This Old Man's House

Changing with the times.

2012-02-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

Since the Blogger program changed - I figured it was a good time to change my blog to reflect an upcoming e-book This Old Man's House. Upcoming, meaning within the next year. It's in the works but it's like everything else, I get side tracked a lot. My wife has convinced me that she will help, because I am too dense and could never write a book much less a series of books by myself. It will be a "how-to" series with personal stories, opinions and political reference, in other words a real life series.

Just checking to see if the changes I made work.

I came across some different kind of fruit a couple Sundays ago in La Paz. The lady at the market told me I could eat it raw. I think she was a little surprised when I cut it up in front of her but I don't really understand what they say and I didn't want another babaco experience.

It has the same flesh as a cantelope but a little bit of a peachy flavor, Digger really likes it, even more than watermelon. Barb says it's like a big mango.

I've about run out of excuses for my laziness - there is only so many rain days before you figure a way around it. I'll have to come up with some different excuses soon or maybe I could actually do something - nah.

9 weeks.

2012-02-22T18:35:00.000-08:00

Digger and I have gotten to the sill plate level around the bedroom walls. I have not been able to find any sill plate anchors - a bolt embedded in cement to fasten a wooden sill.

So we decided to make some. I just welded some rebar to 1/2" bolts, a little overkill, a fender washer at the top of the bolt would work just fine.

I put in some guide pins at the top of the columns to keep the wooden pad in place when the carrying beam is being installed. You'll see the reason for these when the beam goes in.

I am running out of blocks again, down to my last 50. At this point in the project I have used 600 blocks, 20 bags of cement, 4 yards of sand , 3 yards of gravel and 520 feet of rebar. A total of about $950.00 worth of materials. I forgot the bricks but I can't really count them because they are used bricks and were already counted on another project.

Rant of the Week

I can't figure out where politicians went to school, it sure wasn't in the public school system. At one point in my life I taught math in the public school system, so I know that when you leave the school system you can at least add, subtract, multiply and divide whole numbers. I saw where the President of the U.S. was talking about inflation at a rate of 4% to 5 % annually. Inflation is calculated using the Consumer Price Index which has been manipulated to only include non inflationary items. My problem lies in just tracking gas prices - which used to be in the CPI - that have doubled in the last 3 years. That sure looks like 33% inflation just in gas. Other non durable goods haven't had that steep an increase in cost but by my way of thinking inflation in the U.S. is well into double digits. How do these guys get away with this kind of misrepresentation ? I guess they figure the public is stupid - they could have a point.

10 weeks.

2012-02-16T19:37:00.001-08:00

Well we have started the countdown to getting Barb moved to La Paz. 10 weeks with a 30 day buffer. This schedule will allow Barb to finish the semester at Missouri State University and give her time to remember what she forgot to make a smooth transition. Ofcourse you know it won't be a smooth transition, there will be multipal return trips to Cuenca - good thing the bus runs from Loja to Cuenca every day.

I don't have any pictures this week. I left La Paz in a hurry the other day - big rain coming in and I didn't want to miss Barb's birthday. The excessive rain this year has really taken it's toll on the building progress, being old and lazy doesn't help either.

Since getting my new thermometer I have been able to better predict the weather - when the humidity shoots up to 85% I know it is not just another cloudy day. The temperature runs from 46 at night to 64 degrees during the day this time of year with the humidity at 40% on clear days, 60 to 70% on cloudy days and rain at 85%. When the weather comes in from the northeast it is usually cloudy, from the southwest it is usually clear. The sun never shines all day but it is rarely cloudy all day either. It rains almost every day from a few minutes to several hours and fog rolls into the lower valleys for an hour or so. From my perspective the weather in La Paz is pretty perfect, no two days are ever the same but the extremes are never uncomfortable.

No rant this week - pictures next week.

A little more progress

2012-02-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

The rain in La Paz has let up a little. It still rains every day just not as much. Digger and I are getting close to putting in the carrying beam for the roof on half of the addition.

We put in the arch for the bedroom door and finished up Barb's glass block window this past week. There is no key in the door arch because it is a non-bearing wall. It really doesn't make any difference the bricks are big enough (3X5X10) to carry a pretty substantial load with out a key, I just need an excuse to do some things a little differently.

Barb got me a thermometer for my birthday so I will be able to report on weather conditions in La Paz pretty soon. I keep telling her it is cooler in La Paz - I guess she wants to know exactly how much cooler.

Digger likes her watermelon. She bites off the rind to get to the red stuff. I don't think there is anything she won't eat.

I keep telling you folks that I am not too bright; someday you will realize I am telling you the truth. I recently got a comment from some folks I really wanted to respond to with a personal note but I don't know how to respond to a "no-reply comment". I know there is nothing I can do about that, I just wanted to tell them how much I appreciated their blog "BobnRox" and how much they have done for so many children. What if they don't want people to know that I think the progress they have made on their paradise is amazing and that I really appreciate their helpful comment? Some of the other comments I get from people like Mike Wallace of "Mikes gone South" who is a building contractor, I can respond to personally so he can tell me I am full of crap without everyone who reads my blog knowing it - Mike is really a nice guy but he could do that if he wanted to with out embarrassing me. I just have a problem airing someone else's personal stuff and I am not smart enough to figure it out. I guess that qualifies as the rant of the week.

Lofty thoughts.

2012-02-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

Digger and I will be headed down the road for another week in La Paz, tomorrow. I guess I better say something about how things are going.

I was downtown in Cuenca today looking for Barbara's birthday present - good excuse to go to the California Kitchen for lunch. I get really tired of tuna fish and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I am in LaPaz and eggs get pretty old too. There are a bunch of resturants in LaPaz but I just don't like the food. I guess if I had to have a complaint about Ecuador it would be, that in general I don't like the food. For a guy who never really cared much about food, I struggle with the menu while I am away from my wife.

I made the new overlay for the arch form for the door arches which should be built in the next week or two and the roof trusses won't be far behind. I kinda fly by the seat of my pants most of the time but the roof should look something like the following plan.

There will be two different pitches and two different collar tie levels all resting on a carrying beam. The reason is that I want to match the pitch on the existing roof but keep the front eve at 8 feet. Seems like a good idea to me but then again hardly anything ever turns out the way I plan it.

I have almost gotten all the parts and pieces together for a gravity feed, slow sand filter system for the water supply. So that should go online in the not too distant future, although I will have to install a water pump to backwash the filter and provide enough pressure for the hot water heater.

Snide comment for the week.

I was going to make a political comment but it makes my vision blurry from the increase in my blood pressure and I can't see what I am trying to type. So I decided instead to comment on the person who has the greatest influence on my life.

A little while back Barb came up with the idea of position trading on the stock market. I gave my input, having done some of that in my lifetime and she went about setting up her brokerage account and trackng penny stocks. I walked by her desk the other day and noticed she is tracking blue chips - I think she is doing okay in the stock market - if only she could mix cement.

Mary's in Wonderland

2012-01-23T18:49:00.000-08:00

I've heard that Mary from South of Zero is in Cuenca this week. Everyone can meet her at the California Kitchen on Friday this week - everyone but me. There has been so much rain this year that the driveway in La Paz is totally washed out. I made arrangements a couple of weeks ago for a bull dozer to regrade the driveway and he's coming on guess what day. I'll never be able to get his equipment back out there if I stand him up. So to Mary from South of Zero - I hope you have a great time in Ecuador, I know you are in good hands.

Digger has been really busy this week. As soon as I find out what tools and clothing items she has taken and where she has been hanging out, I'll let you know. She has a degenerative hip disorder, which is the main reason we adopted her, to give her a good quality of life for as long as she can stand it. She's 6 months old; I kinda expected her to be dragging her butt by now but so far it is just affecting her left hip and she is doing pretty good as a 3 legged dog.

The east wall of the bedroom is finally at sill plate level for the roof rafters. On the north end of the wall, where the loose brick is sitting on a notched block at the 5 foot level, is where the 4 foot arch will go as an entrance to the front porch. There will be a total of 4 arches in the front porch. I think that is too hard to visualize - I'll just show you when I get it done.

The value of real estate along the newly paved Panamerican South Highway has really gotten pretty expensive. I didn't pay to much attention to it until recently when 80 acres went up for sale to our south and I can see new construction about 1/2 mile to the north. When I went to pay my property taxes a couple weeks ago and had to redo a bunch of paperwork, I decided to calculate the increase from when I bought the property a year ago. 3000% - that is three thousand percent in official pay taxes on appraised value. When I bought it I knew I paid too much but Barb wanted it. Now it appears it's worth about twice what I paid for it, I guess I should pay more attention to what Barb has to say - I wonder how her stock picks are doing ?

Update.

2012-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of rain this year, not that I would know the difference, but the locals in La Paz are complaining about how cold and wet the weather is this year. Sounds like a good excuse for my lack of progress, truth is there is no fire under my butt, it will get done ........ never. That's the plan, to have enough to do to last the rest of my life. If I die tomorrow I will have succeeded, if I don't die for 3 more years then I may have a problem - guess I better drag my butt a little more.

Three months ago I had an issue with ladders, so I made a couple.

I can make the platform any length I want but I weigh 200 pounds and I am not real sure of the elasticity of eucalyptus. So far so good, we'll see how it does when the roof rafters go in.

