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Madan Chaurasia - 9916987077
Disclaimer - (Not related in any commercial way, just sharing the contact as I have used and found the services to my satisfaction)


SRS Lights on BVK Iyengar Road, (first floor after Maharaja Complex) have used them for my flats and found their service to be good.

How old is your current house wiring ? If its old (20-25 years +) and has issues with tripping etc, then would be advisable. Anchor ROMA (Panasonic ) switches are quite easily available and affordable, looks decent too. Try out various options. Most of the differences will be in looks and sound levels when pressing. That’s what you pay more for. Life and quality will be mostly same across. Take care to isolate different circuits with different MCBs while you’re doing so. Will be helpful to distribute load across the entire system.

Exposed wiring and channels looks nicer in commercial settings- cafes, offices, showrooms etc. Not widely used in homes but can be done. Only way to conceal wires completely is by concealment.

Get onto YouTube and watch a few videos to get more ideas. Some of my preferred ones are Lustrous locations, Enes Yilmazer, The Local Project, House and HOme, AV Properties, Presello, Listed, The Design, Beautiful Homes (Asian Paints) Stacked Homes, Interior Iosis by Nihari, Hunting for George, etc

Some ideas don’t really cost too much to implement and don’t need too much of technicality either !

Watching my neighbourhood from my rooftop, I observe Grass and Plants growing at and near the base of Water Tanks on most of the houses. Wind blows dust and earth, bird droppings the seeds and finally rain and water overflowing the Tanks necessary moisture for plants to grow. Soon the roots penetrate the cement weakened by continuous moisture and make home.
Peepal tree though considered auspicious, sacred and worshipped are common growth. Unless uprooted regularly, they get firmly imbedded and cause cracks in the structure.
While construction, I installed Ceramic Tiles aon the surface of the slab where Water Tanks are placed.
Six years on - No plants have ever grown.
Hope this information may be useful to others too.

Some of the online sites have offline stores (and there are such in Bangalore) where sometimes it is possible get the rates down as compared to online rates when you negotiate with them. When you buy offline, they also typically give the bulbs for free which they don't typically when buying online from the same sites.

When you say complete electricals, are you changing entire wiring in the house by breaking walls/ replacing existing wires? For wires, a proper gauge typically suffices. For switches, most have a similar life, you can add GM to your list too which is slightly more expensive than Anchor.


Experimented with these. It was one of those things in the category of looking good initially but overtime not retaining its charm. I also thought of using running wooden look beams but for my house with low ceilings, it wasn't working. I would have done this if my ceilings were high. I also tried painting wires in the colour of the ceiling and casing cover of wires in colour of the ceiling but neither came out well.

One thing which was looking ok (but eventually I didn't go for it) was purposely using a extra wide casing cover, but arranging it in a pattern which looked symmetrical/ elegant in the ceiling irrespective of whether wire was present in the entire part of the casing. Then painting this in -: ceiling colour to underplay it/ similar shade family to look purposely different/ stark contrasting colour to call out attention. With my ceiling heights, this was looking strictly ok so I didn't go ahead with these options. But it wasn't looking too bad with running casing like a rectangle along the edges of the room or let's say two stripes along width of room etc.

I guess that Anchor has been putting switches into Indian homes since, what, forever? The old style, though, I don't think is available any longer. Building a small studio flat on our terrace (our small house is just single floor) we let them put Anchor modular switches. When I took the cover off one, to run a network cable, I was disgusted with the quality. Just cheap and nasty.

Our house has MK wall switches. Not the same quality as MK internationally: in my mother country, UK, this is something one fitted and forgot, for decades. But better than the Roma stuff. So please look at one of the more upmarket options: MK, Crabtree, etc. Don't know about Havells.

Quality has improved after they became part of Panasonic i guess ! Ive used their switches and haven’t found any issues ,touchwood, the trusted electrician recommended them as well.

BVK Iyengar Road is filled with light shops. Aditya Lamps is one of the bigger establishments and has a wide variety of fittings. The other store I use is a ace called Dazzle in Indiranagar

Look at Legrand for switches.

None, unless you do the old style polished wooden battens with exposed white wires.

