WATER! Never take for granted life's basic necessities..

This is day five without water in our little town of Atenas!

Last Friday night high winds knocked over a tree that broke the water main and the support below. The break is located over a local river and the only access is through a couple of farms on either side of the river. We currently have about 16,000 residents without water.

The national water company, AyA, has been delivering potable water to the various neighborhoods via tanker trucks with 4 or 5 spigots on the back end of the truck to fill multiple containers at once. Folks are toting water in every conceivable container they can find. I've seen 2 liter Coke bottles, buckets, pitchers, barrels and even trash cans lined with plastic bags.

There is also a new well in the central park where folks can go to get fresh water from 7 AM until 10 PM.

We are one of the lucky ones. We don’t have a well, but we decided to install a 660 gallon water storage tank when we built our house back in 2011. City water feeds our storage tank so we are always circulating fresh water through the tank. We’ve had a few water shortages over the past few years, but never anything that lasted more than a day, so we’ve hardly ever needed to ration water. This time, however, the situation is severe.

In 2014, we installed a saltwater pool, without knowing how handy it would become in an emergency like the one we face today. We have been able to use pool water for flushing toilets, washing dishes, and even bathing (without soap of course). On the bright side, we are in the middle of our rainy season, so the pool is getting re-filled with rainwater daily. The water is circulated through the pool’s filtration system every day, so it is always fresh. We’ve invited some of our neighbors over to fill buckets with pool water for their toilets, and they are getting their fresh drinking water from the daily tanker truck deliveries.

In spite of the dark clouds above us, there is one silver lining... The affected schools are closed due to sanitation issues and the kids are on an unexpected holiday.

There was an article in today’s paper quoting our local mayor, and he said we may not have city water until Thursday of next week. That's 8 days from now, so it looks like we will be rationing water in the coming days, until this situation is resolved.

Never take water, one of life's most basic necessities, for granted!

Read the whole story...

Water water, everywhere (again)

Hooray!  The city water supply, AyA, is back up and running.  No more operating toilets with jugs of bottled water.  We can shower!  We can go down to the bodega and turn on the pump again.

Oh ... the bodega has water running out from under the door.

Oh, the water is pouring out of the top of the pump, all over my tools and equipment that never made it out of the boxes yet.  Oh, hell.


This all started two days ago.  We didn't know that it had even started at all until early Sunday morning.  Pat awakened me with, "John ... somethings wrong ... (adrenaline level spikes) ... there's no water and I think the pump has been running all night!

"Yikes.  I'm thinking that I'll find the pump running inside the bodega, emitting smoke because of running dry for hours.

I grabbed the keys and ran out the back door and down to the bodega. Threw open the door.  No smoke.  Phew!  I just shut off the breaker to the pump and closed the door.  Mistake.
It took awhile to check the water tank (empty) and the various water feeds (dry) and to verify that the water meters hadn't been stolen or removed by the water company in yet another "miscommunication" at the water company's offices.

On the second trip to the street, in an attempt to find out if anybody else had water, a neighbor mentioned that she hadn't had water for two days.  Nobody in the hood had water for two days because the AyA contractor, MECA, cut the main waterline and decided it was perfectly acceptable to knock off work at noon on Saturday, without fixing it.  We'd been running off of our big tank, blissfully unaware of the situation, and then the automatic nighttime water sprinklers came on and drained 'er dry.  Great.

Even with bathrooms all over the place, it only takes a short time for a long term lack of water to get to a crisis stage.  So, off we went to the grocery store to grab some 5 gallon water cooler jugs and a bunch of more user-friendly 6 liter babies.  Since it was Sunday -- meaning that there wasn't an icicles prayer of seeing a repair happen before Monday, if then -- we really loaded up on bottles.  We also alerted friends in other water jurisdictions that we might be over Monday on a water raid, filling up newly emptied jugs.

However, Monday dawned with the sweet sound of toilet tanks filling.

Wait.

How are the toilet tanks filling if the pump is turned off?  Oh, yeah, there must be a backfeed somehow through the old casita feed and we're seeing city water main pressure.  I wonder how that works?  I thought ....

