Maintenance Lighting

Last trip we came with brand new lights for the upper veranda lighting.  But on trying out one fixture, just did not care for how it changed the character of the upper veranda.  The reason behind the attempt to change was that several bulb holders just did not function anymore. 

We had long had three same fixtures on the stairs coming up which matched the four veranda fixtures.  Originally we had a wood mask with a light behind it as the center fixture.  But with Bedroom 2 finished, we liked the look of it there on the inside walls...





On this trip, Jim took down all of these fixtures, took them completely apart, cleaned them, and after checking integrity of the wire, and making a few deft snips and restrips, reassembled each of the fixtures.  This time, and for the first time ever, we had FIVE fixtures across the upper veranda all the same.  The photo above is from right after installing the rebuilt fixtures.  As you can see, all now work.

This next photo was taken that night, without flash so one can get the full effect of the five properly functioning lights.  We both think this came out perfectly.  Further, the light cast on the floor comes exactly to the edge of the tile. 

The other feature from our October trip was that of the five light covers of the "new" veranda fixtures, the glass broke in one of them. 

So the choice came down to using all four on the lower veranda, or use the smaller version of the upper veranda fixtures there.  Choosing to have the light shine out more towards the driveway, as well as up and down, we decided to put the new stainless square fixtures along the stair. 

This first photo above shows the lights installed right after applying (part of) the new wall color (so that there was paint behind the fixtures).  This second photo was a flash free nighttime photo showing What these lights look like at night.

Water Management Tubo

Each year the flow of water during rains has gotten much more intense.  This opening project was to reroute the tubo that went under the "temporary" driveway and down a cascada next to out house.  Over time, with other construction adding huge volumes of water we've lost an enormous amount of land due to wash  outs. 

This rerouting is to take that water and send it down the OLD way, as the mountain was forming.  There will still be need for a cascada there, and some additional stormwater management; but overall, rerouting was the right thing to do. 







This first photo shows the tubo going under the driveway up at the collector above our "temporary" driveway. 








You can see the soil filled in over that "wound" in the drive. 








This shows the block zaccate back in place with tubo running under it. 

This  shows how the water collector was patched and a new hole made in the side to take water to the right.  This should also slow down water as it hits that "wall" and is diverted to the right. 










This last photo shows the patched driveway.  Now there is NO tubo running under the concrete in front of the Hyundai "Tooksun"  The wall in the center of this photo will be knocked down as part of the new wall system going in now. 

The place where the Tucson is won't hold vehicles in a couple of months.  Instead the new parking pad will be past that low wall at the photo center, and where the Tucson is will be part of the courtyard and new 'inside' space.  The outside wall of the new courtyard will run from the collector in the lower left corner of the photo and cross on the right side of that dip in the center wall. All of the concrete pavement in front of the Tucson will be removed.  Much of that will be garden off the courtyard.

Maintenance - Water, Ladder Rack and Fibro

So much to do this trip!  Before all this started and early on Rob, Nelson and I finally reviewed the tiling/stucco project that has remained unstarted since last Fall.  We went through it all, but in the process found that while all the fihrolet had originally been properly attached to the metalwork, during Javier's electrical work he only attached one screw per piece.  So I spent a morning and a full box of screws reattaching all of the fibrolet in Bedroom 3 so that it was ready for stucco.  I also resorted all the tile, and stacked in the CENTER of the room so that Nelson had clear space.  All that remains if for Rob to remove the plywood that is being donated to the Upper Guard House project.

Once all that was done, no more needed to be done inside on that level. 

There is future work to be done, but more on that a few blog posts from now. 

So the other thing that was left poorly done from the October 2011 trip was the water filter on the bodega level.  We had limited fittings so Javier did it with limited supplies and in a fashion Jim was unable to live with.  Further, the fittings over the blue filter housing leaked about 1 gallon per day. 

So armed with a small supply of fittings and pipe, Jim took apart that setup and redid it as you can see in this second photo.  This photo was taken right after gluing up the fittings which is why the valves are OFF.  The support for the blue housing doesn't exist as in the original filter setup, this would have gone beneith the kitchen sink with the other two filter housings for the drinking water system, and those supported this blue housing between them. 

So that bit of electrical wire hanging from two screws is my arranged hanger for the filter. 

As part of the The Wall project, the hose bib off the driveway needed to be extended.  I regret I don't have a before photo.  But in this AFTER photo, you can see it was extended to just past the trench for the new lower wall. 

With workers using the bodega level to make up rebar cages; my ladders were in the way. Using a piece of rebar on EACH of two angle pieces, and having Avarro weld them to the angle pieces, in just a few moments we fashioned a good ladder rack. You can see in these two photos both the 28' extension ladder, and the 8' A frame ladder.

So, this sums up this part of the maintenance post, and makes up the first Feb 2012 series.