Barb has finalized the plans for her garden space, the green house and a starter house for chickens. She cut me some slack on the chickens, originally she wanted the brooder house done before May but when she realized how big it was she decided she would rather have the Guest House done instead. I'd say I am pretty lucky to have a wife with some common sense.

Transfer Taxes

2012-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

The begining of the new year is tax time in the U.S., it is in Ecuador as well. Last February I bought the land in La Paz but because I didn't have my Cedula then I had an attorney buy it for me, to save a whole bunch of problems. A week after the purchase I transferred ownership to myself - I thought. It is a lot easier to transfer property than to buy it without a Cedula. I sure paid enough to have it done and went to Nabon personally to have it recorded in the register of land records. Fast forward to last week, when I went to Nabon to pay my property taxes. The system works the same as paying a utility bill in a small town, women start a conversation with another woman in the front of the line to get ahead of you and men just butt right in front of you, if you let them. I deal with the men but I haven't figured out how to deal with the women. They get pushed around so much in Ecuador I figure I should let it go, so I do. At any rate I had to wait a long time to get to the pay window, just to be told to come back the next day when a specialist would be there to set up my account. Sounds like trouble to me.

I went back to Nabon the next day and went through the waiting in line thing - got on the wrong side of a popular local when he tried to cut in front of me in line. I eventually got to the pay window; they were waiting for me and hauled me into the office to get me straightened out. I got the account set up and the taxes paid but there was a question about who owned the land, so upstairs to the Register of Land Records I went. Another couple of hours, another $145.00 and come back tomorrow for the documents.

The transactions in Ecuador are pretty straight foward and make a lot of sense but the paperwork is just out of control and the number of people and departments a simple transaction goes through is just mind boggling. Ofcourse once the accounts are set up things move pretty fast. It takes less than 5 minutes to pay my electric bill ( I pay in Cuenca for my service in La Paz ), I pay in Cuenca to avoid the lines in La Paz; it is a central system so I can pay anywhere. Once the bank accounts are set up you get free executive banking services without having to wait in lines and the list goes on.

The bottom line is this - Hardheaded doesn't work in Ecuador ( the rules are the rules ) but stupid works really well.

LaPaz

2011-12-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

Digger and I spend quite a bit of time in La Paz and I realized you haven't seen the town. It is a major metropolis in the corridor between Cuenca and Loja, probably 50 families in a 6 mile radius. A regular tourist trap with three pigs being worked on every day and a fruit and veggie sales day on Sunday.

This is the whole town, busses run through town day and night from Cuenca to Loja and points south.

On the south end of town is the block maker - he's not making blocks today, he just butchered a hog for his wife who has a space in the middle of town selling pork. She goes through 2 pigs a week.

Heading north through town the hardware store is on the left with a dental office on the second floor. The hardware guy speaks some English and I speak some Spanish so I can pretty much get anything I need here.

My favorite convience store with a place to eat right next door - the mother runs the store and the daughter runs the resturant.

Across the street they are adding a forth floor to an apartment building, some one is moving into town.

At the North end of town is the school.

And across the street is the church.

Just out of town heading north is the gas station and a resturant. Digger's friend Lu Lu the Saint Bernard lives here. Lu Lu would like to have Digger for lunch, literally but they have a good time barking at each other.

That's the nickel tour, it really is a great place to live. As far as I know I am the only gringo around.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

T'was the day before Christmas and all through the house, was the sound of stripping lumber, hand planning and sanding throughout.

The tradition in our house at Christmas time is to build Barbara a piece of furniture. I think I may have waited a little too long to start this project. This years piece is a hunt board.

It takes a little longer to make furniture in Ecuador because the lumber is all rough cut and you need to air dry it for a while before you can work it.

There are two different types of eucalyptus going into to this piece. The regular white and some that was grown in a high iron content soil, the more you wet it the redder it gets.

Ofcourse all the help is already on vacation, Digger is just hanging around to steal my sand paper when I am not looking.

I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.Remember, no fires in the fireplace on Christmas eve.

Not the brightest bulb in the box.

2011-12-16T13:42:00.000-08:00

I think I owe some of you good folks an apology. I have been responding to comments on my blog using my e-mail account because the comments are fowarded there. I noticed today that my reply gets sent to a no reply address, so I guess I am e-mailing into a vacuum in cyber space. I operate in a partial vacuum anyway.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows I'm not too smart, never have been. I feel bad that you have taken the time to read an obscure blog and gone to the trouble of making a comment and don't get any response. For that I apologize. I will reply to comments in the comment section of the blog - it will say "Barbara said" because I don't know how to fix that either.

There are just some things in life that it is too late for me to learn, I don't think I have enough brain cells left to learn anyway. I've been hit in the head so many times it's a wonder I can remember to breath. What other explaination is there - I have been writing on this blog site since May and I just now figure this out.

Thank you for your patronage and patience, and thanks for your vote in 2012.

I Knew it.

2011-12-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

Last week I was saying that Barb had discovered glass building blocks, this week she has a design she wants
incorporated into the guest house - if it's not to much trouble. Now what do you think that means ?

It means I better put it in - here's half of the design.

Four straight days of rain and the locals talking about how cold it is, of course I don't know the difference. Rain in the morning or afternoon for a couple hours is okay but all day and all night is getting to be a real pain. There is a good side to all the rain, Digger the dog really likes it.

What, you think you're going to melt ? Come out and play.

Last week's blog post brought some written comments and some in person. So I guess I will follow through with a new project. Let's see how good you are at reading between the lines. Good clean water is a fundamental requirement for life, so in addition to a slow sand filter for my water supply I will be building a water distiller ( a still ) to boil water and condense the vapor. On another front I have decided to plant an additional quarter acre of corn, some rye and a little more barley for chicken feed. In the garden I have decided to grow several varieties of potatoes. All the things you've heard or surmised about me are true.

Glass blocks.

2011-12-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

Since Barb won't be teaching anymore after next semester she is becoming more interested in things outside of academia. She is learning about position trading on the stock market and has discovered glass blocks, the kind used in buildings. I am holding my breath.

I saw a program segment on TV the other day about the health benefits of red wine. The only thing I know about wine is that it is made from grapes - moonshine is a different matter, I've been distilling spirits since I was 12 years old. At any rate today I figured I'd give red wine a try. We are already at Coral, Barb is exploring the world of glass blocks - they have wine here. There is a bunch of different names I guess for a bunch of different types of both red and white wines, it's a little too complicated for me. For all I know if you take grape juice and mix it with grain alcohol in the proportion to get a 12% alcohol level won't that be close to wine ? Barb says it's a good thing I'm not trying to fly a plane. She can't help me because she doesn't drink. Okay, so I am in the wine section of Coral and can't figure it out so I head to the boxed wine and pick out a nice $2 box of red wine. Now I am not totally inept, I grew up in the Catholic Church but they make the wine taste bad so you won't drink a bunch of it at Communion, don't they ? I know the answer to that question. This stuff isn't very good, who drinks this stuff, are you sure they use grapes to make it, is the church getting a share of the profits ??? I guess this is what I get for trying something from the milder, more civilized side of life.

Now I know there has to be some wine out there that is palatable and that there are a lot of nice folks who would gladly straighten me out about wine selection. I am not of the intellect to be a wine connoisseur, what I like is double distilled corn liquor that takes your breath away before it passes your lips.

A little more.

2011-12-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

Over the years we all develope preferences, some folks like Fords, some like lima beans. I like hand tools and have preferences and reasons for what I like. Recently I have changed my preference for masonary trowels.

My normal taste is to use a London style trowel with a flexible blade ( on the right ) but recently I have switched to a Philadephia style trowel with a thicker blade. I can dress the blocks faster and get a longer draw with the mortar. I have a preference for trowel manufacturers too but that went out the window when we moved to Ecuador.

There has been some progress on the addition to the guest house. The first arched window is bricked in.

I am using used bricks for the arch - I just like the look and a cement key at the top.

I got the Direct TV dish pointed in the right direction - finally.

Yes, I smoke like a chimney and I like Ecuadorian cigarettes.

More blocks and sand.

2011-11-30T12:58:00.000-08:00

I have been hauling blocks and sand in the car for the last month because of the rain and the problems I had last time I had stuff delivered. It made progress even slower than this old man's slow pace. We had a break in the weather last week and after 3 days of no rain I decided to give it a shot and have 300 blocks and 2 yards of sand delivered. It rained all day on delivery day, so I had to dump the blocks and sand in the driveway about 50 feet from the front gate. We have plenty of space to have stuff delivered but our quarter mile frontage is right on the Panamerican Highway and it won't stay there long.

Digger likes to play in the rain but when night comes she gets a little cold.

I've got like 3 blankets on the bed, I don't know how she manages to just get under the top one.

I haven't been giving the cat her due lately, so I better give her credit for her efforts.

She keeps an eye on things.

Does the incoming materials inspections.

And she handles safety inspections of tools and equipment.

Another week - block work for a while.

2011-11-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

Last week Barb had the camera to take pictures of the stuff going on in Cuenca, so I couldn't take any pictures of all the progress Digger and I have made in La Paz. This week we got the camera back and I have no pictures because we really aren't making much progress.

At this point all the footers are in along with the electrical conduit so it is all block work until we reach the roofline. 200 blocks in and 500 to go, pretty boring stuff.

