I met with a local plumber, excavator and carpenter at the house yesterday. The neighborhood, Rio Grande Vargas District, is very family oriented. The Vargas family owns pretty much the entire neighborhood because it used to be their grandfathers sugar cane fields. As 12 kids grew up, grandpa sectioned off pieces of the land for his children, then grandchildren. So now, every house we can see from the front porch is a Vargas house.
I was put in contact with one of the grandsons, Jerry, who is connecting me with and getting me quotes from all the family members for various projects we won’t be able to do ourselves (plumbing/electrical inspection, excavating).
The reason we need to get some excavating done is two fold. The yard is filled with a local tree (treated like crabgrass here) called Salsa (sp?). It grows about 15ft a year and pops up all over the place. Because these trees have been chopped down regularly every couple of months, their stumps have turned into sharp little spikes. Tire poppers on any vehicle that drives into the yard. Along with those little spikes and due to the fact no one has lived in the house or maintained the front yard, the erosion has created a giant slop down the hill and driveway towards the house…which is where all the water runs when it rains hard.
Although we have no problems with moisture in the house because of the deep pit filled with gravel and drainage pipes…I would rather do this now than wait until we could potentially have problems.
Because of the language barrier between the Excavator and myself…I whipped this thing up so he would understand exactly what I want him to do.
Black = Driveway/Culverts/Pitch (the driveway will be angled to funnel the water)
Red = Trench for water main
Blue = Trench for phone/power
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