Repair the shop floor you have, or get permission to lay a new one

Last updated 31 October 2026.

A shop floor is asked for in two sentences that should not share a price. “The tile sounds hollow” is a repair of a finish that is already there. “We want vinyl before we open” is a new finish. HDB’s shop guide puts laying of floor and wall finishes on the Notice of Alteration list, and it puts removing wall or floor finishes, and cutting tiles, on the noisy-work list: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. A Saturday grind because the stock arrives on Monday is already outside that guide.

People also ask what vinyl costs per square metre, and whether vinyl is cheaper than tile. This catalogue does not publish a rate per square metre, and it does not rank finishes by a number we did not measure on your floor. The floor calculator already compares three home-floor options: spot repair and polish at S$280 to S$1,600, a vinyl click overlay at S$1,600 to S$3,400, and a hack and retile at S$4,200 to S$8,500. Those bands are for the scopes that calculator describes. A mall unit of a different size, a coved food-shop floor, or a floor that is wet, is quote on inspection rather than a stretched copy of the overlay. Covering a wet floor is how the calculator’s own warning starts: damp is flagged before anyone covers it.

Food shops are specified. NEA’s Code of Practice on Environmental Health asks for a kitchen floor graded to the floor traps, of non-slip impervious material, with the wall-to-floor edge coved, and for preparation and servery walls lined to at least 1.5 m with glazed tile or another suitable impervious material. SFA’s food-shop checklist repeats the cleanable-surface point. A click-vinyl plank with a gap at the wall is the sloppy version of a kitchen floor. Cracked kitchen tile and food-safe grout sealing, when that is the repair, are S$380 to S$750 on the F&B page. Household emulsion and a domestic plank are not a substitute.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking. A roller shutter is a different product and stays on the shutter page.

Hollow tiles are tapped, not guessed. A dull tile that is still flat and intact can be filled from a 2 mm port in the grout line. Four to ten of those tiles are S$350 to S$750. The screed stays, so the visit is not a hack. A tented tile that must be lifted is the tile page’s other sentence, S$550 to S$1,200, where that page states it. One cracked tile with a matching spare is S$80 to S$180. A whole bay of broken tiles, with no spares, is not the one-tile row. It is quote on inspection, and if the finish is being replaced rather than repaired, the NOA question comes first in an HDB shop.

An overlay is only as good as the floor under it. The calculator refuses to treat a wet or termite-hit timber floor as a candidate for a click layer. A shop that has a slow floor trap, a grease smell, or a stain that keeps returning is a plumbing or a leak question before it is a vinyl question. The leak pages on this site are the place for water moving through a slab. We do not skin over a leak and invoice a new floor. Hacking back to the slab is the S$4,200 to S$8,500 planning band on that calculator, and it is building work for V On where a permit applies. It is not the default because someone prefers a new colour.

At the edges, the cove is the work people skip. A food-shop cove has to be continuous. A metal trim that leaves a gap collects grease. In a dry shop the edge is still a trip hazard if the overlay is thicker than the door undercut. Say the door type. A glass door that then scrapes is the alignment row, S$250 to S$420, not a reason to plane the door. A mall will also care about the level at the lease line, because a lip in the corridor is their floor, not yours.

Send a wide photo and a close photo, and tap the tile on a video if you can. Say the trade: packed goods, food preparation, or a clinic. Say whether you want the existing floor kept. “Make it new” is a new finish. “Stop the hollow sound” is the injection row if the tiles are intact. Measure nothing for us in square metres and expect that number to become a price. We will not multiply a forum’s rate by your area.

Transitions at the shopfront, a step at the mall lease line, and a floor trap in the photo are part of the scope. A floor trap that is slow is the plumbing page, not a thicker vinyl.

Repair the finish you have unless the permission and the dryness say otherwise.

Questions a shop should ask

These questions stop a floor quote from being a colour quote.

1. Are the tiles intact and hollow, cracked, or is the whole finish being replaced?
2. Is the floor dry? Is there a stain that comes back?
3. Is food prepared here? If yes, can the proposed finish be washed and coved?
4. Is this an HDB shop, and is the Notice of Alteration lodged for a new finish?
5. Will removal of the old finish be noisy? That is a weekday under the shop guide.
6. What happens at the door and at the mall lease line?
7. Is a floor trap in the photo slow or smelly? That is plumbing, not vinyl.
8. Are you asking for a price per square metre? We will not give one.

The finish is chosen for the trade and for who owns the floor outside the glass.

HDB’s shop guide is the permission for a new finish and the clock for removing an old one. A flat’s three-year toilet-tile rule is not copied onto a shop. BCA’s question starts if the work hacks structure or changes a level in a way that is building work. Injection that leaves the screed in place is the repair this site already distinguishes from hacking.

NEA’s environmental-health code and SFA’s checklist are why a food floor is specified. The F&B handyman page prices the minor tile repair an inspector can see. We do not issue the food-shop licence. PUB’s sewerage code wants floor traps for sullage in food shops, and it wants toilet waste kept out of the grease trap. A floor that ponds into the wrong trap is a plumbing design, not a vinyl colour.

The floor calculator’s three bands are planning figures for the options it names. Using the overlay figure as a rate, or covering a wet floor because the figure exists, is the misuse that page warns against. A hack remains the permit contractor’s work where a permit applies.

Official pages

• HDB renovation guide for shop tenants and owners, December 2025
• NEA Code of Practice on Environmental Health
• SFA food-shop licence checklist
• BCA: building works that do not need plan approval

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices the permit-exempt visit. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices hacking, a new layout, and an HDB renovation permit. Homey Furnishing is not a property agency, not a CEA practice, and not a vector-control operator.

How you're charged

A job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. The hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. There is no fuel surcharge and no published night premium except the mall overnight row. A shop does not inherit a flat’s price just because the fitting looks similar.

Tile injection, a single cracked tile, the food-shop tile row, and the calculator’s three options are used only when the photo matches the sentence. A shop that does not match is quote on inspection. No per-square-metre rate is added.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Inject intact hollow tiles instead of hacking a bay that is still flat.
• Keep a spare tile from the fit-out. The one-tile row needs the spare.
• Do not lay vinyl the month before a yield-up that demands the original floor back.
• Fix the slow trap before you cover the floor. The cover will be cut out anyway.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

Repair rows and the calculator’s three options are printed. A rate per square metre is not.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

• Hollow tile injection
• Repair, overlay, or hack
• Food-shop tile repairs
• Floor traps, if the floor is wet for a plumbing reason
• When a new finish needs an NOA