Putting up the foam

Foam (helio secco) makes a lighter roof and is good insulation and it's too bad I didn't do that to mine. Two of those blocks will fit in each of the squares. There is chicken wire on the wood and they will put a heavy mesh over the top of the foam. First time I've seen this done and will visit at least every other day.

Already working on the roof

Laying the wood to support the cement and the maze of posts to support it. They will use heilo seco (foam) on this roof and I'll get to see it done for the first time. Should be interesting.

The building continues

The Canadians are back for their second year of construction. Got a bit of a late start so this is only week three. Oscar thinks they can get the roof on before the end of January when they head back to Canada. I sure hope so. This place is in Melaque, across the canal at the foot of the hill on Bugambilias.

Sane construction

2 1/2 floors up

What sane person would build something this tall that's dangerous and expensive to work on .... but nobody has ever accused Crazy Jimmy of being sane. Now he's screening in those huge openings, mosquito screen in the top sections and shade screen below. His airplane wing did survive Hurricane Patricia last year but we'll see what happens to all that screening in the storms.

He's also built on the lot line on two sides so if he ever wants to work on his house he will need to ask permission for access through neighbors yards. Their property is the size of five lots so why he wanted to "paint himself into a corner" I can't imagine. 

Give it a sloped roof so it does not look like a Mexican house but your slop dumps water into neighbors yard ..... so you have to build drainage and use a 10" plastic pipe down the front of the house to handle the water. He's also got a window that looks into a neighbors yard which is illegal.

Until next year

About 2000 bricks are moved inside, a new door is installed and malla ciclon (cyclone fence) on the windows. That work was done in only two months because of a hold up getting Seguro and problems with a Presta Nombre from hell.

Last Saturday for construction

Four more days starting Monday and then the Canadians will head back North  A tiny bit more than two months and they got a lot done. It was planned for a full three months but much confusion about Seguro and a crazy Presta Nombre that had to do things her way even if they made no sense. We're hoping next year in November things will be a lot smoother.

Building my house we had many Carne Asada parties and we figured their last Saturday was a good time to have one.  Good food, fun time and lots of beer.

Working on castillos

Four or five castillos up and should have most up this week. House owner wants to have a carne asada feed Saturday after work because next week is going to be a short one .... finishing up Thursday. Very productive 2 months.

Up to 2 meters

Oscar is a brick laying fool and Hugo is keeping up with him mixing mortar. They will be able to finish the walls to 2 meters all the way around and should have enough time to pour the castillos. I hope so anyway because next week is the last bit of work for the year.

Lots of brick in a week

All that brick is one week's work. They will finish the first one meter today and next week will start on the second meter. Then they put forms around the castillos (rebar) and pour them. Too bad they can't work for a few more months but the Canadian owners leave at the end of the month.

Dala work last week

Last week was only about week five and the dala was finished all the way around. This week it's cleanup and starting laying brick on the back wall. Muy bien trabajo and everybody is happy except for the Presta Nombre from HELL.

Four weeks on the foundation

Moving right along again. Filling up the spaces and ready for the section across the front. They waited on that so the backhoe could get in and out. About 3 more weeks to go until next year.

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

Ranch house in Utah

My sister and brother in law are building a house in Huntsville Utah. I'm sure it's to be close to her daughter and the 2 little girls. The two properties are actually adjoining and they said they plane to use both for farming. That will be interesting.

Anyway these pictures are from a site designed for builders to post the progress when an owner can't be there to check called Buildertrend. My sister is in Seattle and the builder uploads from his Smart Phone. Very cool idea ... and so is the weather there. She said they got the roof on just in time for a White Christmas. 

Gorgeous scenery but frickin cold

Beat the snow

Nice view

Lockdown my meters and a wall painting

CFE is installing Not Very Smart Meters and not always with the owners permission. The first complaint is that you can only pay at CFE offices. The second complaint is that you/we have to read it every month with a magic card and go pay at CFE. The third complaint is you can't pay for six months and go away. This is all about saving CFE money with no meter readers .... but at huge public expense.

