Category: construction

:)

Maybe they didn’t forget about installing wiring before plastering.

Maybe they weren’t imitating their great-grandfather, who built his house before the grid reached it, and had to chip out part of the wall to make a run for conduit.

Maybe they just wanted their house to have a big smiley face. Makes as much sense as anything with this crazy built-and-rebuilt no-apparent-design project.

Code, schmode

I saw this on the Faceborg recently and saw this in an Uruguay Expat Group.

Later I was standing near a house on the dog walk where I usually spend about ten minutes, and have hundreds of times, noticing its outdoor wiring for the first time.

Sure, just bring the current into the house through a wire lying on the lawn. Just pass over it with the lawn mower when you need to. No problem!

Professional and less so

Workers here at 7:30 AM, set up secure scaffolding (braced and tied to house) to work on replacing rotted parts of the roof valley. Done and gone by four.

Inspires a little more confidence than what Martín used to paint the house in 2010. Yes, that’s a crappy wood ladder (left with the house) tied to the top of my aluminum ladder.

Quincho

The local “excitement” for the last few weeks has been the re-doing of the neighbor’s thatched (“quincho”) roof. They’re apparently doing it in two layers, so the next time the whole thing doesn’t have to be torn off, just the top half. New idea?

I would be more curious, but the last time that roof was done, in October 2011, Denise Glass did and exhaustive and exhausting account of the process “here in Uruguay.” After reading it again, I do not want to burden the fabric of the universe with even one more word about it.

What’s going on here?

A few days ago, I speculated on what might be going on at this house. I did not express the thought that they might just completely tear down the wooden house, but that is exactly what they did, creating a mountain of plastic trash and another even bigger (center right) of asphalt-coated wood that will, as far as I can imagine, be completely useless. The room to the left had a huge amount of fiberglass insulation from the previous roof. Today it was boarded shut, so presumably they’ll re-use the insulation.

For some reason, the image of a puppy chasing its tail comes to mind.

What’s going on here?

A year ago, I posted these photos of a most wretched and entirely shoddy little house being built. It is still unoccupied, but more money has apparently been found.

First they added a strange brick structure on the left (gray) with no way to enter it from the house (maybe changed?). Now they’re enclosing the thing with ticholo, which has better insulation properties than brick. So what will happen to the previously exposed pine boards now hidden behind the ticholo? Dry rot? Black mold? Termites? Other critters?

It will be fun to monitor. Throwing good money after bad….

Industrial chic

Construction update: the neighbors on the corner have almost completed their [whatever] with parking for 3-4 cars. And painted everything gray.

This is what it looks like from our bedroom porch. Note the three flagpoles in the upper right. Obviously a business proposition of some sort, but what?

The neighbors on the other side have erected a fence around the front yard that can only be described as industrial.

From our upstairs patio, we can see the front yard has enough pavers—the workers told me they were for the Jacuzzi—to pave most of the yard.

Here is the warehouse-like addition. Look closely: they’re…

…painting it gray.

And here’s their lovely industrial stovepipe, obscuring the view of the neighbors’ weather vane.