Family on Stairs

The whole of our small family at the top of the completed staircase looking back towards Alex & Oren's house.

Concrete Staircase Form

Here come the stairs! We chose concrete for durability - wood looks nice but the constructor preferred to work with concrete. They are nice and wide, which is good - about 1.2m. This gives plenty of space for moving most furniture.

Possible mold for window box

Is this too box like? I know it's called a window box but Don Gerardo thinks it can be made a little more elegant by adding sloping sides etc. It will be made of concrete. Perhaps it is possible to add some kind of detail to the front within the wooden form.

Day 28 Upper Floor Walls

Four weeks and we have about 30% of the upper floor (first or second depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on). The exterior walls will be concrete block while the interior walls will probably be a lighter material. The sun is still shining, just about. 

Building site accomodation

The first thing the constructor built on site was temporary accomodation for workers who would be staying there and only travelling home on occasional weekends. The structure also has an area for eating and washing dishes, a shower and a space for preparing materials.

William Miranda Constructor + Electrics

This is the man in charge, el constructor, who is also doing all the electrics and plumbing for the house. His name is William Miranda, he lives in San Isidro in the district of Perez Zeledon and we are really impressed with his work.



In the photo you can also see that the horizontal beam has now been poored. You are looking at the kitchen window.

William has built houses and condos all over the sourthern region but especially on the coast between Dominical and Uvita and also near Platanillo on the road between San Isidro and Dominical. We saw many of the houses he built near Platanillo and were really impressed with how great they looked, even after several years of tropical weather.

I have no idea of whether he is expensive or not. I think the price he charged us was very fair. What is interesting is that though we started with a very strict budget and very worried about how much every detail would cost, after meeting William I began to appreciate more that we need to be a little more flexible on budget to make sure we end up with a house we really like.

The water container in the foreground is how William brings water to the site for the workers to drink because it is healthier than unfiltered river water they are using for the construction and he doesn't want the workers missing days because they're sick.

Form for arch column

When I look at this form or mold for a column I find it difficult to see where it begins and ends, there's too many pieces. But it seems to work. It will be one of three columns that together will make the arches on the terrace.

Chiricano Floor Beams

These floor beams are made from a wood that is known locally (and maybe in all the Spanish speaking world for all I know) as Chiricano. It is neither the most expensive wood nor the cheapest. It looks nice enough, is fairly hard, if the bugs / termites get at it they can make a few holes without causing much of a problem, and it's hard to work with. But that's ok because all that needs to be done is to cut it to the right lengths.

Concrete columns plus forms

The first floor columns of concrete are now in place and the wood you can see is the beginning of forms above the windows to enable a horizontal concrete beam to be poored, which in Spanish they call a "viga corona".



This is the front of the house in the photo; the entrance is round to the right hand side via the terrace. It doesn't have any fancy details or big statements - it's almost minimalist perhaps, if it has any style at all!

Trench for water and electricity

This trench, alongside the access track to the site is where the water pipe and electricity cable will be lain.
The municipality electricity cables reach as far as the gate to the property; Oren and Alex extended them a further 30m for their house. We needed to lay another 30m of cable to connect our house to the grid.

There is no municipality water where we are so we are having to find our own way of getting water.

El Nica, bending rebar

His name's Jhonny but I think they call him El Nica. I'm not sure why. Sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions.


Nica is short for Nicaraguan and I don't even know if he was born in Nicaragua or not. There is a significant amount of Costa Rican style pacifist racism against Nicaraguans so Jhonny's nickname could be a bit like a guy from England who was a bit tight with his money getting called "The Scot". Or maybe Jhonny really is Scottish. The possibilities are endless.

Mold to poor concrete column

This mold or form (formaleta in Spanish) is where concrete will be poored around the steel reinforcement to form a strong concrete column at what I hope are strategic places around the house walls.

Block Over Rebar Safety + Insurance

Jhonny, a.k.a. El Nica, slotting a block over a piece of steel rebar without wearing a helmet. Looks like a bit of a safety hazard. I asked him if he wanted one and he wasn't sure. I think at bigger construction sites more likely to be visited by Costa Rica's national insurance institute (INS) workers probably wear helmets.

Whatever you think about helmets, his skill at laying this block is still cool!

Tying rebar around walls

Here's Edgar tying two pieces of steel rebar together with a piece of wire. This horizontal steel reinforcement is laid on top of a row of blocks at every 60cm up the wall. All these kinds of details slow down work a bit but hopefully mean the house will be a lot stronger.



I don't know much or anything about earthquake resistance but I think the idea is that if the house moves, the whole house moves together and you don't end up with one wall moving one direction and another wall staying put and a big whole in the middle.

Laying blocks

It took me about 5 minutes to lay this block. Don Gerardo can do about 100 and an hour I think, if they're all in a row and there's nothing tricky. Apparently on some projects workers get paid per block but this is unusual probably done to save money. On our project they are paid per hour, probably minimum wage (about $2/hour) for the least skilled jobs and hopefully more than that for Gerardo who is managing things when the constructor is not around.

The tricky thing about the block is that it needs to be level back to front as well as left to right, and not just level but the right level - not too high or low - the same height as the others on the row. The guys working on our house really seemed to care that each block they laid was in the right position. It's easy to imagine some workers not caring too much and people ending up with wonky houses.

Finished house design in 3D

We hope the finished house will look something like this 3-D drawing shows.



We worked with an architect who also happened to be the son of the guy in charge of the construction. In the end it was a difficult working relationship we had with him but the fact he was the builder's son made communication between them and the process of transferring plans much easier.

Day 13 - 50% of a wall

After almost two weeks there is a wall around the whole perimeter; this is the view of the back door towards Alex and Oren's house.