There are some other issues that need to be addressed now to insure a smooth transition for Barb and her chickens this coming May. As far as I know Barb will be running about 60 birds through her brooder operation every 16 weeks, she hasn't commited to a feed ration yet but somebody needs to be planting some corn, wheat and barley pretty soon. She will need a good ton and a half of feed per year. I have an acre and a half of fescue established, which will make a good filler for her feed. I figure a half acre of corn and a quarter acre of wheat and barley or milo. I haven't told her yet but she is going to have to mill this stuff, I am sure she wants to anyway, adjusting feed rations has got to be part of her research.

Digger has a new blanket with pictures of big cats on it, she spends more time under it than on it. It does get a little cool in La Paz at night.

Same old stuff for a while.

2011-10-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

Barb is moving ahead with her plans to be done teaching online this winter - summer in the U.S.. Even though it gives me a break on the guest house schedule, she wants the brooder house done by then too. She has been asking a lot of questions about feed conversion and different breeds of chickens, space requirements and incubation - she is up to no good. I have mentioned this before, that I thought she would be doing research with chickens, now it is certain. She may be a stuffy old retired professor but she is a research scientist first and foremost. It wouldn't do me any good to ask her what she is up to, I wouldn't comprehend whatever she said, I just hope I get some eggs for breakfast and a couple of birds a month for dinner.

Digger and I came into town this weekend to see if I can't get Direct TV straightened out and try and make arrangements to pay the electric bill from La Paz, some where. The regional office of the electric company in Nabon says to pay in La Paz, La Paz says to pay in Cuenca and Cuenca says to pay in La Paz. Of course this is the same government that sent us a disconnect notice for water at our apartment in Cuenca when it is automatically taken out of our bank account here. Sounds like the U.S. government doesn't it ? It's actually better here, they eventually get it straightened out here, in the U.S. they just keep making the same mistakes and somehow expect a different result.

Digger has been awful busy this week protecting a stack of used bricks and making sure no one moves that green string line.

Of course she has to sign off on all the work.

Maybe next week we will get the remainder of the footer poured and the brooder house site cleared out.

Snide remark for this week. According to Barbara and the Federal Government I don't officially retire until next year, so I am still able to work and I better get to it. Maybe I should leave the dog with her this week, to help around the house.

Elemental dilemma.

2011-10-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

Barb has decided she wants a fireplace in the Guesthouse, which brings up a new set of problems in the construction process.

I've put in a 38" X 32" opening in the south wall for the firebox and gotten ahold of a load of bricks that the brick maker in Sussidel said are baked at high temperature, the picture shows a few of them.

Different angle of the same thing.

My dilemma comes from my hard headedness, I cause my own problems. I could just build the firebox the way they do here and everything would probably be fine but this is not a deorative fire place, it will be burnt every night. Here they use a standard mortar mix and throw in some raw sugar to try and keep the mortar joints from cracking, which is fine if you only burn a fire once in a while and aren't concerned with an air tight firebox. Fire places are the most ineffecient ways to heat a space, so I would like to have a venting system that will draw some heat from the firebox using natural convection - which will require an air tight firebox.

There is no high temperature mortar here, which is fine with me because that stuff cracks anyway, you have to use a mortar that is softer than the material you are trying to bond together. One advantage of being old is knowing a thing or two. A lime mortar will do the trick, softer than brick and self healing. Calcium carbonate is the only lime available here, agricultural lime, I use it in my mortar mix for laying blocks and making stucco becuase it makes the mortar stickier and retains moisture better but for use in a firebox it is not refined enough - too much carbon and oxygen. Carbonation of hydrated lime is what makes a lime mortar self healing.

Here is my assumption - if I use agricultural lime for a lime mortar, 1:3 with sand, the temperature of the fire will burn off the excess carbon and leave me with hydrated lime in the mortar. Since 80% of the population is smarter than I am, I will throw this out there and see if someone will straighten me out but be forewarned, by the time you tell me I am full of crap the fire box will have already been built. How is that for hard headedness ?

It's been 10 days since the last post.

2011-10-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

Forgive me followers for I have sinned, it's been 10 days since my last post. I hope that doesn't offend anyone, just a dig at my Catholic upbringing I couldn't resist.

It really has been a while with no progress and I don't really have an excuse other than being lazy. Barb has decided to teach online for one more semester after this one, so that has given me an extension on the timeline for having the guesthouse done.

There are some things, construction related in Ecuador that are just too expensive. Surface planners, mig welders and chain saws are a couple of them - the one I am dealing with now is ladders. A fairly good 6 foot step ladder is about $200 and the price goes up from there. There is no getting around working up off the ground, so here is my solution.

I've taken a couple of 1X8X9' boards and stripped them out to 4" planks, sistered two together and notched out 1/2" for the rungs.

What I ended up with is a easy to build, stong, light weight 9' ladder for $7.50. It isn't really a ladder but it can be used as one, it's half of a scaffolding system to give me a working platform up to 8' high. The whole thing, which is two of these, planking and cross braces cost $27 - $7 more than a carton of cigarettes not the price of a motorcycle.

Digger the dog is still growing and has started to protect what is important to her.

Nobody is moving this wheelbarrow without her knowing about it.

Start of the rainy season.

2011-10-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

Even though we have had quite a bit of rain in the dry season this year, the start of the rainy season has left no doubt about what season it is. This week we got 3 solid days and nights of rain in La Paz. By Thursday there had been enough rain that the bottom fell out of the driveway, it took 2 days and a broken jack to dig the car out of the mud. Kind of reminds me of mud season in New Hampshire.

Laying blocks in the rain is one thing but when the rain is so hard it washes out your mortar joints before you can get it covered, that's another thing - at least it's not freezing cold or burning hot. After trying to get some blocks in between hard rains for three days and playing in the mud another two days I had had enough for this week and came back to Cuenca late this afternoon. This morning the sun broke through and for the first time in a week the wheelbarrow was almost dry.

Well that ought to tell you something, the only dry spot on the place and look who owns it, the dog who plays in the creek and has mud all over the interior of the car.

Some Progress to Report

2011-10-04T05:16:00.000-07:00

There has been a little progress this past week other than playing with the blocks. I am to the point where I need to decide where and how to install electrical outlets in the addition. I've decided to run the power horizonally through the blocks instead of vertically through the cells.

It will be a lot easier to pull wires through conduit than try to fish wire through open cells in the blocks.

It;s a little hard to see but the first recepticle box is in along the north wall.

Maybe this is a little better perspective. At any rate the box looks a little high but the floor isn't poured yet, the recepticles will be at 16" above the floor, about 2" higher than NEC code. The large opening on the right will be an archway to a small porch in the front of the addition.

The south wall footer is finally in so the block work can get started on that. There is still a lot of digging to do. Barb has ordered that the excavated material be moved to the area she wants as raised beds in the garden, just another distraction.

Digger the dog.

Digger is getting more aggressive every day, I guess it would really be called possessive, I have to hunt for my shoes everyday now and she has learned to jump the creek. I suppose the next trick will be putting my tools and shoes in the creek. She really has a lot of fun running all over the place, she has started the growl and deep bark at unfamiliar sounds.

Another good week.

2011-10-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

It's been another good week in La Paz, the weather is warming up at night, the pup is getting to know the lay of the land and I got a little work done between distractions.

I poured the first key and it's okay but I think I will need to adjust the cement mixture for a better overall appearance.

The local block maker started a new run of blocks last week.They are still too green to stack and truck, so he is letting me take 12 at a time when I come into town every morning. He is making the blocks himself this time so they are a much more uniform than the batch his helper made last time.

This is the last of the old blocks and as you can see there is a bit of slag on the bottom and the density of the block clearly goes from top to bottom. I have had to cull 10% of the blocks from this run and I have to dress every block before I use it. I use my good $2 trowel to chip the slag and it only takes a few seconds. The trowels here are of exceptional quality in materials and workmanship, I have several trowels in reserve because I just knew, as cheap as the trowels are, I would bend or break them at the frog within minutes. I am one of those guys who uses what I have in my hand for whatever task I confront and I can assure you I am not timid about using it either. I am still using the first trowel - a much higher success rate than other hand tools here - hammers are the worst.

Weekly Snide Remarks.

I don't get a lot of guff from my wife for leaving town for a week at a time, it's her quiet time when she is the most productive but I would swear she has a suppressed desire to get even. She has an uncanny ability to relate to animals - cats in particular. This ability is so pronounced that when I first met her years ago I thought she was some kind of witch with her familiar. I had never seen a cat act the way her cat did, as if they understood each other, not as master and pet but as equals. I mention this because she is doing the same thing with her Ecuadorian cat. When the dog and I left town last week the dog was clearly the master of the pet part of the family. When we returned today the cat was waiting for the dog and she laid her out, like she had been coached on how to take control of an unruly pup. I find it hard to believe the cat came up with this plan by herself but the dog now gives her free run, after half a dozen confrontations that the dog lost.

2011-09-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

I've spent the whole week in Cuenca but I got a little prep work done for La Paz.

Since there will be 11 arches in the addition and it would be a real pain to have to install a lintel over every one of them, I will be making the arches load bearing. I've made a form for pouring the key for the arches (above) and it should work on all the arches.

