Issue #30: Navigating the Challenges and Joys of Constructing a Home in Costa Rica
First some Local news!
CR Celebrates Independence Day today! But you already knew that didn’t you? Here are some things you might not have known:
No War for Independence: Unlike many countries in Latin America, Costa Rica's independence was achieved without bloodshed or a formal war. The news of independence was delivered to Costa Rica by messengers on horseback, about a month after the actual declaration of independence.
Independence Day Shared with Other Nations: September 15th is a shared Independence Day among Costa Rica and other Central American countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, which all gained their independence from Spain on the same day.
The "Pacto de Concordia": Right after gaining independence in 1821, Costa Rica adopted its first constitutional document, known as the Pacto de Concordia, in December of the same year. It was essentially an interim constitution that outlined governance in the newly independent province. What’s interesting is that this document was primarily based on existing Spanish colonial laws, showing how Costa Rica was cautious about drastic changes.
Tensions Between Cities: In the wake of independence, Costa Rica's two main cities, Cartago (the old capital) and San José, had different visions for the country's future. Cartago supported joining the Mexican Empire under Agustín de Iturbide, while San José wanted full independence. This tension culminated in the Battle of Ochomogo in 1823, where San José's republican forces won, leading to Cartago's decline in influence and San José eventually becoming the capital.
The Independence Torch: A unique tradition in Costa Rica is the Torch of Independence, which symbolizes the communication of independence across Central America. The torch starts in Guatemala and is passed from runner to runner through El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and finally reaches Costa Rica, retracing the steps of the original messengers who brought news of independence. This tradition began in 1964 and is reenacted every year.
"Independence Village" Myth: There’s a popular myth in Costa Rican folklore about an isolated village that didn’t hear about independence until years after it happened. According to the legend, this remote town continued operating as though they were still under Spanish rule, only to discover years later that they had been independent the whole time. While apocryphal, the tale reflects Costa Rica’s rural and isolated nature during that time.
A group of ex-pat families and their kids joined the annual lantern parade yesterday in San Mateo as well as up in Maderal. The San Mateo parade ended at the market space with some music and a lotto where the announcer mentioned EcoVilla and Alegria and even called out one of the numbers in English after one of our kids won a prize.
Alright, on to today’s issue.
Preface
Today we talk about a popular topic of construction and building your house in the valley. Below I make fun of the local construction practices quite a bit and exaggerate significantly at times. While a lot of it is based on reality, I want to acknowledge the fact that this is of course a very “Americanized” perspective and while there is some genuine building advice in there somewhere, I often optimize for humor.
So you want to build a house?
The other day I had about 20 people who came into my house like it was a museum. They were walking around with their phones, taking pictures of everything they saw, from fridge to shelves to cracks in my floor, asking what material this and that is made of, how large is my pool and whether the sliding screen doors work well. The group was future ESM neighbors who were here as part of a construction workshop visit. Its a familiar conversation in the valley because sooner or later one has to build a dwelling for themselves and their family and whenever one visits another house, they’re essentially designing their own future home based on what they see and like.
Books can be written about construction and in fact they have been, here, we’ll cover only the basics to get you in the right mindset, throwing in a joke or two.
But first, some common terms you’ll see in construction and they’re real meaning:
Mañana - any day in the future which could mean tomorrow, next week, next year or never.
Si, Claro - I don’t understand your strange request, I will do it my way anyway
Lo siento, ha sido culpa mía. - dictionary translation is “I’m Sorry, that was my fault”, however this is not part of the local vocabulary and you will never hear anyone say that
Construction Budget - a rough dollar amount representing 50% of what you’ll actually spend
Parallel Lines - two lines that will eventually cross
Building Code - floor should be below roof, windows should be somewhere in-between, doors should close(sometimes with force). End of code.
10 year guarantee - this will work for at least a few weeks after I’m gone, but if it breaks, I will be sure to come and fix it as soon as “mañana”
Dry Wood - wood that has been sitting under a roof, but in a moist environment for a few weeks. It will shrink with time.
1 meter - length of my step, sometimes a step of one of my guys, actual size varies by guy
Alright, now onto the construction stuff. I always find that I learn best from mistakes, so here are some mistakes that I either made myself or I’ve seen others make. Don’t worry this is not an exhaustive list and I’m sure you’ll make your own mistakes and you’ll grow as a result! You might be growing in a moldy house with a leaky roof, but still growing…
Mistake #1: Letting the professionals handle that - one view of the construction process is you hire people who know what they’re doing and in the end they deliver a house to you to some high level of standard where everything works as one would expect in 2024. This might be true in certain parts of the world, but what you find here is that a lot of “professionals” are not as professional as you might expect. Time and time again I was surprised to find that after a few trips down YouTube university I was suddenly more of an expert then the guys doing the work. Whether its installing french drains, water management, plumbing, electrical, concrete work or even relatively simple things like doors, its quite possible that the person doing the work just sort of learned it on the job and is now deemed “professional”.
Remedy: whether you like it or not, part of the process of building in Costa Rica is you yourself becoming an expert or at least knowledgable about various parts of construction process. The running joke among homeowners who’ve built their houses here is: “I can be a builder now!” and to some degree it is true. Best to embrace the learning process and get genuinely curious about everything.
Mistake #2: Not thinking about “aging” - I hate to break it to you, but that brand new house is going to get old. In fact its going to get old way faster then you anticipate. The climate here is brutal for houses and nature will try to take it over from any side that it can. Whether its water, sun, earthquakes, bugs or plants, the new house is going to quickly settle into its environment and its environment is going to settle into it. Any material exposed to the elements will change and age very quickly within a single year and depending on the material, it will age accordingly. Cement wash floors will crack, cement half-pipes for water drainage will blacken, wood will expand and contract, exposed metal will quickly rust, the smooth sliding door will not be so smooth due to a little bug cemetery that will form in its railings, and any corner that does not have good airflow or sun will mold.