It was pretty hectic getting to this stage. When the constructor received the plans from the architect (his son) they weren't properly finished - it was important for us to start building as early in February as possible to make the most of the dry season and this meant that we didn't spend as long putting the finishing touches to the design as I would have liked.

In the end I don't think it was a problem - Caro and I were able to talk to William a lot and tell him what we wanted - the exact location of windows and doors, the height of windows and the location of the house on the plot of land were all decisions that we had to make in the first couple of weeks that should have been made before really. But I think things are turning out ok...

Of course it's been really important that we speak Spanish during this time. If we didn't then it would have been much more necessary to make sure the plans were as perfect as possible before putting any spades in the ground.

Edgar cutting rebar

Foundations have been laid but there is still loads of steel rebar to be cut - it is threaded throughout the house walls. Cutting, bending and threading must take a long time all in all but Edgar's still smiling I think.



Edgar lives pretty close to where the building site is, which is lucky for him. I don't think he had worked with the constructor, William, before but seemed to fit in with the team well. Finding construction workers in Costa Rica (and probably everywhere else in the world too?) seems to be a tricky business from the stories I hear. Seems William knows what he's doing when he hires people.

Walls going up fast

Here I'm trying to watch and learn how to lay a brick from master builder Don Gerardo. The string shows him when the block is level. But he's too fast for me to figure out what he's doing. And the house already has almost half a wall around most sides.



All the wood everywhere is just there to support the strings used to guide building. I think it is the kind of professionalism that impresses people who see our constructor working.

Building site with gravel, sand + cement mixer

The gap where Don Gerardo is stood (blue shirt) is the back door from the kitchen. To the right is the sand and gravel (or is this what they call hardcore?) brought on the first day. They both go into the cement mixer to make the cement. I will find out more about how this works... sometimes the cement they mix is very liquid for pooring and other times it is thicker for laying the blocks.



The big barrels by the cement mixer are full of water so that the team always have water to mix the cement - it is important not to run out because that would delay the construction process. The risk of water shortage in Costa Rica in the dry season is not high but can happen, even with the public water supply. Our supply is from a river on the property and since river levels drop in the summer we know there is risk that the amount of water we have will be limited. It's a long story.

Day 10 - 20% of a wall

Mid way through week two and we have part of a wall on one side of the house. You can kind of see how the foundations, steel rebar and walls are all connected together. There is also a piece of rebar in between one layer of block and the next at the bottom of the picture.

Day 9 - Rebar and cement in trenches

Just over a week in and all the foundation trenches have been dug, the steel reinforcement has been lain and it has been covered with a liquid concrete / cement mixture.

Small slabs of cement for rebar

These small rectangular shaped cement blocks are at the bottom of the trenches. The idea is that the reinforcing steel bar will sit on them with a gap underneath between ground and the steel.

1m deep foundation trench

This one meter deep trench is about 40cm deeper than an average trench due to the softer than average ground.

Making steel rebar

Construction began in february with four guys working on site plus the man in charge, who we referred to as "the constructor" ("el constructor" in Spanish). One of the first things he did was to buy all the steel reinforcement bar he thought he would need for the project to protect himself from changing steel prices.

Nice square corners for our house.

A close up of the preparations for digging the foundation trenches. Tools you will need: is that a "square" for checking right angles? And some kind of weird looking hammer for fixing the posts in the ground I'm guessing. The reason I have to guess is that we are renting a house 25 minutes from the building site so we don't get to see what happens every day.



I'm not sure whether the string marks the middle, inside or outside edge of the trenches to be dug. In the photo you're looking at the front left corner of the house. This is where the stairs are located.

Concrete Blocks: 12 x 20 x 40 cm

These blocks, which measure approx. 12cm x 20cm x 40cm, are used in the foundations of the house and for building the walls. Some have a rectangular hole in the middle to make them easier to split in half with a hammer. The climate where we are means that there is no need for a wall cavity to insulate the house - temperatures rarely fall below 10 degrees centigrade or 50 fahrenheit, even at night.

This means the walls will be the thickness of these blocks (12cm) plus a little extra for the plaster / cement coating.



In the background of the photo you can see the wooden structure put together to mark out the location of the trenches to be dug.

The ground needed no cleaning or levelling before they started these layout preparations. I was expecting them to check it was completely level but it seems it was already level enough.

One of my earlier house designs

I think it helps if you have a fairly strong idea of what kind of house you want. We did not and I was always worried that it would end up looking something like my first attempt.

Day 1 - The arrival of the sand

Our constructor is in charge of purchasing all the materials and ensuring they arrive at the building site when they are needed. He also burdens the financial risk of changes in the price of the materials. The more an issue with things like steel than with sand.



The sand arrived in a very big truck along dirt five kilometers of dirt track. It was the dry season so the head of the local development association was confident that it would not damage the road too much. If it had been the wet season the size of the truck might have been a problem.

Building site with a discarded single floor design in bamboo.

The site for our house before building began in January 2011. It is sort of egg shaped. In the photo below your are looking at the pointy end of the egg. At its widest point the site measures about 15m from one steeply sloping side to the other.



My wife and I spent several days on the land messing about with the pieces of bamboo you can see, experimenting with different floor plans and trying to imagine ourselves living in the house. In the end we decided that a single floor house would be too close to the slopes at each site of the plot. By doing a two floor design the weight of the house is less likely to cause the ground to become unstable.

The land is flat and ready to build on. We did a soil study to check how hard it was and how good the drainage was. The results were good enough - the site was cleared and flattened about five years previous so it has had time to bed down. I was still curious to find out what kind of drainage system the architect - constructor would put in place to ensure water did not collect on the land itself.