A German friend introduced me to the term “project fatigue,” and it describes perfectly the MEGO (my eyes glaze over) feeling I get with renovations and other work proceeding at glacial (lack of) speed.

Also, when I hire someone to do a job, it is not my job to tell them how to do it. Get on with it!

And so it was that I wasn’t paying particular attention when Martín put the sheetrock ceilings in our little country house a few years ago. He used wood instead of steel framing, which I thought poor judgment. In fact, the first batch of lumber delivered was so warped and twisted he had to send it all back. When I asked, he said that if steel framing gets bent, you can’t straighten it out again. OK, cast logic to the wind:

1. Why should it get bent in the first place?
2. What about the natural tendency of lumber to warp and twist – especially the low-grade stuff sold here?
3. Oh, and what about bugs eating wood, which they really like to do here?

Anyway, I wasn’t there, and wasn’t paying attention, because I would have spotted this immediately. Anyone who has done anything with drywall would. In fact, you would find it incredible that someone would pretend to know what they were doing and do something so wrong.

Here’s one example of what’s happening everywhere:

The long edges of a sheet of drywall are tapered. To cover that joint, you use a 6″ knife and put a thin layer of “mud” (I’ll have to find out what that’s called here), then lay on top of it paper (or plastic mesh) “tape,” then the finish layer of mud on top of that.

What you don’t do is simply put the tape in the joint, and cover it with mud. Which is exactly what Martín – the jack of all trades – did here. What hasn’t fallen down, will.

Unfortunately, this is quite common here. Everybody’s a builder. Everybody’s an electrician. Everybody’s a plumber. If drywall is a solution, everyone knows how to do drywall.

Except that they don’t.

There are exceptions, but after nine years I am still amazed at the general Uruguayan acceptance of mediocrity. Chinese power tools with two-month guarantees come to mind. Vendors who advertise online, and take money for, products they don’t have in stock. Yet another occurrence last couple days: twice charged then revoked charge on my credit card without explanation. But I have an explanation: they discovered they simply didn’t have the product they advertised.

Es lo que hay. “That’s what it is.” Mediocrity. How unfortunate.

I have often commented on how long construction takes in Uruguay. Simple houses can take the better part of a year.

By contrast, using new technology, here’s the house Syd and Gundy are building as a rental.

This is in fact a bit misleading because, being Easter week, the workers have only put in a few hours of work the last three days.

Isopanel – interesting stuff.

Friends are buying a lot and want to build a rental house. Recently they visited a construction expo in Montevideo and became fascinated with prefabricated houses imported from Australia. Today we went with them to view a couple of them.

The prefab house in the foreground is built to the same plans as the single-brick house in the background. The one in the foreground is less than a month into construction, and will be complete in less than two months from start. The one in back took two years.

Additionally, the prefab is extremely well insulated. The vertical wall elements are filled with flammable styrofoam, but isolated from one another. In other words, each is its own cell, so even if one caught fire inside, it would not easily spread. Meanwhile, in the “wet” (traditional) construction house, which has never been occupied, the excessive moisture and lack of ventilation has created (typical) mold problems. Again, before people have even been living — and breathing — in that space.

I don’t have comparative costs, but two months versus two years, excellent insulation versus no insulation and moisture problems — should be a no-brainer, eh? Well, there’s something lacking in the warm-and-fuzzy department in the interiors of the prefabs.

The “wood” floor doesn’t really remediate the shiny walls and industrial ceiling.

And then the details ….

In the end, though, you must consider that this is “cheap for rental” construction. This could be done with an impressive crown molding, but in this case the owner doesn’t give a shit (no offense, Joe). In fact, there’s supposed to be a video on their site, but I didn’t find it on a quick perusal (tonight’s pizza night; I’m on duty). One could easily do a lambriz (thin tongue and groove) ceiling which would be much more simpatico.

You can make the walls much more attractive with textured paint. All a question of cost. Still, pretty exciting stuff, Isopanel.

They’ve got a little guard shack and a backhoe, so it looks like action time on this lot near us. This is for the record. Let’s see how long it takes them to build something. Might be fast; steel-frame houses are becoming more popular. Or might not.

This attractive duplex on the Rambla (beachfront road) appears to be nearing completion after what seems to me an inordinately long time. I remember specifically because the owners, Argentines, rented the  El Nido Beach Hotel last summer, whether to house workers or run as a business I don’t know.

Anyway, as I have documented nearby in the past, by the time the place is ready for occupation the high season will have passed. Rents here are massively higher than the rest if the year, from 15 December through 15 March. So if you wanted to rent in the high season, you’d want to have it ready in December. Should be able to build a house in a year, no?

But then again I have no idea why they built it.