We are in the middle of a huge construction project at our house. I always get up on the roof before rainy season every year to inspect things and this year I noticed we had gaps too wide for me to caulk on the roof of our sala fresca. (Yes, I have to inspect things, I was a property manager for 25 years, I can’t help it!) When we had a chunk of concrete fall out of the roof it was time to call the experts.

Making a long story short (multiple visits from a private engineer and also one from the city) and lots of head scratching and exploratory wall bashing we now know what has been going on in our favorite room in the house, the sala fresca. It turns out that the structure on the french door side that we had installed some years agois supporting that side just fine, but the other side is just 130 year old brick and mortar. It seems the previous owner cut some corners which of course were invisible to us, being inside the wall!

Below is a pretty amateur looking diagram I made to show how the roof is pushing the wall out. That’s what made the cracks and allowed the cement to fall out of the ceiling.

In addition, previous to us six vigas (roof beams) were replaced with something called Northern Pine. I can’t even believe he used pine! Here the usual wood is huanacaxtle and some others that are so hard only specialized places can cut them. So the roof over those beams had to come off in order to measure them so the Concordia wood people can deliver replacements cut to size. Below you’ll see a few pictures of what’s going on.

They need to dig down 5 feet for the footings so that will be a lot more debris than this. The music of the jackhammer will probably be with us for several more days. Then I hope they can start pouring the footings, making the new columns, straightening things that are out of whack and then reseal the roof.

We also have our fingers crossed for a late start to the rainy season this year – usually rain is expected about the third week of June. Please cross your fingers for us, too!