Safety issue: Town council repainting sealed my electrical riser cabinet stuck

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Safety issue: Town council repainting sealed my electrical riser cabinet stuck​

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Hi all, posting because I’m still pretty angry and I think this is a legit safety issue. Also the fucking CB mods at SG removed this so I just want to raise awareness.

There was a power trip this morning at my parents’ place. I went outside with them to troubleshoot and access the main circuit breaker in the common corridor riser cabinet outside the unit. The problem was that the riser cabinet door was basically sealed/stuck shut from the recent block repainting because the paint along the door and seam was so thick that it literally wouldn't budge.

I'm a reasonably fit adult man and I could not pull it open by hand at all. There's no chance my older parents could’ve forced it if they were alone. If I wasn’t there, they’d have been stuck with no access to the breaker. In the end I literally had to use a crowbar to pry/loosen the door until some of the paint layer shed off, and only then could I actually open it to reset the circuit breaker.

In the photos you can see how thick the layer of paint is. Some parts of the seam are much tighter than others, so the paint basically bonded the door shut. For context, this is a metal cabinet door set into a concrete wall. Firstly, why are you even painting over a perfectly fine metal door thats not rusting? Secondly, repainting wasn’t just on the door and wall, they painted over all the hinges and even the latch/lock area.

This is emergency access being obstructed. What if there’s a real emergency and residents can’t access the breaker quickly because the cabinet is stuck? This is unacceptable.

Who the hell is responsible for QC on these repainting works (Town Council / contractor / HDB)? Also, not sure if it’s connected, but this round of repainting already seemed poorly managed. By the supposedly deadline of the repainting, only the first coat was done. According to the contractor, this was due to slow approvals from the Town Council, so cans of paint were just sitting in a corner at the void deck for weeks on end. Feels like basic oversight is failing everywhere.

EDIT: I checked the other risers on my floor another unit it turns out is also affected, will be informing my TC.

If your block was repainted recently, please check your riser cabinet door. If yours is stuck too, please comment, would be good to compile cases to report.