I was lucky to find some real nice eucaliptos just down the street, the perfect wood for my arch jig. A few months ago I free-handed an arch while closing in a window, it was pretty much a disaster, that's why I am making a jig for the rest of the arches. The jig will be sized for the smallest arch, for the bigger arches I will just overlay the jig with the proper diameter lumber.

Ofcourse I needed a few new tools for these little projects.

A new jigsaw and a Jack plane, both cost the same, about $23 a piece. You can get a much nicer hand plane in the U.S. than this Stanley for $23 but it has the depth and angle adjustments on the iron and you can adjust the chip breaker, that's all I need.

After Barb has had her way with Digger all week she is going to be a hand full back in La Paz. Barbara keeps food in my dish all the time, I have my own rug, a piece of sweater with a knot in it and a rawhide bone, plus my friend the cat and I can tear though the house chasing each other and dig all the dirt out of the indoor garden. Yeah buddy, Barb has done her work this week.

Advice from the better half.

2011-09-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

Tying in the new with the old.
I mentioned in the last post that I would ask my wife to help prioritize my projects in La Paz, figuring she might allude to her preference. Here is what I got – "Quit playing around and get some work done." This is what I get for trying to bait a woman with two PhD's in Psychology.

I did get some work done last week, mostly digging out the inside of the perimeter walls for the floor slab. It is slow going and easy to get distracted away from. Now that I have a new helper it takes twice as long as it normally would.

She helps me dig – putting the stuff I just dug back in the hole, and she protects my tools by taking them to an undisclosed location so no one can find them. She came upon one of these little Ecuadorian deer the other day and they both took off running in opposite directions. She hasn't quite figured out the creek yet, it's deeper than she is tall, so by the time she finds a way out she is 25 yards from where she went in.

I did lay some blocks, building up the north and south corners and some course blocks in between.

I just can't remember but I think the lap on rebar is 14 times the diameter, looks right anyway.

Tying in the new and the old.

The local block maker has just started a new run just in the nick of time, I am down to my last 30 blocks.

Retired ???

2011-09-19T12:09:00.001-07:00

I have been pontificating lately about how nicely life has work out. I had way different plans for old age than Ecuador. Retirement was never part of it. Yet here I sit on a Friday night in a half completed guest house in the Andes Mountains with my faithful dog waiting for the morning sun. I may do some work tomorrow or not. The weather will be the same as yesterday and the day before, the same as tomorrow and the day after – pleasant. I don't have a potful of money or some gold lined pension plan but I have enough for Ecuador. I guess I am retired.
There is only one person responsible for this state of affairs, my wife. She is the one with the open mindedness to consider alternatives and do the research, the one to take an early retirement when she wasn't really ready to retire. She stays in Cuenca while I go out to play, still tethered to her computer and the internet, teaching online courses at Missouri State University. At least she doesn't have to go on campus and lecture every day and maybe this will be her last semester. You see she really had no retirement plans either, unless you consider teaching until you can't anymore a plan.
Ecuador has been good for both of us; we could have never retired in the U.S... We would have tried about 5 years from now but I don't think it is possible to survive on a fixed income in an environment of high inflation, rapidly increasing regulation and higher taxes; somebody is going to have to work until the day they die.

Well so much for that - I got back to Cuenca today (Monday) it's a rain day and without a shop I really don't have much to do when it rains. I really do need to get started on a shop space but I really need to get started on a lot of things. I think I will run this by my wife and see if she would like to priorities things for me.

Gravity feed water from the mountain top.

2011-09-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

What a mess. I have been planning to pipe the water coming across the driveway for quite some time now. On my recent trip to La Paz the trench across the driveway to carry the water coming out of the side of the mountain ( near the top ) has gotten deep enough to start making problems for the car. So I reckon it's time to get this project done.

It was quite a mess but pretty straight foward. I dug the sump on the south side of the driveway, nice and wet, easy digging. I had to cut the pipe in half to carry it from town, then weld it back together once I had it home. Dig the trench straighter and deeper, install the pipe and a precipitation tank ( 5 gallon bucket ), run 300 feet of 3/4" water line, all gravity feed, done and done.

That little trickle of water represents 720 gallons of water a day. So what is the big deal, I've got over 100 gallons a minute coming across the property already. The difference is this water is really clean and there is no one between the source and me. For right now I am running the water into my gravel pile so I don't rut the ground, it ends up in the same place it did before I re-routed it, with several loops before it gets there.

Ofcourse this brings another project onto the planning table - a slow sand filter to run the water through, because when it rains real hard the water gets a little turbid, and a pump and back wash plumbing for the filter.

A couple of people it wouldn't hurt to know.

2011-09-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

There are some new laws in Ecuador, passed a few months ago, and just now going into effect. The one I know about is the pirating of videos and music. You know of course you can get just about any video in Ecuador for a buck or two - these are American videos. I went to my favorite video store today and the owner was telling me the story, it doesn't sound good for the 2800 video and CD vendors in Ecuador. The reason I am writing about this is because I am about to tell a story about the owner of this video store.

I have been here about 10 months now and my wife and I have been through all the things gringos go through when they move here. The most frustrating things are the things that should be easy but somehow get messed up by gringos, like us trying to circumvent the system or misunderstanding the culture or the translation. We spent a lot of money and wasted a lot of time using the wrong people. So in the interest of maybe keeping some folks from some of the problems we had, I'd like to mention a couple of folks. Lawyers are pretty much the same as the U.S., I wouldn't recommend any of them. For translation services there is none better than Cathy Vicente, born and raised bi-lingual, a member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ecuador and married to an Ecuadorian higher up. Whatever she charges you is well worth it. She doesn't know I am recommending her so I could be in trouble but if you can get on her customer list, you'll be in good hands. I can't tell you how many times she has saved our bacon ( She even brought me back jelly beans from the U.S., twice ). You can contact her via the internet at cathyvicente@hotmail.com.

There is one more fella you might want to know, Fabian Robles - he owns my favorite video store. He's the guy I talked about when I was having so much trouble getting the power hooked up in La Paz. I was using a lawyer to get this done and mentioned it to him one day. He went out to the road, flagged down a power company truck, gave them a bunch of stuff ( as in a hard time ) and the next day they were contacting my lawyer to install the power. He worked in the U.S. for 9 years and came back to Ecuador to start his video store and be close to his family. His English is good. I think he has a relative in every business in Cuenca. He has a pretty new SUV and will hire out if you don't have transportation. You can contact Fabian by phone at 099542887 or 074040172.

These are not some lame recommendations. I thought they might help. As with anything I do, I stand behind what I say so you can contact me directly on either of these people at cuencamax@gmail.com.

More of the same.

2011-09-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

For the last month I have been seeing lots of hikers and bikers headed south through La Paz from points north, headed to Loja on a pilgrimage to the Virgin of the Swan. They are mostly young adults walking in groups of three or more, stopping in town to change socks, adjust their gear and get something to eat. The main celebration is on September the 8th in Loja, then on the first of November the sculpture of the Virgin Mary will travel back to El Cisne. These folks are walking or biking pretty near 100 miles for this event, I have seen hundreds of these hikers just from my travels back and forth from Cuenca to La Paz. Pretty serious stuff.

The new pup and I went out to La Paz this past week for 4 days and got a little work done.

She is a digger dog.

With the vertical rebar set at 4 foot intervals, I can finally set the the first corner which will set up placement for the rest of the addition.

First corner in. A couple of notes - there are no end blocks here, it will all be stuccoed anyway. The vertical rebar should be placed in the footer or drilled in, minding where the open cells are in the block. Now the string lines can be replaced with those string blocks I made way back when I was putting in the front gate. No need for story poles, the corners will go in first then course blocks to fill in.

With the north corner in I have laid out the south corner and started the excavation, with the help of the digger dog. It's too small for a piece of equipment and almost too big for an old man with a pick and shovel. I sure remember the horses I have broken ( or should I say, that broke me ) after a day of digging.

Electrical wiring the Ecuadorian way.

2011-08-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have spent more than a day or two in La Paz, so it was nice to go for three days this week. I ran the underground electric service to the guest house, put in the sub panel and wired up lights and recepticles.

There are some major differences in wiring techniques between here and the U.S., as you can see by the picture of the sub panel. It's a Square D but is built for 240V single phase, as you see I have jumped the two incoming busses for 110V. It has a space for thermal overload but they don't sell them here, and there are no provisions for grounding or an isolated neutral - so I wired the neutral straight through.

The part of the building I wired was the pre-existing part so I needed to plumb it in since the wiring would be exposed. The conduit here is really thin plastic stuff and there are no fittings except real bad fitting elbows and PVC glue doesn't work on this stuff. I was going to use pvc plumbing pipe but there are no fittings for that either. All the metal junction boxes and handy boxes are real thin so what's the sense, there is no thin wall conduit anyway, and of course no fittings. There is no color coding here, if it were a big job I would be in real trouble. The plastic junction boxes and handy boxes are pretty nice with perforated knock outs and metal screw tabs, but no connectors, no couplings, and no screw threads in the metal screw tabs.

