13/11/7

In 3 days, I will have been here for two years exactly. When I first traveled the Punta Morales road, it was quite rough. It was asphalt, but it had many potholes, and certain sections required very slow driving, and much caution. On a rainy night you couldn’t see the potholes to avoid them, and needed to drive very slowly. There is a large dock at the end of the road. Tractor trailers carry sugar to a large, like two football fields worth of warehouse, and ethanol to large tanks for storage. When these are full, boats come and empty them, taking the product for export to other countries. It is actually a deeper dock than Puntarenas or Puerto Caldera. Because of this the road was repaired every year at the start of the dry season. Then, in May, when the rain started, the deterioration began anew. This year, there will be no repairs. We have a new road! The whole thing has been paved over the last two months, and we have a beautiful, well built road. Everything was done to very high standards, shoulder work first, good base, sections completely removed when necessary. Excellent work. I am looking forward to smooth driving for a long time to come.
On the subject of roads, all the papers contain complaints about the roads in Costa Rica. It is a topic of conversation among Ticos and tourists alike. The government claims to be fixing them up as best they can, and more money is allotted each year in the budget to repair them. I have to say that from what I have seen, the government is doing well. They are constantly working on the main highway, and sideroads are also receiving new gravel and grading. The story is that the Inter-American Highway is better between Mexico and Costa Rica, and again better in Panama. Why is Costa Rica’s section in worse condition than these other countries’? Also I have been on terrible stretches of roads, and believe the stories of the people living in other areas that say the roads are almost impassible. However, all in all, I believe the government is working hard on improving these conditions.
I received a comment about my house today. It included a compliment on the appearance, a request for more photos, and a question about the process. The paper part of the process varies from province to province, and as I said before, Puntarenas seems to be the worst. We were delayed repeatedly by people who seemed to think they should be given money to speed things up. Because of this, it took two months to get the permit.
The building process is very different from Canada. In Canada, the building code specifies such things as depth of footings, to prevent frost heaving, and strength of trusses to handle snow load. In Costa Rica, the main concern is earth movement. Of course, there are the earthquakes, but in this area, we also have a problem because half the year is wet, and half of it is dry. My house is built on clay. It expands and contracts from one season to the next. To counter these problems, they use a technique that includes a wide concrete footing with a structure of rebar enclosed. This is not just like a ring of rebar, but long cages composed of four pieces of rebar, wrapped regularly with more rebar. This is all connected to columns, again concrete with long cages of rebar enclosed. The block is laid before these vertical columns are poured. Once the walls are in, and this technique is used on all the interior walls as well, the columns are connected to more cages of rebar that form a crown above all the walls, and again concrete poured to make one complete piece of reinforced concrete that includes the footings, walls, and crown. They even left pins of rebar coming out from the walls to connect the wire mesh that reinforces the poured concrete floors. Basically, the house is one piece of reinforced concrete, with allowance for some movement in the walls between the blocks and columns without losing strength or structural integrity. The roof is built with galvanized steel trusses and an anodized zinc roof. Strong, and durable to resist corrosion due to the salt air.
The interior walls are parged, or coated with very thin layers. One layer fine concrete, one layer finer concrete, one layer bondex, two coats of pasta, a coat of sealer, and two coats of paint. I can’t believe how smooth they turned out. The ceilings are drywalled with gypsum. This technique is very new here, and there work with that at the other job I looked at really impressed me. They did an octagonal recess in the center of the ceiling that makes it look pretty fancy, or, as they say, “elegante”. The walls in the bathrooms have ceramic tiles, and they stuccoed the walls of the laundry room, to withstand the moisture better.
The exterior walls are parged with two thin coats of concrete, the second finer than the first. A fine coat of stucco is then applied to finish it. In Canada, a metal lath is attached to the concrete before the stucco is applied, and then the coat of stucco is fairly thick. Before the advent of acrylic stucco, most walls had a problem with the stucco falling off. The big problem in Canada being that if a little moisture worked it’s way in between the stucco and the blocks, the stucco would peel when the water froze in winter. Of course, we don’t have that problem here, but I believe the very thin coat they used will reduce the susceptibility of the stucco to peel for whatever reason.
I didn’t understand the technique, until I saw it. Now that I see the process finished, I have a lot of confidence that the house will withstand ground movement, wind, rain, or anything else that might normally occur. Of course, I know nature can be tougher than any structure, and a major earthquake would no doubt cause some damage, but I am confident that at least the normal passage of time and elements will be withstood for many years to come. These fellows have done good quality work, and exceeded my expectations in many areas.
The electrical systems in Costa Rica are notoriously poor. Many fires are traced back to the electrical systems. They use a two wire, no ground, spider system. The wires are run around inside the ceiling and where an outlet or light is needed, they drop two wires down and hook them up. Often a whole house is wired to three or four breakers. Carlos used a three wire, North American system with a ground bar sunk at the meter, and another at the house. All connections are enclosed in junction boxes, and all wires run through conduit. The electrical code of Costa Rica has been updated to match the American code, but the electricians are not up to date yet. Carlos is.
Very few people here have hot and cold running water. They have techniques for washing clothes and dishes in cold water, and if you want hot showers, you install an electric shower head that heats the water as it passes over two contacts. That’s what we have in the old house. We have a hot water tank in the new house, and everything there will be “normal”.
I have no aesthetic values, but I must add that Carlos says the colour schemes that Linda picked for the paint and ceramic tiles go very well together. Everyone says the house looks beautiful. I’m sure it does, but my concern was the workmanship. I think everyone is going to be very pleased with the results.
I will try to add a picture that shows the rebar technique.