To Build in Costa Rica

Finally, we are under construction. August 2013 when my hubby was bedridden with Dengue Fever for 2 weeks and I was online researching construction options in Costa Rica, for want of something better to do, I came across Trevor Chilton. Not knowing him from a blade of grass but being impressed by his incredibly wordy website, (especially for a builder!), we, not I, took the plunge and put down a deposit to hold our place in line.

We were the 3rd in line which turns out to be a good thing- Trevor has now 2 other homes under his belt, one of which has been built on the same type of foundation (I guess they call it post and beam?)… so he got to practice first then fine-tune on our project. That’s my theory and I am sticking to it!

Doing construction in Costa Rica is quite certainly, like doing construction in another world- despite already having some experience here in Costa Rica with renovations and such, these three homes are the first he has built with the MgO board SIPs.

OK, first things first. It was a rocky start. The architect we had switched to, on Trevor’s recommendation due to the fact he understood lightweight construction better than any- Oscar Villavicencio had been offered a much much bigger project in Limon and could not fulfill his obligations to sign for and inspect our project too. Unfortunately neither he nor Trevor told me this change of plan until we had almost broken ground which left us in a real bad spot. Due to the fact our workers comp insurance had had to be put on hold until after its expiration date, INS required the NEW architect, (whom we didn’t yet have) to make the necessary entries in the Bitacora (Bit-ah-core-rah) which is the building logbook… as we didn’t have a signing architect lined up, and as I was leaving the country the very next week, and as I didn’t want to have workers working without coverage, even for a day, I had to purchase the insurance AGAIN. It cost $600 and INS of course won’t give any refund for the un-used policy. I was fuming. Maybe still am.

Anyway, Oscar was kind enough to recommend a college friend from much closer by in Santa Cruz, named Rafa and he is turning out to be a godsend.

Now, remembering that this is the 2nd time we have built in Costa Rica (the last time being in 2007 when we built our 5000 square foot concrete monster in Playa Grande).. I can tell you that it is MUCH MUCH easier this time simply due to the fact that I speak the language now, more or less fluently. Back then- there was a lot of nodding and agreeing but to what… who knows!! Maybe in my future I will offer my services as translator in the construction world of Costa Rica.

Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot of advance notice that we would be starting to build. We had grown tired of asking when it was our turn, like a kid waiting to smack the proverbial piñata in order to reap the candies…. so it came as quite a pleasant, but stressful surprise when on a Friday, it turns out the workers were to arrive the next week. Bittersweet.

One must ensure that their workers are registered on the Caja Costariccense de Seguro Social which is the social security system here in Costa Rica. This was one area where this time around it was SO much smoother due to the language and an understanding from employer’s perspective on how it all works. You will need a copy of your corporation Cedula Juridica, a copy of the Constitucion de la Sociedad, copies of all the worker’s IDs, their salaries, job descriptions and how their work time is structured (hourly, daily, monthly)…

Once that is done, you must report the salaries and all workers names to INS so they can register the workers in the insurance policy I mentioned above.

Having made sure all those ducks were in a row was a big relief. I like to make sure everything is above board and sleep much better when it is!

Now- couple points to consider very carefully before embarking on building your dream home in Costa Rica.

Whether to buy in a development, or whether to buy freehold land independently? We had always thought that purchasing land in a development would be the better choice. Better roads, more pleasing aesthetically, better security, some protection from the ‘outside’ and possibly more like-minded neighbors. These, I still believe, are fairly realistic expectations and may be a big plus once we actually live in the casita.

What one needs to consider very carefully, is what you are going to do when the developer does not get along with your builder?  What happens when instead of managing your construction, you have to manage two little school-boys nagging at each other for whatever irks them on the day. “He didn’t shut the gate”, “the workers are being too loud playing baseball” (in their 30 minute lunch break), “they are having beers after work and they were supposed to be gone by 6pm” (it is now 7pm)… you need to observe how other projects are managed in the same development, and get an idea on how strict the rules are. I like to abide by the rules, but if there are apples for Jill and pears for John, it gets a bit sticky and a bit of a de-motivator to continue to abide. Having said that, I would recommend you familiarize yourself with every single rule, and make sure the builder does the same. After a long hard day pouring concrete, and often overtime which is outside your control (consider ‘tico time’ applying to the concrete company, to the renter of the equipment etc who doesn’t turn up on time)… you need to know whether your developer is going to lose it or if they will be understanding that sometimes things don’t always go to plan.

In our situation, I realized early on that if a hot-head like myself had to manage that kind of crap, it would all blow up very quickly and very badly. My husband is so much more mellow, level-headed and sensible than I am and I must say he has been doing a fantastic job of managing the day to day dealings of the construction.

As the project progresses and we see up close and personal what incredible attention to detail, foresight, passion for perfection and talent as a builder Trevor possesses we are very very happy with our decision to employ his services to build our home-for-now- the Casita.

Where we are now: we have two very long, and unexpected retaining walls- and are very happy they are there. The original architect drawings while they had worked with the topo for the main big house, had not done the elevations according to the topo for the casita. This resulted in a real problem. The front of the casita from the ground to the front door was going to have a 6 foot drop. Not in the plans, not in the structural… not good! I didn’t want to make a cut, I prefer to leave the land as natural as possible but for that I would have had to ask for a pole house. So, now we have 2 wonderfully long and one day beautiful, retaining walls. They create a nice look, and the landscaping is going to be a pleasure.

To get a better grasp on how it might eventually all tie together, we enlisted yet another consultation with the wonderful Andrina Fonseca, the interior designer and architect they use out at Las Catalinas (she once worked for Steve Jobs too in her former life living in California!).. I must say that if you have the fortune to know an excellent designer such as Andrina, you would be crazy not to fork out the $$ to utilize their services. They will consider things the regular John Doe would never think of. We probably called her 1 week too late, which meant a very talented backhoe driver needed to make his machine dance between existing sidewalk, retaining walls, and trees in order to create what will now be our most favorite outdoor space!

We have all the pilings in the ground, the septic tank is in, the 5000L water tank, our container (which at one point we were just using to store all our junk when it became apparent that we wouldn’t have a home for quite some time…) has now been given a real level foundation to sit upon… and one day will be made pretty in a similar finish to the casita…  the parking area and gravel is laid, and everything is ready to start the next step.

We are awaiting the delivery of the wood from down south near Uvita. The best wood place in the country says Trevor, and upon seeing the evidence, the drying facilities, the glu-lam press… we are sure he is right! The wood should have been delivered already but of course the truck upon which it needed to be delivered didn’t pass Riteve so tack on a few days more! Pura Vida! Our old, holey jeep passed Riteve despite brake-screeching testy sensitive stops and starts and some snickering by the inspectors… but our big trusty Toyota failed because the tire-pressure in one tire was too low. Go figure Costa Rica!!

Ok, enough for now. It took me a long time to get into the headspace to write a blog post without it being a bitch and moan- which isn’t the point nor what I want to write about. Just the experience- and by doing so, to help others avoid or plan for issues.

Happy Sunday!

Corynne