I have found ways around most of my building materials needs here in Ecuador but it really hirts my feeling to do such a jackleg job on the wiring of the pre existing building. The wiring is safe and functional but it just isn't ( as an old master electrician would say ) very mechanical. Cost - 300 feet of #10 stranded wire (thhn) $59, 300 feet of #12 solid $39, plastic conduit 85 cents a stick, elbows 15 cents each, switches ( single pole 15 amp ) $2.65 each, recepticles ( 20 amp ) $3.65 each, 4X4 junction boxes 65cents each, 2X4 handy boxes 26 cents each, Square D sub panel $7.85, bag of 100 - 1/2" finger straps 85 cents, cover plates 15 cents each, Square D 16 amp breakers $2.50 each, 100 feet of 1/2" pvc plumbing pipe ( for the outside feeder line ) $30 -$3 a stick.

While the cat's away......

2011-08-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

I took a day trip to La Paz on Sunday to lock the place up, after leaving the front gate unlocked for a few days, just in case the power company decided to come a week late. Look who showed up at the place in La Paz, while I was in Cuenca for the weekend.

The power company put in the meter head and swapped out my 50 amp breaker with a 40 amp breaker. That was a whole bunch of trouble, it took 6 months, for such a small amount of power.

This is the second time Barb has come with me for the day, in the last month. She really seems concerned about the wild flowers, maybe she is getting the hang of this retirement thing after all, or is she planning something else ? She was explaining to me the other day about the size and physical characteristics of the brooder house ( to raise chickens ). She has said that one of the things she misses most was her animal lab - she is a research scientist after all. Maybe the brooder house is her new research facilty ? The building she described to me seems way to big for just chickens. It's all just speculation on my part, it is hard to tell what she will get into, she'll tell me when she has made up her mind. I just try to stay one step ahead.

I've been seeing these green colored rocks all over the place, I think they are Olivine. Maybe I will tumble some to see how they look all smooth and shiny.

I hope to pick up the new puppy tomorrow, we'll see what happens.

Until next time,
Ray

String lines and a new wheel barrow.

2011-08-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

I laid out string lines to dig the footers using the Pythagorean theorem; in the trades it's called the 3-4-5 method. At any rate that gets me square - you could use a transit to shoot your lines but this such a small job that it doesn't justify the trouble. The same holds true for batter boards, because of the small nature of the project I know exactly where my intersecting walls are going to be. When placing the concrete, I use the leveled lines as reference for footer height, since my mix is in small batches and pretty stiff it won't self level like it would if I poured the footers all at once with a high slump concrete.

This is a standard 1-2-3 mix with a slump of less than 2 inches, so it is important that I have a reference line to keep the footer level and at the same height throughout. I will use the same lines to lay the corner blocks, then switch to line blocks for the course blocks.

I can tell you one thing - this getting old stuff is for the birds. I am lucky if I can get a quarter yard of concrete mixed up and laid in a day - of course I have a lot of distractions that keep me from doing too much.

I got a new wheel barrow, it's the 3 cubic foot size, I haven't seen a 6 cu. ft. one in all of Ecuador. Once I figure out how to operate it I may have a story to tell. Oh yeah - $52. You may see some 3 liter bottles laying around in some of the pictures, they are the perfect size for water in mixing cement, exactly the amount of water needed for one cubic foot of concrete or mortar.

Until next time,

Happy Trails.

Back and forth.

2011-08-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

I've been back and forth from Cuenca to La Paz quite a few times this week with side trips to Nabon. It's about getting the power hooked up. The electric company office in Nabon tells me they will send a crew last week and not to pay at this time, then I get a message through an intermediary that the main office in Cuenca requires payment up front. My take is, if they can't get their stuff together - they can keep their electricity. It is a small service to begin with, I will have to supplement the service to run half of my equipment any how. I can probably run a generator head off the water that comes through property. I have only been waiting for the power company for 6 months. 6 months is my limit for most everything - then the hard headedness kicks in. When our residency stuff for Ecuador hit 6 months and hadn't been done, I lined up property in North Carolina, headed to the lawyers office with every intention of booking a flight to the U.S. that afternoon. I figure 6 months is long enough to wait for something that would only take a couple of weeks in the private sector. I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, but guess what - being upset about something translates into spanish real good, no matter what language you speak.

I did get a little done this week. I dug the footers for the north wall and the intersecting walls and put in the steel.

I took Barb down to La Paz friday on a day trip, so I showed her a few stucco mixes on the brick wall to see if she liked any of them - I guess I will need to show her a few more.

I have an appointment next monday at the animal shelter, to pick up my new puppy. I don't know what she will grow up to be but judging from the mother and the pups size at 4 weeks, she should be a good 50 pounder with medium long hair and be able to stand her ground when she needs to.

Playing in the dirt.

2011-08-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

Aside from building, I am most at home in an agricultural setting. Having raised animals and their associated feed requirements most of my life, I know a thing or two about soils and plant nutrients. Ecuador is a little different; not just the weather but also the soil content. My concern is the Andrean soils because I need to raise feed stock for chickens, goats, at least two people and whatever else Barb comes home with.

I need to tell a little story at this point. In my youth, I was probably one of the worst violators of nature you can imagine. I have knifed in thousands of acres of anhydrous ammonia - 80% nitrogen to increase yields of corn and soybeans, sprayed thousands of gallons of 2-4D herbicide ( agent orange without the X-77 sticker ) to kill brush, aereal applied chloridane to kill European corn borers and used DDT on a regular basis for pest control. If that isn't bad enough, as a salesman for a farm co-op, I sold at least a thousand times what I used personally, every year. What I am saying is, I sterilized the soil with anhydrous, sterilized the soil with 2-4D and killed a bunch of wildlife that eat the insects sprayed with DDT. These practices still go on in the U.S. every year, different chemicals, same result. It took me a long time to realize that nature doesn't need a whole lot of help from the likes of me or the big manufacturers of gun powder after WWII - that's where our chemical fertilizers come from, the ingredients for gun powder.

In the Andes of Ecuador the soils are mostly of the weathered volcanic type, which have some different characteristics that I am not familiar with. My initial reaction to the 12" humus mat on our property was calcium ( lime) to raise the ph, loosen the soil and allow the aerobic bacteria to work on all that organic matter in the soil. Well that was partially right. I did some test plots and the soil shows improvement with the addition of about 2 tons to the acre of calcium carbonate. The problem, especially with root crops, is the lack of available phosphorus. The soil has plenty of phosphorus in it but because of the high humus levels and aluminum from volcanic rock the phosphorus in the soil is bound to the carbon and aluminum. So we will have to add phosphorus to the soil - about 300lbs to the acre, every year because in the course of a year any available phosphorus will become bound the the soil making none available to the plants.

All in all the soils here, especially in the mountains is yet another plus to life in Ecuador. With a little common sense and the addition of a low magnesium lime and phosphorus this soil can grow anything.

Meter socket - mounted.

2011-08-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

It was nice to be back in LaPaz for a week, although after reading Barb's post on her blog, I think I could have gotten away with staying another week. The big city just drives me nuts and that has nothing to do with Cuenca, any big city - anywhere. I wonder what the actuarial statistics are for city life versus rural life ?

The meter socket is installed along with a 12 foot mast and insulator for the service to be connected. Since it will only be a 110 volt single phase service and the service cable is a #6 guage wire, I put in a 50 amp breaker in the bottom of the meter socket. In rural Ecuador electricity is a new thing so there is no 200 amp, 120/240 volt single phase service, just enough to run the lights. As a matter of fact, that's what the locals call an electric service - luz.

I'll put a little stucco on it and a little roof over the meter at some point.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, cost. Meter socket - $20, 50amp Squre D breaker - $3.50, 2" conduit for the mast, about 10 feet - $12.50, insulator for the top of the mast - $6.00. I don't know what they will charge me to hook it up, when I went to Nabon to tell them I was ready they wouldn't take any money, my guess is around $25.

Since I am old and the property is right around 10,000 feet in elevation, I will be doing the footer for the addition in sections. The first section will butt the existing front wall because I need a mixing pad for all the cement I will need to mix, footer cement, mud slab and block mortar.

A little gravel for grip and rebar and we're ready to pour.

This will be a 12" wide by 6" thick footer with 1/2" rebar railroad tracks with the cross ties at 2 feet, a little overkill but I like to sleep at night. The rebar should be in the bottom half of the footer but at least 2" from the bottom - better strength from a vertical load.

I will probably be splitting my time between the addition and putting in shop space because part of the addition requires windows, doors and roof trusses and so will the main house and the chicken coop and the green house and the goat shed and rebuilding the old adobe house. So a shop is pretty high on the prioity list.

Taxes ???

2011-07-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, I know. Haven't done much in the last three weeks. Barb's been having a lot of work done on her eyes which requires a bunch of eye drops in between doctor visits. I know how hard it is to put drops in your own eyes and with 4 different kinds of drops rotated on a 2 hour basis, I would really be negligent if I went running off to LaPaz and left her to fend for herself. Besides, I have been neglecting my poker playing for the last couple of months - this way I have an excuse to play for 6 to 8 hours a day without ever leaving the comforts of home.

No story for this picture - just fits the topic.

Ever seen this before ? Yeah, I have been audited again. As a small business person I get audited quite a bit, the 3/5th rule only applies to me, not the IRS. It's like playing poker, kinda fun if you know the game. I started my first business when I was still in college. As an accounting major my professors and I had a great time the first time I was audited, most of them were CPA's and lawyers. At any rate I don't mind going up against the brainwashed but this year I am at a logistic disadvantage so it makes it hard to fight back. The audit is about revenue. My books reflect total revenue and the IRS wants to be able to add up 1099's and come up with total revenue. As anyone can see this will lead to double taxing the part of my revenue steam that isn't covered by a 1099 or some other government approved document and they wonder why people don't claim cash they receive for services. I guess those 10,000 new IRS agents that they hired for enforcement of the new health care law don't have anything better to do. We'll see what happens.

