Important thing to note when buying high rise apartment or condo unit

With the price of land remain high and keep on increasing and show no sign of slowing down especially in most of the major cities like Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur, many property developers with land bank in good location have embarked on building highrise luxurious condominium which are often dubbed as "semi-detached" or "bangalow" in the sky, some high end units even have private lift lobby. The selling price of these luxurious condo range from RM400-00 per square feet in Penang to RM1000-00 per square feet or more in the Kuala Lumpur area depending on specification and location.

Some of the condo block that boast a single block design have gone higher because of smaller foot print to limit the number of units per floor, many of them have design approaching 40 storey of height.

All the highrise condo blocks are equipped with a water storage tank at the very top of the building and the authorities always require storage of one day water demand for the entire block. The roof top water tank supply the water to all units through a downpipe by mean of gravity flow. The water are taken to the roof top tank by means of a pump that pump water from a water tank situated at the ground floor pump room through a riser water pipe, pumping is automatically started when water level in the roof top water tank fall to a designated level.

When the building is too high, the authorities will require a two stage pumping whereby water from the ground floor is pumped from the ground floor water tank to a intermediate water tank and pump room at the middle height of the building before water is eventually pump to the roof top. Say if a building is 38 storey high, you may find a water tank and pump room at 19 floor or a bit higher or lower depending on the design of the consultants.

When purchasing a condo unit, purchasers are often presented with a sale chart which show the selling price of units at different level, sometime one or two units at mid level may be used as the intermediate water tank and pump room and very often the unit are indicated in the sale chart as the water tank room or some developer may choose to just leave it blank without assigning a name for that rooms.

If there are six units at the floor where the intermediate water tank and pump room is situated, usually two units will be used for the water tank and pump room with the remaining four units available for sale.

When buying condo units, it is wise to avoid buying units at the same floor where the intermediate pump room is situated as well as units at floor immediately above or below the intermediate pump room as you can expect some noise when the pump is running. As the pumping is a daily business, you do not want to end up with a unit where the occupant will be constantly disturbed by the noise of pump. Sub selling those units or renting out those units will be more difficult.

As there will always be a pump room a the ground level, it will also be wise to avoid unit immediately above the pump room.

As owning a condo unit is getting more costly, check carefully before commit on buying, talk to the sale representatives, do not believe everything they say, some will tell you that the pump runs only once in a while, some will say that there will be more privacy living above or below the water tank room as there no people living in the water tank room, some will say that it is a water tank room without telling you that there are actually pumps in the room.

Of course there are also good developers that provide proper rubber bearing to cushion the vibration of the pump or construct the proper insulation to prevent the noise from the pumps from affecting the neighbouring units. I say it is best to avoid those units especially the unit below and above the pump room which will be affected most by vibration and noise from the pump.