A New Casa...In 2019?!?!?!? Yep, Another Construction Update

With the contractor all but vanishing from any responsibilities here I have taken it upon myself to get things done.  (We still owe him money so we are not sure why he hasn't come slithering around.)  It is extremely liberating to go out and find contractors, talk to people for references, get pricing and implement a particular project.  I have control now for the most part and do not have to go through the contractor's BS and delays to get things done.  That time is over.  Game on!

So, what's been happening?  Thanks to having a little money free up to spend thanks to the Park City house selling, we decided to get some iron work done and finish the driveway.

The driveway was on hold for so long due to the new street surface and sidewalks being installed.  We just couldn't predict at what height the driveway needed to be to connect to the sidewalk and begin this project.  This project included a meter tall wall along the neighboring church, a 5000 liter cistern buried under the driveway and all the electrical pumps, wiring and plumbing hook ups.  The guys who were doing the work were a small group who splintered off from the contractor including the foreman, Antonio.  Antonio knows the house as well as anyone and wouldn't be surprised about anything he may find while getting the project done.  Plus he is a good guy, shows up and works hard everyday.  He doesn't always get it right but he is a guy I could trust.

The damn thing is stuck!

The big part of the project was digging the hole for the cistern.  The blue plastic bin was to be buried in a round concrete block chamber with a reinforced lid strong enough so a car could be parked on it.  So the system was that the city water supply would fill the 5000 liter cistern.  If the rooftop tanankos needed water a sensor would alert the cistern pump and send water to the roof.  Town water supply to driveway cistern to rooftop tanankos to house supply. After a few days work the day arrived to drop this large blue water jug into the hole and.....it did not fit!  Whaaaat?  No matter how they tried to drop it in the hole it was just too big for the chamber they built.  Freaking great!  Antonio even went to the supplier to get the dimension specs of the cistern before building this thing so he was confused and probably kicking himself for not making this chamber a few centimeters bigger.  At this stage of the project I just let things roll.  Antonio would make it right...somehow.

Well, it turns out that the cistern has a thicker rib that runs around the circumference of the tank that is not included on the specs and this was what was holding things up.  So, for a half day they chipped away at the interior of the chamber to make a few more centimeters of room for the tank to drop into.  That done the tank dropped nice into place and worked continued on other things.  The wall began to take shape, the final level for the driveway was determined and the plumbing and electrical could be installed.  Oh, did I mention our lovely original contractor ran the plumbing for the cistern to supply the rooftop tanankos but failed to provide any means of communication between the two locations.    So, we needed to cut a channel into the finished face of the house to run a conduit 5 stories up to the tananko location.  Idiot!!

Cistern access and string lines set for the driveway finish.

Stone awaits placement for the driveway.

Our "jefe", Antonio, fitting each stone carefully into place.

At the same time as the driveway was being finished the iron workers showed up to installed a whole bunch of stuff.  This crew was recommended to me by two people and the owner seemed to be a decent guy so I was eager to see just how they operated and the quality of the work.

The first day they showed up it was a group of about 6 guys and they just stood in the driveway, then sat down already defeated.  They knew they would have to figure out how to get all their gear like welding equipment, compressors, hoses, hand tools, power tools and all the materials to the roof since this is where the install for the interior courtyard roof was located...essentially 5 stories up.  So, they developed a human chain of sorts.  The gear went up the stairs but all the materials went from truck to apartment terrace to roof of church and from roof of church to roof of house to be installed one level up from there.  Whew.  I felt a little bad for the guys but I could tell they were laughing at the situation as well and not really too upset about the number of stairs associated with the job.  Turns out they just got done with job that had even more steps and they had been there for weeks.

They made pretty quick work of the roof structure and by the end of day two they were done to make room for the polycarbonate sheets.  Once those went in we had a totally new space and it was odd that this area that had been open to the sky for so long suddenly had proportions.  The design we had in our heads for the space was taking shape in real life.  With a little work to do to make it "secure" we are now mostly protected from the weather and all the debris that comes down off the tree but yet still get all the light and airflow.

While the lid was finishing other work was going on.  On the roof they had a painting station set up so that whatever they installed was freshly painted and did not show the scars of being tied down to a rack of a pick up truck.  Railings went in on the roof and inside the house and the super cool stair stringer was installed that we will have parota wood treads made for at some point.  All day long they were welding, grinding, painting and installing pretty much right in the living room of the house so each day they left behind a layer of dirt, welding soot and grinding dust all over everything and fumes of spray paint.  All that said, we cannot really complain since working in a mostly finished space is not where welding should be taking place anyway.  Our fault there with our project timing but we are certainly glad to be over the hump on that and beginning to see the spaces evolve.

Metal stringer for stairs.  Wood treads yet to be installed.

Smoke and fire.

Rooftop terrace railing.

Rooftop terrace railing and view.

Main stairs railing.

The 2 steel doors were one of the remaining items on the roof.  We needed to secure the doorways from the house to the utilities at the back of the house and from the house to the rooftop terrace.  We decided on steel since they would not be seen like the front or bodega doors and provide added security in locations that were not really visible should someone stop by uninvited.  Super bomber and we designed them so they looked similar to the front doors keeping them looking like they were in the same family.

Ashley arrives in just a few days and I am happy she can come home without too much construction going on and see the big changes.  We will be talking about the next phase(whatever that means) while she is here and can compare "to do" lists and make this place more of what we want it to be.

It's been busy.  More to come!