Down I tramped to the bodega.  There to my wondering eyes is a cascade of water pouring out of the top of the pump.

It happens that my failure to actually get down on the dark grubby floor and inspect the pump's plumbing after the all night run of Saturday/Sunday has lead to the current flood.  It seems that Mr. Pump had generated so much heat, while running dry, that he had melted the plastic pipe fittings coming off of his high pressure side.  Now those melted fittings were leaking at several joints, due to the mystery cross connection with city water pressure.  And running all over the floor and out the door.

Need to shut off the water and get busy.  That valve and that valve and that valve.  There.  Off ... not.  Well, maybe that valve.  Nope.  O.K., back out to the street and shut off the city's valves to both water meters.

Even with this there was an AMAZING amount of water pressure trapped in the web of stretched plastic pipe all over this stinking compound.  And, of course, the pump is the low point in all of this circuitry so when I finally broke the pipe unions at the pump, I felt like I was bailing the engine room of the Titanic.

A quick trip to the hardware store for replacement fittings; back to the bodega; grab some dripping wrenches; get to work.

Unions broken and ... wait ... what?  The undamaged pipe joints are loose at the backflow preventer valve.  Both ends.

Yep.  In an apparent attempt to save themselves a penny or two on each backflow valve, the fine engineers over in China had shortened the threaded ends of their valve so that the threads were way too short for a standard threaded plastic fitting to  engage completely and seal.  Soooooo ...

The pump "expert" who we hired for the original install of our pressure system had wacked off the ends of the plastic male pipe threads (with a machete, from the looks of things) and then wrapped those threads with a half mile of teflon tape.  It worked fine, for a year, until it all got a little over-heated.

Hey, I can play that game too.  Today, I shortened my new fittings, a bit more carefully, with a saw and file, taped the crap out of them and jammed to pump piping back together.

It might last for another year.

If the pump isn't damaged beyond use.

If there isn't an earthquake.

If there isn't some other source of heat or shaking or if Murphy doesn't show up.

Maybe I need to install a flood alarm.  And a low water level alarm.  And an automatic power cutoff for the pump if there's a flow interruption.

This could get expensive.  Heck with it.  I'm taking a nap.
Read the whole story...

Water Can Cause Stress

Some weeks ago, the national water company, known by their initials, AyA, put in the water connection and new water meter for our house. Just a few weeks prior to that, a real genius truck driver had cut the corner to our property “a little short” and had taken out two of three water services at our corner. Now our new service sat within this same corner area, vulnerable to the same type of dopey driving. “I’ll fix this,” I said.

At the corner, between the driving lane and the water meters, I dug a deep hole with a borrowed rock bar, dropped a heavy-wall 4x4 steel tube 3 feet into the hole, left it protruding 6 feet up into the air and filled the hole with concrete. Just for good measure, I filled the tube with concrete. The next dump truck to run short across this corner might take my tube out, but not without significant body damage to his truck.

Admiring my work, our contractor sent a couple of guys to the new water meter and built a massive concrete vault and support platform for the meter and its associated piping. Now any errant driver would have to smash down my pole AND break through a foot of concrete.

Today, as we prepared to head out to the farmer’s market for fresh fruits & veggies, I noticed three hombres down by the water meters, smashing away with a sledge hammer and a digging bar. One of them pulled a monstrous chunk of concrete free, rolled it across the road and down into the soccer pitch [Yeah, who cares if there is now a bunch of scrap concrete right where the kids will run out of bounds and bash themselves up on it. No skin off of this worker’s knees.]

I hurried translator, Patricia, down to the workers for an investigation.

In her excellent Spanish, she asked them, politely, what was happening (as I was asking them in my mind, “What the f*** are you stupid a***oles doing?!?”) They were smashing up the (underground) ragged edges of the meter vault our contractor had built.

“Oh, no, we’re not going to harm the vault,” Pat translated for me, “We’re just removing the rough edges and we’re going to make it nice and smooth.”

