SINGAPORE: Almost 10,000 households have signed up for the new, and reportedly more energy-efficient, Centralised Cooling System (CCS) offered to would-be HDB residents in Tengah since 2020.
The system uses centralised chillers installed at the top of HDB blocks to cool the water, which will be piped down to flats to cool the interiors.
The big draw was that this would not only eliminate the need for conventional air-conditioning units but also lessen the operational and maintenance expenses of households.
But do they look nice? Some would-be residents don’t seem to think so.
A few photos of the cooling system were shared online recently and have caused dismay. Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported that SP Group, the company responsible for the cooling system, said these pictures are unauthorised and may not show the finished product in full.
The “forest town” of Tengah will eventually contain 42,000 homes when finished, and the first residents are said to be getting the keys to their flats by the third quarter of this year.
Some residents told CNA they find the cooling system’s design to be unattractive.
“I cancelled (the centralised cooling system) because I realised that it is really very unsightly,” a Mr Lim told CNA, concerned over the size of the system’s trunking.
Another was quoted in the report as saying, “They run through the main door … you can see that the trunking actually cuts through the living room and goes to the bedroom via the exterior walls of the bedroom. So that is one of the big problems.”
The trunking can be hidden by covering it up, but this, of course, comes at the expense of the new homeowner.
And while households who have signed up for the new CCS, which costs $4,550 for a five-room flat (excluding GST), may still back out and cancel their order, they need to pay a fee of 35 per cent if 30 days have already gone by.
A woman who asked to remain anonymous is quoted by CNA as saying that they were not informed that the CCS’ trunking would “be jutting out along the hallway and into the living room”, adding that the salesperson had told them the system would be similar to that of current HDBs.
“When the pictures came out on Facebook that the trunking was going to be like that, of course most of us were not happy because we were the ones who had to bear the cost of boxing up the trunking,” the woman said, adding she feels that they don’t have much choice in the matter.
/TISG