By Ang Yiying

THE Housing Board (HDB) will be going back to 200 blocks islandwide which underwent the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) and re-doing work on the lifts.

Some of the lifts at these blocks started operating months ago, but after residents complained, lifts in the affected blocks will be 're-upgraded'.

At issue: Electronic panels that tell residents which floor a lift is at.

The board had initially decided to do away with the panels at lift landings - except for the lobby - to save costs.

The lift landings were fitted only with displays that showed arrows pointing upwards or downwards that would light up just before a lift arrives.

Another 170 blocks that have not been upgraded yet were to have received similar up/down indicators.

But when residents in the upgraded blocks complained that their new lifts were worse than the old ones because they could not tell how long they would have to wait for them, the HDB changed its mind.

It will now retrofit the lift landings in the affected blocks. The plans for the 170 blocks that have not been upgraded yet have also been changed.

In notices that went up on noticeboards of the affected blocks this week, the HDB said: 'In response to feedback from residents, HDB will be gradually replacing the up/down indicators with simplified position display panels.'

The electronic panels will display a floor number and an arrow to indicate the lift direction, but will not display other electronic text, like the block number.

The notices did not give a timeline for the replacement works, but said they would be done 'progressively' when the new panels become available.

HDB said it initially chose simple up/down indicators because they were cost-effective: They were 65 per cent cheaper to install, 80 per cent cheaper to maintain and have a longer lifespan - seven years compared with four years - than position display panels. This, it said, would help town councils reduce capital and maintenance costs.

Asked about whether retrofitting upgraded lifts with position indicators would be more expensive than fitting them to begin with, HDB would only say that the cost would vary from site to site. It added: 'However, as the number of blocks affected is not large, and the replacement works straightforward, the cost is estimated to be very much less than 1 per cent of the overall LUP cost for each precinct.'

It said the change would not affect residents' share of the lift upgrading cost indicated during the polling phase - which varies from block to block, but is capped at $3,000 for Singaporeans.

When asked how much more a retrofitting exercise would cost, lift company Fujitec Singapore's director of operations Phuah Cheng Kok estimated it would be between $5,000 and $10,000 per lift, but added that this could vary depending on the product.

Fujitec was not involved in putting up lifts at the affected blocks.

Residents of 11 blocks at Bedok North Street 4 and Avenue 4 who had called for better lift indicators welcomed the news, though they added that it was overdue.

The Straits Times reported last October that they had called the block's LUP hotline and their town council about the issue; the HDB said then that it was looking into enhancement works.

Block 94B resident Florence Yong said she hopes the HDB will now tell them when the work will be done.

The 55-year-old, who is now between jobs, said: 'Of course, we hope they will give us a timeline when they are going to start, when they are going to finish...otherwise they can take their time to do it.'

Fujitec estimated that it would take a week for a lift to be retrofitted in a 25-storey block if no hacking or other building work is needed.

It added that sourcing the new panels and manpower to carry out the upgrades was the more time-consuming task.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.