film with safety and security features

Most people in Malaysia has installed tint film for their car to battle against the hot sun. My car is installed with Armorcoat security tint film for RM1xxx by the Tint Shop.



This tint film is comparable to V-Kool standard in terms of heat repellent, also comes with 5 years warranty, and is quite transparent to also meets the JPJ's light penetration requirement.

If you are considering tinting your car, it is wise to consider for the additional safety and security feature too. With the security tint film, people can only break the window in certain way using certain type of device. Your windows will be pretty robust and unbreakable by helmet, hammer, throwing stone, etc. And with its safety feature, even if the window glass is broken, the pieces will remain sticking on the film, instead of scattering all over and might injure people sitting in the car.

The minimum acceptable robustness of car security film is 4 mil (100 micron). An 8 mil (200 micron) security film can withstand most kind of impacts. If it is 20 mil and above, your windows can be bulletproof.