Fascia and wall signs on a shopfront

“Shopfront fascia sign” and “fascia board replacement” are searched by people who can see a stained panel and want it swapped before opening day. The panel itself, aluminium composite, folded aluminium, acrylic or a timber board, is a maker’s product. This page is how that panel is taken off and how the next one is fixed. Both are quote on inspection. A timber fascia on a house eave is a different trade and a different word. If your photo is a roof edge, say so. This page is the shopfront.

The shopfront is a stack. At the bottom, the shutter or the glass. Above it, a bulkhead of steel or masonry, often skinned with aluminium. Above that, the beam or the five-foot-way soffit. The fascia should land on the bulkhead. Fitters who are late screw the top of the panel into the soffit lining and the bottom into the shutter hood or the guide. The lining is not structure. The guide is a precision part. Either screw line fails, one by dropping the panel and one by making the shutter roar. The shutter page is where a damaged guide is actually priced. Do not create that job with a sign screw.

Wall signs on the pier are individual letters or a small panel beside the entrance. HDB allows a sign on the shop front wall beside the entrance door as one of three positions, and it states sizes for the position above the front door and the position above the rear door. Read the live A&A page before you cut a pier panel, because the beside-the-door size is easy to misread in a summary. Conserved piers follow URA: a sign on the column face cannot be larger than the column, and a projecting sign from a first-storey column is limited to 600 mm wide, brackets 200 mm, on the left as viewed from the road, with 2,500 mm headroom.

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

Taking the old panel off is half the visit. Scores of short screws, a bead of silicone, and sometimes the old tenant’s letters still on the face. Cut the silicone. Support the panel before the last screws leave, because a 3 metre composite sheet is light until it is airborne and then it is a sail. Behind it you often find the previous fascia, paint, and holes that do not line up with the new drawing. Those holes are filled when they match the small-hole sentence, S$150 to S$280, or left as part of a micro-reinstatement, S$1,800 to S$4,500, when the lease is ending and that is the scope. Covering them with the new panel without telling the landlord what is under it is how yield-up arguments start.

The new panel is pre-drilled to a template taken from the bulkhead, not from the old panel’s holes if those holes missed the steel. Fixings are into the steel or the masonry at the spacing the panel maker states for the span. A composite panel that spans more than the maker allows without a stiffener will pillow. Pillow reads as a cheap sign even when the print is good. Good work is a flat face, even joints if the run is in sections, and a shadow gap that does not collect water against the shutter hood. Sloppy work is a packer of plywood visible from the walkway, a joint that smiles, and a screw through the printed logo because the template was mirrored.

Illuminated fascias are lightboxes turned sideways. The same rules apply: a drain, a reachable driver, an isolator, and an electrician for a new cable at S$220 to S$450 when the circuit sentence matches. A non-lit panel does not need a driver. Do not let a package add “LED upgrade” by routing a lead through the shutter hood. The hood is wet and full of the barrel. Cables do not share it.

On a conserved front the panel may not be the right object at all. URA’s shopfront rule puts the sign in the transom. A full-width lightbox fascia that covers the transom, the frieze and the ornament is the sign the guideline is written to stop. If the permission says transom, we mount in the transom. If there is no permission, we do not discover the rule after the composite is cut. The approval guide is the sequence. This page is the screws.

Photograph the whole shopfront, the pier, and the soffit. Open and close nothing yourself if the shutter is stiff. Say whether the panel is one piece or must be split to pass a staircase entrance. A conserved shophouse with a side stair is the case URA draws separately from a full-width shopfront. Name which one you have.

If the old panel is staying and you only want new vinyl on it, that is closer to the repair page than to a new fascia. Vinyl on a pillowing panel will pillow too. Say if the panel is flat. Measure the clear height from the walkway to the underside of any projecting panel. BCA’s 2.5 metre figure and HDB’s 2.60 metre figure are not interchangeable. Use the one that applies.

A fascia replacement and a wall sign beside the door are different holes.

Questions a business should ask

Ask before the composite is routed.

1. Where is the structure in the bulkhead, and have you found it with more than a magnet?
2. Will any screw land in the shutter guide, hood or barrel?
3. What is under the old panel?
4. Is the building conserved, and does the sign sit in the transom?
5. What is the underside height above the walkway?
6. Is the panel lit, and who pulls the cable?
7. Who fabricates, and is the print already matched to the measured width?

A panel that fits the opening can still be the wrong panel for the guideline.

BCA’s supporting page sets projection and height over footpaths, verandah-ways and drains. URA’s conservation page sets the shopfront, column, frieze and five-foot-way positions, including 2,500 mm to the underside of a hanging sign. HDB’s A&A page sets shop signboard positions and the 600 mm by shop-width limit above the front entrance. A panel has to satisfy the rule for the building it is on, then the fixing has to satisfy the wall. We do not pick the friendlier number.

Building works that are not insignificant still need a qualified person under BCA’s general guidance. A panel on existing bulkhead steel is usually not a structural alteration. A new steel frame tied into the facade, or a tray that trips the 10 square metre or 4 metre Permit To Use tests, is a different submission. We stop and say so. Electrical work on a new cable is an EMA licensed electrician.

Official pages

• URA: signs in conservation areas
• URA: five-foot-way sign headroom
• BCA: sign projection rules, Permit To Use and licence fees
• BCA: outdoor advertising sign and signboard licence

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.

The panel is quote on inspection. Holes that match the patch sentence, a mall night that matches the overnight row, and a circuit that matches the DB page keep those bands. They are not fascia extras.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Find the steel before the panel is cut. A panel drilled to the wrong centres is scrap.
• Strip the old silicone while the panel is off. Painting over it telegraphs through the new face.
• Keep the shutter path in the photos you send. A second visit to free a guide costs more than a careful first hang.
• If the lease ends inside a year, ask whether a raceway of letters is easier to remove than a full composite fascia.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

The fascia has no row. These do, when the photo matches.

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
• The shutter under the fascia
• Taking a fascia down
• Letters instead of a full panel
• Approval before the panel is cut
• HDB shop sizes