I did take Barb to La Paz earlier in the week on a day trip - she was worried about someone taking my tools. I think she feels a little better now knowing that the local folks are very respectful of our property.

My sand pile is getting a little low.

Medical Vacations.

2011-07-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

I am not the brightest bulb in the box - that's why I write about building, it's about all I know. But I can report on facts, if I know the facts.

I have been involved in a couple of medical issues here in Ecuador related to old age. One is the treatment of type 2 diabetes and the most recent is eye problems requiring laser surgery - which is related to the first problem. Because of these issues I am familiar with the procedures and prices of medical treatment in the U.S., and I am now familiar with the procedures and prices for the exact same medical treatment in Cuenca, Ecuador.

Barb has done a little post on her blog, always politically correct. I'll give you the scoop because I ain't afraid of telling the truth and if it hurts someone's feelings - come talk to me, I'm sure we can work it out.

Here are the facts :
Last week, Barb had a blood vessel break in her eye, clouding her vision in that eye. She went to the eye doctor here in Ecuador, who said he didn't think it was still bleeding but would like to make sure, so he prescribed some medication to help break up the blood clot in the eye and scheduled her for a eye scan the next day. Cost $25 for the doc and $20 for the prescription.
The next day Barb went in for the scan. They dilated her eyes, injected dye in her blood and did the eye scan. The doc said he wanted to give the eye more time to clear, to keep using the eye drops and to come in next week so they could monitor the progress. If it hadn't cleared enough they would help it along with a shot in the eye.

Cost $80.

Up until this point the process was to get the eyes clear enough to make an accurate diagnosis and recommend a course of treatment.

Barb went in the next week (today) and her eyes were clear enough to recommend laser treatment - they call it laser surgery in the U.S. to get more money from the insurance company. They gave her a shot in both eyes to further clear the floaters for laser treatment next week. I have to mention that this treatment is being coordinated with the doctor who manages Barb's diabetes and is being discussed with Barb and me so everyone is on board. Cost - we prepaid for the first laser treatment $250.

Now we get to the same procedure in the U.S.. We got there a little different way, it was supposed to be a preventative measure, a one shot deal and they called it laser surgery. The doc in the U.S. cauterized a couple of blood vessels that she thought might cause problems in the future. It took months to get the eye scan done and an appointment set up for the laser procedure. There was no coordination between anyone. Each appointment with the doc before the laser thing and after was $1200 a pop and the actual laser work cost $10,000. It is the exact same thing they are doing here, same equipment, same education, same technical expertise. The difference is they are actually going to fix the problem here, for less than the price of 3 minutes with the doc in the U.S..

The eye doc here says it will probably take 3 laser treatments to get the situation under control and he will keep an eye on Barb with regularly scheduled appointments for as long as she lives here and continue to coordinate with everyone involved. Regular appointment $25.

If we still lived in the U.S. and knew about this, we would be doing the medical vacation thing. Barb is a retired college professor, so she has the best insurance money can buy but her medical costs here are way less than her co-pay would be in the U.S. In addition to all that, the eye drops to clear her eyes are $17, in the U.S. the same eye drops are $70 - that was in 2009, they are probably much higher now.

Footers and Mud Slabs.

2011-07-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned soil compaction before, in connection with foundations for general construction. I will touch on it again because it is important. There are a lot of rules about compaction; the idea is you don't want whatever you are building to fall down, droop, sag, crack or otherwise become unsafe or hazardous. You can build a great structure with all the best workmanship and materials but if the foundation isn't any good, you've wasted your time and money. I am an advocate of building codes but I don't believe general rules should be applied without understanding the principles involved. This is where I get in trouble with engineers and building officials - their applying of general rules without understanding the mechanics. There is no place on earth where that is more prevalent than Ecuador. They have no clue except to apply general rules - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I am getting away from the point -- that being a good solid foundation for building.

The International Building Code for Earthquake Resistant Housing is the prevalent code here in the Sierra region of Ecuador and it calls for excavation of 3 feet and backfilling with suitable material to grade. Now this is for a one or two story single family dwelling. Folks around here have been building houses set right on top of the ground for hundreds of years. There is an old adobe house on my property in La Paz that has been there for at least 150 years and the walls are still standing even without a roof since the last generation lived there. The point is that sometimes it is better not to do anything rather than monkey with something you know nothing about. Nuclear and Proctor density tests for soil compaction are not practical for most home sites and will cause a lot more problems than just digging a footer (to below frost levels), drop some gravel, put in your steel and pour the footer. The general rule for width and depth of concrete are, twice the width of the foundation and 8 inches thick for blocks, 12 inches for a poured stem wall. Two #4 rebars with cross ties every 12 to 16 inches. I used to carry around a pocket penetrometer when I put in footers and have only found a few instances where compaction was less than a ton per square foot when you skin the trench. If you dig past the footer level and backfill, you have problems. I get a little nuts about foundations because I have seen some real disasters masked by soil tests and professional recommendations. I certainly won't build on an iffy foundation.

The soil in La Paz is very tight after you get past the first few inches of high levels of organic matter - which is why they can get away with pouring a slab right on top of the ground. By my estimation at this level the soil will bear an easy 2000lbs. per square foot. My footers will be 12 inches below this level, to a point where the soil changes to a higher clay content and about 2500lbs per square foot carrying capacity - 10 times the load I will be putting on it - I'll be able to sleep at night.

That was a long piece with no pictures. Did I ever mention I was old, hardheaded and opinionated ?

Rain, rain.

2011-07-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

I got to La Paz on Wednesday this week and it rained all day, hard. Thursday started out nice, then it started to rain harder and it rained all night. The driveway got washed out, some new ravines appeared and there was a whole bunch of water coming off the southern hillside. I did manage to get started on the meter socket mounting place but I left Friday afternoon when it looked like more rain. I thought this was the dry season - by my estimation we got 3 to 4 inches of rain in two days.

Using welded wire instead of rebar - no load.

Using tie wire every 16 inches to hold it all together.

A couple of notes on items you probably noticed. When you lay blocks you always lay them with the wide end up, to give a wider area for the mortar. In Ecuador they make the blocks with a solid bottom; if you want the web holes, you have to knock them out. I've tried different ways of doing this but the easiest way is to use a regular claw hammer to knock out the hole and the claw part to square it off. It takes less than a minute and I'll take the solid bottom over open cells any day. The other thing is - what is the rebar doing ? I just like to tie stuff into a slab. I only want to do it once. Did I ever mention I was old and hard headed ?

International Building Code.

2011-06-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

This past week I have been finishing up some of the preliminaries to getting the addition started on the guest house. I did do a little digging to sample the soil structure where the addition goes and found that the top soil runs about 12 inches deep then changes to a clay base mix that is used to make bricks around here. I bring this up because the International Building Code for earthquake resistant housing calls for excavation of 3 feet and backfill to grade, for pouring a ground level cement slab. No one in the urban areas pays any attention to code and I am not bound to the code in the area I am building in but there is a reason for building codes and using them as a reference isn't a bad idea. I won't be following code for the slab I pour, I will be putting in a mud slab in place of the - dig 3 feet and backfill. In my opinion there is much less likelihood of a compaction problem and there will be no load to speak of anyway. I'll get into particulars when I get there.

Had to do a little PM on the car this week, I've been putting some pretty hard miles on it lately. When I was changing the oil I noticed some ply separation on one of the tires - curb hopping in Quito I guess. $ 70 for a 14" radial tire, no mileage figures but it is the same as what came on the car and they have gone 59,000 kilometers - about 37,000 miles. I have to find someone to put the tire on the rim, I'll just carry it around in the car until I see a place that changes tires. You can put that on the list of things that are more expensive in Ecuador - I'd hate to have to buy tractor tires here.

I need to take Barb to the eye doctors tomorrow, she had a blood vessel break in her eye, so she can't see. She has had laser stuff done to her eyes before so if worse comes to worse she will head back to the U.S. to have it done again. Heck of a way to have an excuse to go back to the U.S. for a pair of shoes.

My agenda is on hold until we get Barbs eyes taken care of - I guess I can go get that dog I've been wanting or bore you to death about footer compaction and soil testing. I am thinking, dog.

Hanging out in Cuenca

2011-06-25T12:32:00.001-07:00

Since I was in town ( Cuenca ) for a few days, I figured I would go to the park and check out the Corpus Christi ( Body of Christ) celebrations. All kinds of sweets, everywhere. The celebration lasts about a week.

While in El Centro, we decided to go to our favorite Cuencian restaurant in the old neighborhood on Luis Cordero. We used to live on the corner of Pio Bravo and Luis Cordero but like most everyone, after you have been here a while, you find a bigger or better place.

The Nutibarra

The old neighborhood

These poor guys are in the street all the time; repairing the roads is a never ending job.

This old mare has seen better days.

A Day Late and about $3000.00 short.