I wasn't going to take a chance that some commission based installer make a few pesos off my meter when I wasn't looking.The locked door also keeps the bugs and rain out.

Linda painted her garden walls and I wanted to do something with the back wall of the palapa. We both painted my wall last winter when she was here. Problem was I didn't like it so painted over with white once again. I finally broke down yesterday and spent a few hours trying something new. Not finished so I can add and/or paint it white again. Interesting to work only with the primary colors and black

The fallen sink mystery .... etc

I awoke this morning to find the outside sink had fallen off the wall. I first thought of a person in the middle of the night but you don't accomplish anything by standing on the sink. I also wondered why I didn't hear it as it's not far from my bedroom door that has a screen in it. All I can think of is my cat or it fell off of it's own weight. Simple white sinks are not expensive and only part of the drain pipe broke.

Bought a new sink for $240 pesos (basic white) but think I'll change everything including the handles/faucet., drain, wall fastener and larger screws to hold it on the wall.

Oops !!

The other is my tinaco is suddenly overflowing.  I climb up and find the float overextended in the up position and the tank full.  I lower the water level  and I can not over extend the float manually. We have moderate street pressure today so I'm eliminating possibilities.

The mystery float

My unnecessary "don't drop them in the tinaco trick"

Hugo came over while I made the school run and figured out the water was not coming from from above at the float valve shut off but from the bottom of the tank. I knew with this strange system that could happen but it never has in 3 years. My plumber thought with the good street pressure we have much of the time, why not have street pressure in the house rather than just gravity from tinaco.  So he installs these check valves that will change with pressure levels. Problem is the valves get stuck and this one usually gets stuck where tinaco pressure is not enough to open it so I bang on it to get water again.This time it got stuck in the opposite direction so that street water was enters the bottom of the tank.

Check valve - valvula check

Obviously something has to be done someday but I'm afraid it's gonna take pipe cutting, rearranging and even turning the tinaco to give more room for adjustments now and in the future.   In the meantime a couple whacks with a hammer or large wrench fixes the valve.

Black mold on walls

I finally decided to deal with what I'm convinced is at least partly mold.   My idea is that the dust from the top of the wall washes down in the rain and sticks to porous paint.   The constant summer time moisture then turns it to mold.

All flat paint may not be as porous as the next but I've used a number of brands and qualities of paint and most of them watered to some degree or another.  The inside of this one meter wall on the roof is stained the same way all around which makes me think I used the same paint. None of the house outside walls have this stain .... so maybe paint quality.

My treatment, which I think it needed, was to scrub twice with a brush, spray pure cloro the next day and then paint it with undiluted exterior semi-gloss.   The new paint is actually shiny so I assume less will stick to it or absorb into it.  The catch is I'm finding out what a real good paint job costs because this paint is expensive. Still much of the house that never gets wet so I don't have to paint it all at once.

After scrubbing and cloro on one section

No treatment

Whole wall section painted on top and sides

Under ground water leak

I've been watching this water leak for a few months. I thought a leak and others thought just from a drip from the filters above.  It finally had a little stream of water even if ever so slightly.   The ground here swallows water very fast so very easy to miss a small leak.  I vaguely remember the ridged black pipe we were using was just a little short and not flexible for a turn like this.   It lasted a couple years but eventually decided to disconnect. May have been effected (was effected) by settling under the water spout.  

A two day project and more digging than I want.   Had to decide on the flexible hose to make that connection because the rigid black pipe is not flexible and basically brain dead.  20 pesos a meter for the clear stuff, very flexible and as strong as the black stuff. Actually both are easier to work with if they sit in the sun a few hours. The weak part are the hose clamps that corrode and become useless. A soldered copper pipe from one end to the other is a better solution.