Looking good...

The rain has stopped which has been a blessing as being up to my ankles in mud was starting to get annoying. I have finished the steps outside my apartment in the back garden which is awesome as I have been waiting sort out the balcony for a while now. The rear balcony although safe was sagging in places so I decided to use some of the old Mahogany roof beams to level it up a bit and give it a bit more support as I am going to add quite a bit of weight with the hand rail upstairs.

Putting up the pillars

It was tough work getting the beams up as they weigh a lot but with ropes and a hydraulic car jack I managed to get them up and straighten the balcony. 

Pillars in place

Now that this is finished the guys have started the plastering of the outside downstairs which is awesome as its looking like I will be able to move in soon.

Infiltration pit

I have had a lot of bad luck with tools this last week my skill saw, drill and chainsaw have all broken which sucks. They are all covered but warranty but I soon found out that  it is not worth the paper it is written on. If you buy something here after sales service is non existent. One place actually told me it is not their problem - go to the manufacturer (on a 2 day old chainsaw).

Plastering under the balcony

The plumbing has been coming along nicely - I am about 80% finished downstairs so not far off finishing. Due to all the rain the cistern filled up with water - ok I know its meant to be full of water but I hadn’t finished the inside of it so that is now all drained - so I am hoping I can get that finished in the next week or so as I am building a little shed to house my pressure tank and pumps which means I will soon have running water - exciting stuff.

I have also started putting my infiltration into place - the big hole in the ground was starting to annoy me. So I aim to get that finished tomorrow - hopefully that will stop the river running through my house when it rains!

My finished pillars

So a pretty short update but I am very excited at the moment, it is finally coming together.

Rain and mud!

I do not now what is going on but without a doubt I have picked the rainy season to complete this project. My whole garden is full of earth from digging all my channels for the plumbing which is now all mud and running through the house. But I will not let it slow me down! So in my last post I was just about to start the plumbing which was a job that I should have done earlier - probably before the electrics but thats just the way things go.

I feel like a plumbing store

Probably the hardest thing I have to deal with is having to start jobs whilst I am in the middle of another job - that is one of my biggest hates - I like to see a completed job before I move on to another but that is impossible, for example the reason why I started with the electrics first after the roof and floor was due to having the guys ready to start the walls - so I started the electrics telling them to just leave to rooms with the plumbing until I start plumbing. Then something will come up - like my rear balcony is not level so they could not start the plastering under the balcony as it would crack when I jack it up... simple - add some pillars, but before that I need to lay the concrete base for those pillars - but thats where all the plumbing pipes run so I need to do those before the pillars... you get my drift? My mind has about a million things running through it!

getting to grips with the pipes

The issue is I am just one person with two hands, it gets pretty tough. People just say to me why don’t you get someone in to help but to be honest you never know who to trust and also budget constraints - plus if i do it myself I know where everything is - so when it goes wrong I will know where to fix it!

So time for the plumbing update - I feel like a plumbing store as I ordered enough pipes and fittings to get started and set to work. My priority was to sort a working toilet as I mentioned last week that the inspection pit was collapsed in so the pipes were just backing up. I tried to find a pvc inspection pit like I have seen online but after visiting what seemed like every hardware store in Santo Domingo I gave in and started to make it myself. I have to admit I am pretty proud of it - although it did take the best part of a day to get all the angles right and to ensure it all flows correctly.

My homemade inspection pit

So after sorting the main inspection pit out to the street I turned my attention to the downstairs plumbing. I mentioned before that I wanted to move in as soon as possible and that has not changed so I decided to focus all my attention downstairs in my apartment.

The bathrooms pipes are all fitted and tested - again like the electrics first time I have done this so it is a learning curve - my evenings involve watching youtube videos and searching google for answers - what fun!

The hole for my infiltration system

Now back to the rain... I have a big roof which obviously means a lot of rain water. Almost all of the houses here just have pipes emptying it onto the street, which is fine until the street fills up - which does happen! Not ever wanting to deal with that I decided to make an infiltration system in the garden - simply a big hole with rocks, barrels and pipes with holes in it... I wont go in to the details but it is a great way to drain away all the rain water. I am building it at the bottom of my garden so not only does the roof water go into it so does all the water running down the hill. I am hoping this will solve the river running through my place when it rains!

The balcony needs to be leveled asap so the guys can start the outside of my living area so I also turned my attention to that. Now as my garden in on a slope I decided to make a walkway with steps outside my living area under the balcony. I am about a day or two away from finishing that which is when I can finally finish the plastering outside by putting up the pillars.

Steps in the garden

So that is about it for this installment. I am absolutely shattered but loving it, just cant wait for the property to be completed.