2011-06-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

The power company engineer ( that term is applied very loosely ) finally showed up, a day later than the appointed days they specified. His whole concern about the electricity was where I wanted to mount the meter socket. Then there was the question of 120/240 volt single phase service. He wanted to add poles at $700 a wack, add a transformer about a half mile away at $3000 and, man oh man, was he ever worried about where I wanted to mount the meter socket. I don't know where he went to school but I am sure one of the courses he took was in how to milk the gringos. After all was said and done - I agreed to build a place to mount the meter socket and he agreed to use the existing transformer a half mile away and the existing high tension line to carry a 120 volt 50amp service. I will install the underground service to the guest house when the addition is done. The cost will be in the $100 range, after the cost of the ever important meter socket ($20) and pole for the service drop ($25). It's no different here than the U.S., a little common sense will take you a long way.

The gate is finally done. It takes about twice as long to weld with 1/8th rods at 70amps but that's all I can get out of my rigged up generator/welder outfit.

If I let the welded wire run wild over the top of the gate. In the U.S., I would have someone suing me tomorrow. As it is, I won't just have the wire running wild, I will string up barbed wire on top of that. The folks here use broken glass embedded in the top of walls and steel bars in the windows - an ounce of prevention I guess.

I'll be in town for a day or two, so I will probable post tomorrow about a thing or two.

Electricity ?

2011-06-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

I have been having some difficulty getting the power company to show up at the property in La Paz to set a transformer for our electrical service.This isn't a matter of some gingo wanting power; I am using a former electric company executive to get this done. It has been three months since the request was made. The other day I was talking to the guy who owns the local video store and you guessed it, he has a cousin ........ How many times have I been down this road? The very next day I got a phone call from the power company to set up an appointment for the engineer to come out. I don't know who this guy knows but this is one of those rare times when somebody really does know somebody.

No pictures this week - forgot the camera. Didn't get much done anyway. I had to rewire the generator to take the full 30 amp load from the welder, which I had to modify so the shunt would have a farther travel - at this point I am maxing both out to get a minimal welding heat, but it works okay.

I'm getting a flow rate of about 120 gallons per hour across the driveway, coming right out of the side of the mountain. The water seems to be of better quality than the water that comes across the property from the reservoir at 100 gallons per minute. I may need to think about setting up a gravity feed system from the driveway to a storage tank - I need the contact time for chlorine anyway.

Next Wednesday or Thursday I should have a report on the arguments I will have with the power company engineer and the cost to get a user ready electric service.

New toys.

2011-06-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking lately (isn't that a title to a song?) about how our life would differ if we had stayed in the U.S. instead of moving to Ecuador. I think we would have just continued on the path we were on. Barbara would have kept teaching and putting up with the politics of a large University and I am not certain what I would be doing with real estate not coming back. I guess I would be losing my butt speculating. The thing that worries me the most is how bad the economy and politics have gotten in the last year in the U.S.. There really is no hope that the U.S. will recover to the way it was anytime in the near future and that bothers me. Sure, we are okay, living the life and doing whatever, whenever without weather constraints or rising gas prices but what are you folks in the U.S. going to do? How much waiting for a better day can you stand? On the coldest day of winter, when you think about how nice it would be to be in a warm climate, I am the guy who is there. On the hottest day of summer, when you wish for cooler weather, I'm there. When you have to cut into savings or the kids' educational trust funds because the cost of living keeps going up, wouldn't it be nice to have a steady lower cost of living? I am there. When you are on a fixed income and the CPI raises at an annual rate of 13%, how do you make ends meet? The problem with all this is I feel guilty about it. I write about how great life is here and you guys are dealing with what will only become worse.

Well there it is, I've said my piece, now on with the show.

New toys for my projects. Since I haven't had any luck getting the transformer set at the place in La Paz, I'll have to provide my own power for a while - life goes on.

3000 watt generator with 6.5 h.p. motor - $225.
Angle grinder - $30.
Circular saw (Black&Decker) - $74 with 3 carbide tipped blades.

Tomorrow I will go to Coral and pick up a stick welder - about $80.

Next week I should get the front gate welded up and installed and do some work on the drainage for the driveway - at least check the flow rate. I'll post again in about 5 or 6 days.

Brick arch.

2011-06-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

Did I ever mention I was old and hard-headed? I'll prove my point. I've been building stuff all my life and have put in a scad load of arches - wooden arches, brick, stone, and even some poured concrete arches. I got it in my head the other day to put in a brick arch in a window opening I was closing in. I had some extra bricks from taking down the chimney so I figured, why not? Now here is the hard-headed part - I decided I wasn't going to go to the trouble of building a form for one window that I was going to close in anyway - I'll freehand the arch.

Well as you can see it isn't exactly symmetrical. Sometimes I do stupid stuff but I can assure you I will build forms for the arches on the front porch.

I am having a hard time finding steel for the front gate. The idea is to use round tubular 2" conduit and bend it for the top edges, then fill in with welded wire. Like a stock gate only taller. I found some 2" conduit; the problem is they want a schedule 80 price for it. The gate doesn't have to hold buffalo in. I just want to know when someone shows up on my property that they came through the gate; then I know they are up to no good - I can deal with that.

La Paz is a great little town 3 kilometers from the property, 2 hardware stores, a cement block maker, a church, a school and a bunch of convenience stores. As far as I can tell we are the only gringos in the area but there are a lot of folks passing by on their way to Loja.

Playing with bricks.

2011-06-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I mentioned how poorly a little brick building was built on the property in La Paz but that I was going to try to work with it so I could have a roof over my head when I was staying out there to get some work done. I"m still going to work with the structure but I'm going to show you what I mean.

The chimney on the right of the building wasn't tied to the building, so I removed 4 bricks at the transition from the fire box and here is what I got.

Easy take down but you can see the nice clean bricks with no mortar attached after it fell. This is the root of the problem. They used a weak mortar but most importantly they didn't wet the bricks so the bricks wicked the moisture from the mortar and it didn't stick. I see this type of brick work all over the place especially in rural areas. This is a earthquake zone, so I guess the bond beam they pour at the top of the walls keeps them from having to rebuild when the earth shakes.

I needed to make the door opening narrower so I used my salvaged bricks from the chimney, soaking three at a time in a 5 gallon bucket of water. The bricks are baked in a kiln but are porous so in the course of laying 20 bricks they soaked up 2 gallons of water. I am also using a larger aggregate sand so my mortar doesn't have to be so stiff to maintain a 1 inch mortar joint.

Tying in the new brickwork with 3/8" rebar every 16 inches.

A one to three mix with a little calcium carbonate - just my personal preference - there is no type N portland here, so I add some quick lime (calcium carbonate) to the type 1 portland that is available. Did I mention that I am old and hard headed?

Next week I should be able to get the gate posts blocked up and the front door installed and maybe get to laying out the addition. I'll post again in 5 or 6 days.

The driveway moves up on the priority list.

2011-06-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

I stayed on the property in La Paz for the first time - for 3 days. Got rained out on Friday; mixing and setting cement doesn't work very well in the rain.

First delivery of sand, gravel and blocks on Wednesday. I have water that runs across the driveway and when the first truck of sand and blocks came in I didn't even think that it may have blocked the drainage across the road - well it did. Flooded the lower half of the driveway, so when the second truck went to leave it got stuck in the muck. For about 5 hours we carried my newly delivered sand and gravel to the driveway by the bucket and the truck inched up the driveway until it reached the halfway mark, where the drainage ditch is. The drainage ditch will be the next project. I'll pipe it across the driveway and bury it - there is quite a bit of water coming out of the side of the hill next to the driveway. I can probably use it for livestock water and garden and crop irrigation which can all be gravity fed.

I'll be laying blocks for the front gate posts next week.

I've dug out the footer trench.

Poured the footers before the rain the next day - good way to slow down the cure time - keep it wet.

Because I will need to keep the block courses level over a 12 foot span I needed some line blocks for a string level and couldn't find any, anywhere. Naturally I decided to make some - same lack of tool problem, different project.

I glued some wood scraps ( great glue in Ecuador ) cut groves with a hacksaw blade and drilled a relief hole for the string. They work great and I can't break that glue joint.

I'll be playing with mortar next time around.

More lumber.

2011-05-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

I needed to strip more lumber for the door on that little brick building in La Paz. So off to the lumber yard and to my surprise, I got a bonus. I bought 2 cants - one with 3 boards and one with 2 boards.

Those 2 red boards are red mahogany

When the guy pulled them from the stack I told him they were mahogany, he said to take them for the same price. I gave him a little extra for them so now he will save mahogany for me. I asked the guy at the hardware store across the street about it and he confirmed it was illegal but that it happens all the time.

The door will just be a rough "Z" braced door, just enough to keep a mountain lion from wanting to see what I taste like in the middle of the night.

After cutting the boards to length and getting the best fit I could, there are still some pretty big gaps between boards. Well I sold all my tools when I moved to Ecuador so no planner, joiner or table saw any one of which can be used to straighten the edge on a board. I do have a brand new circular saw though. One of the few benefits of being old is that you may have learned a thing or two in your life time.Arrange the boards to best fit - as above. Attach them to stringers perpendicular to the boards, set the blade depth on the saw to the board thickness and run the saw down the joints of the boards where they are closer together than a blade width. Take the boards lose, cleanup the edges, arrange the boards again and continue the process until you have a tight fit.