Huh? Before these geniuses started digging, nobody could even see the danged rough edges.

With an uneasy feeling, I drove us off to the farmer’s market.

Forty minutes later, we’re driving up to our corner and water is shooting out from the area where the meters sit, all the way across the street. And our meter vault is completely gone. And our meter is now resting on a rotten piece of wood and a concrete block (which looks suspiciously new and clean, as if it was borrowed from the nearest pile of construction materials -- our house.)

Son of a ....

I let Pat out at the house and walked back up the road to see how bad this was really going to be; and, if these geniuses were backfeeding from my water storage tank, out into the street (not too thrilled about already paying for 2,500 liters of water and having them blow it down the street.)

Good news and bad news and bad news and bad news and, “OMG.”

The good news was that the blow was coming from the AyA water main connection, not from my tank. But, there was nothing left at all of our nice concrete work; this, was not actually an AyA crew (they were an independent sub-contractor); they had almost no tools to work with; and, apparently (the OMG part), they had no way to shut off the water.

I’ve grown to appreciate the creativity of the Costa Rican field workers as they make do with just about nothing. I think they could probably make an airplane out of the ubiquitous galvanized sheet metal, baling wire and “stuff” that they find lying around. But this wasn’t going to be one of those days.

In case you haven’t seen me discuss (with disgust) the AyA water “system” being totally constructed of small-bore PVC pipe, here it is – our water main, water main connection, meter piping and 100 meter feed to our tank is all PVC. All ½” size, except for the feed to our tank because I popped to buy the HUGE (!) 1” size (hoping not to lose all water pressure running that far with dinky ½” pipe.)

So, as I rolled up on their scene, it appeared that during their “trimming” of our concrete vault, they must have broken off the feed pipe going to our meter. Why this required breaking out the entire vault isn’t clear but caca happens here in the land of Pura Vida. The skilled craftsmen were just finishing up gluing together the elbows and stubs to line back up for a reconnect to the water main riser, which was still blowing.

Long Aside: I might take this time to point out that not one beating heart in Costa Rica has ever connected PVC pipe: With PVC primer; or,
With squarely cut pipe ends; or,
With deburred pipe ends; or,
With the requisite twisting motion as the pipe is thrust into the glue and socket; or,
With the recommended hold time (to keep the pipe from rebounding away from the socket stop; or,
With the requisite waiting time for the glue to harden up enough before turning the water back on.

I tried, hard, to acquire primer for the construction of our new house, even contacting the biggest manufacturer of PVC glue and primer in the USA. They assured me that their master distributor in CR had PLENTY of primer in their warehouse here. No they didn’t. They never even heard of primer. So, “Primer? We don’t need no stinkin’ primer. This is Costa Rica and our glue is magic. Pffft. Primer. Stupid gringo.” Back to the story.

So, I watched with dropped jaw and bugged out eyes as one worker crammed his glue dobber up into the downward facing elbow socket coming off my meter and then, using a rusty hack saw blade, proceeded to cut apart the blowing (live) riser to proper length to meet up with the elbow. Immediately, he was drenched, the little hole he was working in filled with water (submerging the elbow socket and riser ends in a sea of mud). In the next second, he shoved the newly goobered up elbow over the newly raggedly cut end of the underwater riser, held it for 5 seconds, then stood up. I was struck dumb.

The same guy dipped some muddy water out and tried to clean away the sight glass of our meter, I’m assuming so that he could verify that the slug of mud he had just introduced into MY water piping was gurgling happily down my water line to my storage tank where it could contaminate the entire water supply.

POP! The new meter elbow blew off of the riser. Now the water was shooting straight up in the air. I backed out of range. Then I walked away. Why get any more worked up. I’m retired, damn it.

Two hours later, I go back out to see how things are going and the crew is gone. The blow is no longer erupting into the sky and two of the four meters (both mine) are encased in new concrete. See the photo. Notice the great workmanship of the concrete and the cute little step they formed into the side of the new vault. I have no idea what the little step does for them but it does nothing for me. Notice the Tico pride which they must have poured into this “repair,” as they ensured that the two meters were cockeyed with respect to each other, before they secured this example of their master craftsmanship for all the ages amidst the setting concrete. Notice the blob of free-poured concrete on the front of the vault WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT (they said) THEY HAD BEEN SENT OUT TO REMOVE FROM MY CONTRACTOR’S VAULT WORK.