Read about this many years ago. I don't know where you can buy it, but this, I think, would be a great solution:


https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/flatwire.htm

Hi Guys,

From past experience, what would you say is the best "budget" sanitary ware available? For example Cera, Hindware, Jaquar etc? I am looking to redo a washroom and am in a bit of a quandary with conflicting opinions coming in from friends and neighbors. I don't mind paying a bit more for long lasting stuff with good after sales service.

Thanks in advance,
SS

In my experience,Cera has the best range and wider availability with dealers and better service

Excepting WC all other sanitary ware need no service. If cracked, you replace them.

In case of WC choose a company that has reasonably priced spares. The Siphon (inner mechanism) is what keeps giving trouble every five years or so. It normally needs replacement of a rubber disk if the siphon is ceramic and the whole body if it is plastic.

In my experience Jaguar has the best spares availability both online as well as offline.

In my experience taps and accessories that have a flat surface leave a lot of water stains as the water droplets do not flow off. So when ever possible get taps with rounded top surface.

Please also look up mytyles.com. Very customer friendly from reviews on the net. I am going there myself for some work. You should be able to speak to them, finalise what you want and have it shipped to you professionally. Just cross verify pricing. I don't think you need to be worried about quality.

I will just add one thing to the WC point made by Aroy - it is possible to buy the WC and it's flush tank separately. So one need not necessarily go for a Parryware flush tank with Parryware flush tank. So the flush tank mechanisms are easy to repair even if purchased from a Parryware/ Hindware type mass market choice.

Looking for a contractor who can set up one (newly constructed) room. Will need woodwork, customised furniture, paint + wallpaper etc. This is to be done in Dwarka, New Delhi.

Our regular contractor passed away during the Covid second wave so looking for a replacement now. Good work will lead to a lot of references - all flats in our society have got this additional room constructed.

Any references?

Hello Team,

I'm in the process of finalizing architect and contractor for my home constructions. I would like to check with you guys if you have any inputs or suggestions on what architect/contractors to go with for such requirements and budget.

Some of the home priorities and features that I'm looking at. I have added some very specifics as well, but I'm sticking to high level approach here.

Home Construction priorities:
○ Home design based on sacred geometry (research - Indian, Egyptian, Chinese!!)
○ Free flow of positive natural energy in the house by means of using shapes, colors and natural elements of BioGeometry/Sacred geometry, no right angles? Curves! (needs lot of research)
○ Minimize EMF and wireless radiation exposure
○ Sustainable living
○ Maximum use of the natural and renewable energy sources
○ Maximize the daylight and air flow in the house, reduce artificial blue light sources
○ Appropriate usage of reusable / upcycling, local material | CSEB or Rammed earth, vaulted ceilings, athangudi/stone floor etc
○ All around open space, reading / sitting area
○ Minimalist approach where possible

Certain Features:
• Open to sky Courtyard, a home built around the courtyard
• Solar Energy
• Rain Water Harvesting
• Grey water processing
• Bio-gas plant
• Kitchen garden
• Lot of ventilation and natural light
• All around open space, reading / sitting area
• Natural / sustainable garden | minimize high maintenance garden or lawns
• Fishpond, water feature surrounding critical dwelling sections
• Ethernet wired locations to avoid wifi
• Implement ways to reduce the adverse effects of EMF radiations | Tech to block external EMF radiations - moving to low tech cell phones (or eliminating them at all, a long shot)
• CSEB and rammed earth (stronger foundation with stones!!)
• Double height living area with glass roof if practical
Usage of mezzanine are to efficiently use the volume at place like multipurpose room, study+office rooms etc

I have met a few architects, most of them seems to lack the experience and exposure with such architecture or construction material and methods.
Biome-Solutions was one I had in my mind for many years, but they seem to be working with some costly contractors, the construction cost may go up to 3200psft+ or so.

I've been working with a friend's friend who's based out of Auroville and have done some projects in Auroville and some outside as well. This team may help me get the cost limit anywhere around 1800-2200 psft. I'm planning to construct around 2500psft (G+1) on a 5700sft plot.

If you guys have any suggestions, inputs, on any aspect on taking up such project, are welcome. I don't have any experience in this area as such, except for past few years I've been travelling around such places where I get to see and discuss in details about such structures. Thanks in advance.

Try :

Sathya Consultants

#166, Kathriguppe Water Tank Road 4th Cross, 4th Block, 3rd Phase, Banashankari 3rd Stage, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560085
080 2679 4220 https://g.co/kgs/GJZHmg