Moving right along

West Melaque Project

That back wall is not the edge of the lot, it's the first foundation for the house. Oscar is laying rock down the middle that will divide the kitchen from the back bedroom. Going very smoothly and the workers have Seguro even though they don't need it for foundation work. They got Seguro because their Presta Nombre is a totally crazy and paranoid woman. She acts like she thinks the lot is still hers.

Everybody is happy

A new construction project in west Melaque

I've been trying to get this project going for Canadian friends

Across the back

Starting down the side

It's been a pretty strange trip so far with lots of misinformation and misunderstanding. Starting with a wanna-be lawyer who studied for a few years on Saturdays claiming she knew everything about Agrarian (Ejido) Law ..... she knew little. Then we/I had to deal with an extremely unhelpful Accountant who you need for Seguro (health insurance and retirement) for the workers. 

I finally got us in touch with C&C Constructores (architect and engineer) and they were very helpful even though they finally didn't get a contract to do the building. From them we learned Seguro is not required for any foundation work. They also suggested the Canadians get the Seguro rather than their Presta Nombre but they need a Resident Visa. Neither of those were offered as information from the accountant. 

So the big thing for me was getting the guys (my friends) that built my house this work and with all the uncertainty it was questionable what was going to happen. The bottom line was dealing directly with the workers turned out to be about half the price the architect and engineer gave us.

The maestro and helper are very easy to work with and really know what they are doing. The only issue is language and I drop over every couple days to see how they are coming and help with translations. So far it looks like work will continue through January. We'll see where they are at the end of January and maybe we can go a bit further if they leave me some money like they did before they got here.

More rain preparation

In the previous post you can see the beginning of the drainage we turned around from the yard next door - into my yard. You just can't dump any amount of water on you neighbors no mater how small the amount. It's now all stuccoed, sealed and painted just waiting for impermeabilizante covered cloth.

Second project was beefing up my front sidewalk. Three downspouts dump water on it, ants build caves under it, chickens excavate the edges looking for bugs .... and then there's the kids who like the sidewalk and the dirt in front of it. I told Hugo generally what I wanted and let him make the design decisions. I like what he came up with. A little more on the driveway to go.

The final is my north wall.  Because someday (maybe never) there will be a house up against that wall I didn't worry too much about the stucco and it is pretty sloppy and very ruff. I also cut corners on properly sealing and painting it. Shoe had a couple 5 gallons of cheap paint that was old so I mixed that with a little sealer and some decent paint but not semi-gloss. I'll only paint with semi-gloss from now on.  

So I figured I'd clean it up, primer a few areas and let Hugo go at it with a roller. Turns out I have wire brushed and/or cleaned with Clorox almost the whole wall. Also it's so ruff that doing a good job with a roller is almost impossible and you can't see your holidays 10-12 feet above you.  I will end up painting that whole 20x4 meter wall with a brush. Plenty of other painting for Hugo.

The second sidewalk

North wall mostly painted - sealed the bottom section today

20 meters by 4 high

Between the walls

Not the way it's normally done but we have to live with it. The first year my Canadian neighbor behind me just built a foundation and headed north for another summer. I was ready to build but didn't want to undermine his foundation and wasn't quite sure where he would put his wall. My solution was to give him 10-12 inches without considering what we would do with that space. 

We did fill when he built his 2 meter wall but for the last two years the cement covered fill was ramped toward a vacant lot next t me. Dumping water on a neighbor is a real NO-NO around here but probably anywhere. That lot owner is not a real pleasant person so best to not attract her attention.

So this year Jimmy (Canadian neighbor) wants to add a meter to his wall and where it will finally end up. I insisted it was time to fill that space and aim what little water there is in my direction and not at the neighbor. Gladly Jimmy had lots of escombro (building construction leftovers) in his yard and some sand to top it off. I bought 2 bags of cement and we went to work putting about 3 inches of cement over the top. Also had to brick in the opening to my neighbor yard and Jimmy did a reasonable job on that.

We have the slope about right but have not fine tuned how my garage roof will handle it. I'm thinking a tube  with holes that distributes the water .... we'll see.

First pour in the direction of my garage

Small pour on the dead end side

Newly bricked up and finished old drainage end

Crazy lot lines