It works pretty good when you have only a minimum of tools to work with.

It took 3 passes to get a pretty good fit on this door blank. The lumber is about 25% moisture so when it dries it will shrink some but the gaps will be even and easy to put battens on. This is the kind of door you would find in a barn or on an outhouse. Cost $19.

A special thanks to Mary at South of Zero.

2011-05-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mary at South of Zero for her work in keeping me updated on a bunch of blogs of expats in Ecuador. I can't speak for other folks but I can tell you, having access to all those blogs has helped me in my transition to Ecuador and beyond. I don't know much about cyberspace or the technology that supports it but I can just imagine how much time and dedication it takes to read all those blogs and post a summary - every day. It sure makes it easy to click one address and have access to some of the best blogs on living in Ecuador by real people who live here, not some paid advertisement about some pie in the sky hype and misinformation. Thank you Mary and please keep up the good work.

Starting the 1st of June (next week) I will be spending a lot more time in La Paz working on my projects, so the posts will be about a week apart but I will start getting into the meat of the projects much sooner. Coming up next week - I have some destruction to do before I can start on the construction of the addition to what will become the guest house. Looking ahead a few weeks, I will be building a 6 X 12' entry gate, a potable water system, putting in the footers for the addition and mixing a bunch of cement for a mud slab. Because of the nature of cement products and curing times the projects will jump around a bit but they will all get done in a reasonable amount of time - did I mention I'm old ?

Lumber and prices in the Sierra.

2011-05-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I mentioned that there wasn't much lumber to speak of in Ecuador. So now I would like to speak of it. I have to insert a disclaimer here because I am frequently wrong about a multitude of things on a daily basis. This information is based on the information I got when searching out lumber for making cabinets, windows and doors for my projects in Ecuador. As a former sawmill owner/operator there may be more information here than some folks are interested in but it is important to me and the nature of the projects I get involved in here.

There are no commercial lumber companies here but there are a lot of families and individuals that cut trees and different size cants with chain saws. In the Amazon it's all done illegally, mohogany, teak and cedar, cut into cants and floated down the river then exported. Ecuador does make hardwood plywood which gets exported too, and it is the worlds largest exporter of Balsa wood. Now how this all happens when they say there are no commercial lumber companies is beyond me - maybe it has something to do with unprocessed trees or cants that can't really be called lumber. At any rate, here in the Sierra there is none of that, there is just Eucalyptus. Oh yea and bamboo poles. Eucalyptus was imported here when the pine forests were all cut and has become one of the most common trees. Basically used for pulp wood, there are a lot of mom & pops that cut it into lumber. The closest thing to a saw mill in Ecuador is a chain saw with a long guide bar. They use a lot of debarked poles for roof members along with bamboo poles and basically cut logs into only 8" widths and various thicknesses.

For smaller thickness lumber here is how you buy it - a 3 X 8 cant cut into three. They pack the cut end with clay to maintain the 1/4" kerf over the length of the cut for uniform drying.

These guys take a string soaked in used motor oil and snap it along the length of the cant and cut the line with a chain saw. The long guide bar allows them to stand upright while they cut. There are some dimensional 1bys and 2 bys but that is pretty much it. A local cabinet shop will take this stuff, dry and mill it for use in what they make - these cabinet shops have it all, saws, planners, shapers, sanders and really produce some nice pieces of furniture.

For what I am up to I just separate the 3 boards and stack them to air dry for a little while. These particular boards are 5/8X8X9 feet long, rough cut and about 25% moisture. Price - $2.20 each. I'll be stripping them to 5" for a door frame on that little brick building.

If the driveway ever get cleared out.

2011-05-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

I've been clearing the driveway to the house site 2 days a week for the past 3 weeks and it doesn't seem like it will ever be done.

Here is what I am up against.

I don't know what this stuff is called but it has a pretty good root system and big tubers right out of the ground out of which grows a wide bladed grass that will cut you to the bone. For this reason I call it razor grass. It grows taller than me and I am 6 feet.

The reason it takes so long to clear it out is because I have to cut it down with hedge clippers to about 12 inches high so I don't get cut to shreads when I dig it up with a mattock.

It looks pretty good when I get it done though.

The driveway is about 600 feet long and I've got about 150 feet left to clear, so another week maybe. In the mean time I'll layout the front gate and get the footers dug for the gate post, then start on securing the little brick building while the gate project unfolds.

I have scheduled 2 yards of sand, 3 yards of gravel and 200 - 6" blocks for delivery next tuesday. That should get me started. The price of materials in La Paz is a little higher than Cuenca but not enough to justify trucking it 45 miles.

Sand (arena) $22 a cubic meter.

Gravel (ripio) = 3/4 minus $24 cubic meter

Blocks - 6" in quantity 43 cents a piece

1/2" rebar $20 a stick (20')

Portland $8 to $10 a cubic foot depending on quantity

Calcium Carbonate (quick lime) $10 per hundred weight.

As you can see from the above mentioned prices a standard 5 bag mix for concrete will run about $75 a yard, so a little cheaper than the U.S. but you gotta mix it yourself. You know people pay good money to belong to a gym and they don't get nearly the workout these projects will require.

Something old, something new.

2011-05-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have been here 6 months now and I have a few statistics maybe one or two people might like to see. Preface : We live in Cuenca, for now, in a very nice rented apartment with way more of everything than we need. I put 1200 miles (2000 kilometers) a month on the car running back and forth to La Paz. We don't worry about how much we spent on food, how often we go out to eat, we send our laundy out and if we see something we what we buy it.

Our living expenses run $1100 a month. The building budget is separate but transportation costs are in that $1100 a month. We could very easily live on $600 a month and probably will when we move out to La Paz. If you want to know any more about our budget you'll have to talk to Barb ( smsuprof@yahoo.com ) she knows all the details.

Another interesting mess of numbers comes from the U.S. and the Social Security Administration. There are 79 million baby boomers in the U.S., 10,000 retire every day and that's going to go on for 17 years. Where are you going to go when you retire? Your going to have to live on Social Security, there are no safe investments in the U.S.. Even if you own everything outright can you live on Social Security in the U.S?

One more - you know that 1200 miles a month I put on the car, it costs me $45 a month in gas.

Yeah, I know this is a building forum, but it is mine and I get to post what I want. In case you didn't know, I am old and not very smart about this computer stuff, so I am exercising my new found verbal freedom.

I'll be going to La Paz tomorrow, so I'll have something related to this blog to talk about then.

Project list.

2011-05-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that in starting this blog the profile and - posted by -sections of the blog reflect my wifes information and that by changing it on this blog it changes it on her blog. So I am leaving it alone - my inclination for fixing things involves a hammer or a bigger hammer.

I bought property in La Paz, Azuay, Ecuador about 3 months ago and have been sitting on it until our residency in Ecuador had been approved and all the paperwork and documentation completed. Now that, that is done I can move ahead with the land and get some work done. I paid $35,000.00, after all was said and done, for a little better than 20 acres with water on the property, a small brick structure, long overgrown driveway off of the Panamericana highway and high tension electrical lines pulled to a pole in the middle of the land. Is that a good deal ? Not really. I have learned a few things early on in Ecuador, one is not to use a realtor. I guess some realtors might be honest but even an honest realtor will tag you with a commission, the others will get you at both ends of the transaction and you may not get title to the property. I had a realtor with U.S. affiliations try to sell me land in the Caja National Park. If you follow the rules and the laws of Ecuador and hire a good real estate lawyer, you will pay a little more but at least you will own what you buy. While we are on the subject of buying stuff in Ecuador - no you don't have to have a Cedula to buy property, a vehicle or open a bank account but you better be sure you want to live here before you do that stuff. It's hard to undo once it is done.

As you can see the price of land isn't much different than the Mid-West U.S. but for me the one asset you don't have to pay for makes all the difference - the weather. When I build it doesn't matter what time of year it is, no heating or air conditioning, no insulation. That makes for a pretty good time and cost savings, especially when you are doing it all yourself. The cost of building materials here runs from about the same as the U.S. to a little higher. There is no lumber to speak of here so " while in Rome ...." applies and the building process will involve mostly masonary products. Bricks and blocks are a little cheaper here, Portland runs about the same, sand and gravel run a little higher and steel is way higher than the U.S..

The second project after the front gate to secure the property will be to expand the existing building on the property to be used as a guest house after the main house is built

Here is what we are dealing with, a poorly constructed brick structure that I was going to tear down initally but I need a place to sleep while I work on the property and there are puma's and mountain lions in the area. So I am thinking I will expand on it and use a reinforced stucco over the brick - as long as I keep a verticle load on the bricks it should be okay.

Well we'll see how it goes.

New blog different audience

2011-05-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

I have moved from the United States to Ecuador in my old age, mainly because of the near perfect weather here in the southern Andes Mountains - it sure doesn't hirt me any that the cost of living is generally cheaper here too. My wife may have some different ideas as to why she likes it here but the fact is we are here and plan to stay for a yet to be determined period of time.

The reason for this blog is to have a place to send people with questions about real estate and construction in Ecuador. We have another blog ( docbop-alphadog.blogspot.com ) - which is generally used to keep family and friends up to date on what we are up to in Ecuador but I get a lot of questions about the cost of real estate and construction in Ecuador. This will be the place to find out what an old man can do, by himself and how much it cost to do it.