Remedy: embrace it! You’re trying to fight your little piece of land away from the jungle, but the jungle will continue to try and get it back. Think about materials you’re using, especially if they have exposure to water or sun. Think about airflow and sunlight as that will prevent mold in the house, think about what maintenance activities will be needed, how often and if you’ll be up for doing them.
Mistake #3: Getting divorced halfway through the build - I suppose this is not strictly speaking “construction” advice, but if there is one thing that will test the relationship, its pouring all your life’s savings into a project in which you then hope to spend big part of your life in… hopefully together. Construction is a year in which you’re forced to make 1000 decisions big and small. Chances are no matter how strong your bond is or how well you know each other, you’ll find a good portion of those decisions you disagree on. She wants bright blue tiles in the bathroom, he wants gray. She wants a large kitchen, but he wants a large office and the plan only allows for one. She wants a large rope hanging down from the ceiling to make a swing on which they can play out their S&M adventures together, he… well, he also wants that! just not in the living room.
Remedy: sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too, like hanging ropes in multiple rooms(bad idea!), but usually it will be a compromise where one or both parties are slightly unsatisfied with the decision, but are willing to accept it for the sake of the other. I suppose this is where I should romanticize about a concept of a dream team where both partners bring their most productive energies together, intertwined to form a unit with a perfectly balanced masculine and feminine energies, completely engulfed in flow state seamlessly cutting through every decision together like a sharp knife through room temperature butter. But you can probably already tell, this is not that kind of newsletter and who likes room temperature butter!?
Mistake #4: Water Management - this mistake is unavoidable in my opinion unless your house is on top of a hill with no land above it, even then, you have to worry about run-off and ruining the land below you. Here is the thing, you might be aware of how much it rains here and you might even build some solutions to redirect water away from the house, your water management system may even work 364 days of the year, until that one bad storm. Let me give you some perspective, if you were in the valley yesterday, it rained. It rained hard! Everyone was going “whoa!” thats a lot of water. It hasn’t rained this hard in a few months. To be more precise on the Maderal road, we had 75mm of rain yesterday with a peak rate of 55mm/hour. It was a nice big rain! However, on May 10 of this year we had 215mm of rain with peak rate of 135mm/hr, that’s 3 times as much rain as yesterday. So if your water management system was working yesterday, it doesn’t mean it will sustain 3x the volume and there will be that 200+ mm day at least once each year.
Remedy: Water management is often an art as you need to imagine where the water is flowing and how to redirect it. There are experts that you can talk to who can sense the land and help you devise a proper water management plant, ideally one that is integrated into the rest of your land. In the end of the day, have a water management plan in place, have a back-up plan, be ready with a shovel in October when you’ll actually test how well your system performs and see what modifications are needed. Oh and did I mention - the water flows downhill.
Mistake #5: Believing your “builder” is the one “building” - builder is the person or team you deal with most during your construction process and depending on the builder you choose, they may even know a thing or two about building. However! They are not the ones building your house and often will not have hands on experience. In fact, one could argue that the job of your builder is less building and more managing you, managing the process and most importantly hiring the right “maestro” who will be actually building your house. “Maestro” otherwise known as “foreman” is the most senior person on your construction crew and he is the one who is on site every day, all day, directing all other workers and making sure they are doing things correctly. Usually this person knows how to do every job that is part of the building process and is the one reading the plans and making sure what is being built matches them. Often he himself will participate in key parts of the build process, he will also plan ahead and order the materials needed as well as hire and fire workers. How smooth and how well your construction is proceeding is often in the hands of this person.
Remedy: when you hire a builder, also ask about the foreman that will be used on your project and ideally figure out how good they are.
Mistake #6: Building a house that is not full representation of “you” - one way looking at building your own house is as a practical matter of figuring out where to dwell. You look at a bunch of houses, you see things that you like, you put together your version of that, including all the comforts that you seek or that you are used to based on your life experience so far. Architects and Engineers and Builders will give you their advice, based on their perspective and nudge you toward something that is feasible, practical and to your liking. There is nothing wrong with that on the surface, you will end up with a somewhat standard house that will have certain level of customization to your needs, but it will not be “you”.
Remedy: another way of looking at the house is as an ultimate self-expression where the house represents fully who you are or who you aspire to be and every facet of the house in some ways represents your personality and fits you like a glove. Is your psyche complex and has many tunnels and puzzles and labyrinths inside it? Why not include some of that! Do right angles and squares make you queasy and you prefer circles and organic shapes? Make it a round house, with round windows and round doors! Will your architect and builder hate you? Of course! But you will end up with a house that is truly unique, much like you.
Mistake #7: Not building sustainably-enough - we finish with a biggie. Most people coming here have some sort of environmental slant to them where in one way or another they care about the environment and genuinely would like to reduce their impact on mother earth. However when this positive intent is met with realities of actually building something, we often give up some ideals due to costs, maintenance challenges, finding skilled labor and pressures from builders who often prefer to build things the way they’ve been doing it. You may start with a bamboo / adobe walls concept, but then somehow find yourself in a metal/concrete structure due to above mentioned influences.
Remedy: Decide early on how important sustainability to you really and then work with architects and builders who will be able to match your ideals, being ready for the fact that when you’re working on something that is not quite “mainstream” it will have certain challenges.
Lastly, don’t sweat it! Look around, everyone seems to be living in a house thats mostly functional and somehow that all happened. More over, you have the benefit of building together with your neighbors and learning from each other as the process unfolds. In the end of the day, the houses will be built, we’ll all move on land, only then the true “building” of something more exciting will begin.
For a more serious piece about construction, please take a look back at our Issue #8: