Cuenca Updates: Saturday Jan 14/12

Saturday Jan 14/12 update

Bella was to be off learning how to use her new loom today while I crawled out of bed at 3:30 and was at on my way to the new house around 7:00. On the way I spied some nice flora, spooky trees, a hummer, and a fellow pouring liquid back and forth between cups. That was the good part of the day.

Friday the 13^th comes a day later in Ecuador, something like time in Newfoundland!

Jorge showed up at 8:00 and dropped off the ceramic guy, named Vicente, who immediately attacked the ceramic work around the tub. Darn, I meant to get a picture of the awesome work this kid does. It will follow. I know Bella will love the new tub even though it is higher than normal. We may have to add some assist bars.

Around 9:30 Enrique finally decides to show up and he continues on the wall in the garage. Meanwhile I am painting the gates to cover all the weld spots. I am not a good painter but I think I like the result.

I was only partially watching Enrique and questioned him a couple of times about the straightness of the blocks. He kept playing with his plumb bob, then he would check with the level which would tell another story but he was willing to let the bubble slide off the scale. I told him that if the foundation isn’t right, and level, every other layer just compounds the problem. The fact is the floor slopes not only back to front but slopes to the southwest corner. He did not make allowances to get the first row completely flat so my prediction was so true. At one point I made him remove 3 layers of bricks and he tried to straighten it but wasn’t getting it right. I kept noticing the glass blocks weren’t very even, but they seemed close enough from the front.

Enrique packed it in early, about 1:30 and asked for some payment, which I gave him.

Once he had left and I was cleaning up on the inside I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had the leaning tower of glass blocks in my new dining room. While it might be a conversation piece it isn’t what I was paying him to make. I had Vicente come down with his level to verify that my eyes, Enrique’s level, and my level weren’t lying. Vicente just shook his head and showed how the whole wall was leaning outward, never mind the glass block fiasco. I fretted and fretted and Vicente mimed that the whole wall would have to come down, and that he could build it easily, and straight, in one day.

I took the bull by the horns and demolished all of Enrique’s work today, before all the concrete set. Jorge came by and confirmed it also. Vicente quickly cleaned off the white mortar around the glass blocks to salvage all those. I didn’t want to mess with the lower wall that had already set 24 hours as that will probably need a hammer and chisel man (Oh God, do we call Fred Flintstone?). Where is that Bobcat when you need one… I called Michael to translate and Jorge said he would talk to Vicente’s boss on some high-rise project to see if we can grab him for a day next week, otherwise he could only show up at 5pm each day. Boy, I really don’t need days that long…

I figure I will let Enrique enjoy his weekend and give him the bad news Monday morning. He is going to want his tools anyway. I think I will still use Enrique and his friend for the screen work on all the windows and possibly the terrace roof, bit I may have to re-think that. Maybe the perfectionist welder would be the man for that? I just won’t be asking Enrique to build any walls.

Bella has indicated she intends to start getting furniture and appliances delivered daily. Goody!! I can’t wait to move.

We have not yet heard from the Kywi installer for the water heater yet so we have decided to see if they will call to show up on Monday or not.

That was today’s excitement. Enjoy the pics which did upload tonight, hooray!.

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