I wonder how long before their pipe joints blow apart

Think they’re going to send me a bill for screwing up their system with my sub-standard concrete work and costing them all of this labor and water loss?
Read the whole story...

Casa Construction Report - Roofs, Floors, Lights, Etc.

Click to enlarge

On March 12th, we celebrated 8 months since we retired and moved to Costa Rica. We have settled into a daily routine and we're really enjoying our laid back lifestyle. Everyday, the construction team shows up about 6:45 AM, so we get up early, fix coffee and breakfast and move to the Rancho to oversee the construction. The Rancho has become our outside dining room, office and sort of an internet cafe. Being outside most of the day, we frequently enjoy visits from the local wild life. Yesterday we had this little visitor land in one of our hanging baskets, about 15 feet from me. She immediately began flirting and shaking her tail feathers at all the males flying nearby. Unfortunately for her, they all ignored her and she flew away without a mate.

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here and the progress on the construction is very evident. Last week we applied to the national water company, the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados for an additional water meter. This way the Casa water supply will be separate from the little Casita. Since AyA is a Government office, we knew we had to provide them with lots of paperwork, but this time I was well prepared with every possible document I thought they might need. The clerk that waited on us pulled out a sheet of paper listing all the requirements and started to go over them with me. It was kinda comical, because as he named a required document, I just pulled it out of my file and handed it to him. He had to accept the fact he was not going to be able to put me off until mañana while I gathered documents, he had to start filling out the paperwork right then and there. In the end he told me he would call the next day with the total amount we had to pay. Well that was on Thursday, March 8th, and you guessed it, he never called. Wednesday we went back to check on things and he told us to come back before 3 PM Thursday, March 15. Being good gringos, we got there early at 1 PM, and no, the paperwork wasn't quite ready. He did finish it up in a few minutes and gave me a bill for about $135 USD. This would cover the cost of ripping up the asphalt street, connecting a new meter, and re-paving the street. Just one problem, like all Government Offices, nobody is allowed to handle money. There are two choices when it comes to paying the bill he had just handed us. Go make a deposit to their account at a national bank, or go online and pay it as an electronic payment from our account to their account. Can you guess which option I chose? Internet banking, of course!

Even though we have water service from AyA, it sucks! The water pressure is so low, that if you wait to take a shower later in the day, you run the risk that the water won't reach the shower head, In addition to this, there are frequent interruptions in service, without any warning. Take for example today, while we were shopping for light fixtures for the casa, AyA came and installed our new meter. Needless to say we were shocked that it only took 24 hours to get a meter after making the payment online. It had to be a shock to our neighbors too, because they had no water service while we were being connected to the water main. So, to resolve the water pressure problem, we contracted last week to have a 2500 liter tank connected to a water pump with a 60 gallon pressurized tank. This will eliminate our water shortage problems for the foreseeable future.

The terraza roof and front and back porch roofs are now in place. We've had to make a slight change to their design so all the clay tiles will not be in place until some time next week.

The past two days the team has worked very hard pouring the concrete floors in all the rooms. It's amazing to watch them lugging these 50 KG (110 lbs.) bags of cement to the small cement mixer, then shovel in the rock and sand, load it into small wheelbarrows and haul it into the house and pour it into each of the rooms. Then the foreman smooths it out and levels the concrete to the preset marks on the floor. Tomorrow they will be here to float the floor with the finishing surface that goes below the ceramic tile. The tile flooring will be installed sometime next week.

We wrapped up the week with a shopping trip to find some of the finishing touches we will need for the casa. We didn't have much success this trip, but we did find this chandelier for the dining room. After we bought it, we noticed that it is from the "Charley Collection" and as many of you know, it is most appropriate.
Read the whole story...