Shop window decals and vinyl

Autocomplete for “window decal shop Singapore” drifts to car decals, and “how much do window decals cost” has no local band on this site. A shop window graphic is quote on inspection. The printer’s price for the roll is the printer’s price. Application and, more often than people expect, removal of the last tenant’s film are the visit. If your photo is a car door, this is the wrong page. If your photo is an HDB bedroom needing frost, use the window film pages. Those films are a residential product with their own sentences. They are not a shop hours panel.

Glass in a shopfront is usually tempered or laminated in the door and annealed or laminated in the fixed pane. The film does not care about the temper. The edges do. A blade that cuts the old vinyl must not score the glass. A score on tempered glass is how a door explodes later, not during the cut. Good removal uses plastic blades and adhesive remover suited to the film, then a wash. Sloppy removal uses a steel scraper, leaves a haze, and scratches the low-iron glass the landlord just paid for. That scratch is not “part of vinyl removal”. It is damage.

Inside versus outside is a durability choice and sometimes a permission choice. Film on the inside of an air-conditioned line is out of the rain and the sun’s worst. Film on the outside fades, the edges lift, and it is clearly a mark on the public face. BCA defines outdoor as a roofed space not fully enclosed on all sides that pedestrians use or that is open to the public. A decal inside a sealed mall shop, on the tenant’s own glass, may not be that outdoor sign. A decal on the street pane, readable as the shop’s advertisement, should be treated as outdoor until ALS says licence not required. The film area still counts if a licence is required. BCA’s fee examples include stickers as a way of measuring area. We do not promise a 5 square metre exemption. Signboards have the exemption BCA describes. An advertisement sticker may not.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking.

Application starts with glass that is chemically clean, not just wiped. Silicone residue, the previous adhesive, and glass cleaner with additives all reject acrylic adhesive. The shop should be at a temperature where the film can be squeegeed. In a hot five-foot way the adhesive grabs before the graphic is positioned. That is when fitters stretch the film to force a bubble out, and the logo distorts. Wet application, with the slip solution the film maker specifies, is the usual method for a large print. Dry application suits small cut letters. Mixing them because the bottle was empty is how lettering clouds.

Cut vinyl letters are weeded, taped, and transferred. The transfer tape comes off at a shallow angle. If it lifts the letter, the glass was not clean or the tape was wrong for the film. Printed wraps on a window are hinged at the top and squeegeed down. A window with muntins is several panels, not one sheet forced over the bars. Forcing the sheet over a bar leaves a bridge that fails in a month. Perforated one-way film needs the holes clear. A laminate put on the wrong face, or a squeegee that fills the holes with adhesive, kills the one-way effect and the outward view from the shop.

Safety and landlord lines matter as much as bubbles. Many mall manuals ban full-height film that makes the shop look closed, or they set a maximum coverage so the mall’s own directory can still be read through the line. A food shop may also have NEA or SFA expectations about what the front shows. We do not interpret those licences. We do refuse film that covers an SCDF exit sign or that sits in the line of sight the Fire Code tells you to keep clear. Clause 8.1 says a brightly illuminated sign or a display must not impair the exit sign. An opaque hours panel stuck across the exit sign is the obvious version of that mistake.

Removal of failed vinyl is heat or a solvent the film maker names, a plastic blade, and time. Purple adhesive left from a cheap calendar vinyl does not “wipe off”. Budget the strip as its own line, quote on inspection, before you promise the landlord a clear pane by noon. A small patch of adhesive that has etched the glass may not come clear. We will say so rather than polish a hole in the coating. After a clean removal, new film can go on. Putting new film over old film is the sloppy job. It looks thick at the edges and the old colour shows through when the sun is behind it.

Measure each pane, not the whole shopfront as one rectangle. A door leaf, a sidelight and a transom are three applications. Say which are tempered if you know. Send the artwork with a scale, or the printer’s file name, and say inside or outside. If the mall has a coverage limit, send the clause. We will not guess “about half”.

Car graphics, vehicle wraps and number-plate surrounds are not this visit. Residential heat-rejection film and decorative frost are the window-film pages. A shop that wants both a street vinyl and a frost on an internal office is two lines. Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not a substitute for the vinyl and are not part of the booking.

Name the film. The price stays quote on inspection either way.

Questions a business should ask

Ask the printer and the fitter.

1. Is the film inside or outside, and who prints it?
2. What is on the glass now, and does it have to come off first?
3. Which panes are in scope, and are any of them doors that must still close?
4. Does the lease or the mall limit coverage?
5. Will any part cover an exit sign or a fire notice?
6. Is this a shop pane or a car, and is it glass or a fascia panel?
7. If the street face is an advertisement, has anyone checked ALS?

Tenant glass, landlord glass and a conserved shopfront are three permissions.

BCA’s outdoor definition and the signboard-versus-advertisement split decide whether a street-facing graphic needs a licence. Stickers are one of the area examples in BCA’s fee computation note. A 5 square metre exemption is described for signboards, not as a general permission for advertisements. Submit rather than assume. URA’s conservation page says signs must not cover key architectural features. A window graphic that paints out a conserved transom is a sign, not a decoration.

SCDF’s exit-sign sight line is not optional. NEA and SFA may care what a food shop shows on the front. We do not certify those. We also do not apply residential window film under a shop price. Electrical signs in the same window, if you add neon behind the vinyl, follow the neon page and need an electrician when the cable is new.

Official pages

• BCA: outdoor advertising sign and signboard licence
• URA: signs in conservation areas
• BCA Advertisement Licensing System: frequently asked questions

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 MOM-licensed employment agency.

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.

Application and removal are quote on inspection. No vinyl rate is printed. A hole in the wall from a previous illuminated sign is the patch sentence only when it matches, S$150 to S$280.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Strip the old film in the same visit as the new one. A second call-out to remove ghosts costs more than an hour of solvent now.
• Apply inside if the lease allows it and the graphic still reads. Outside film is the one that lifts.
• Weed and proof the spelling before the transfer tape is on the glass. Site corrections are a new piece of vinyl.
• Do not order perforated film for a pane that must stay clear for an exit sign.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

Vinyl has no catalogue row. A neighbouring patch row exists for holes, not for adhesive.

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.

• Shop signage index
• Home window film, a different job
• Peeling vinyl on a panel
• Fascia panels
• When a sticker needs a licence
• Mall glass rules