Playing with Fire

Wednesday 24^th January

Tommy arrived bright and early, but was unable to do much, as he did not have sand , and there were missing bits to fix toilets, downstairs shower, and sinks. As there was no sign of Ricardo, we decided to take matters into our own hands, and offered to drive to the Irishman’s house El Campo and get some sand, and go to the Ferreteria (Hardware Shop…..to be featured on a future posting) to get the plumbing parts he needed, and some “agua fuerta” …..fire water literally translated, which is a strong solution of hydrochloric acid for cleaning and removing cement from the tiles.

In the afternoon, we decided to experiment with the agua fuerta on the roof terrace, gingerly applying small amounts and rubbing gently, getting strong whiffs of choking chlorine vapour I think, although it seemed to react with the cement grouting, producing a yellow sulphur froth, so not sure of the chemistry going on.

Tommy came up and said we had to use much more solution, and squirted it everywhere, producing clouds of the noxious choking gas, which cheered him up “ very good stuff” he said . We foolishly continued to apply the agua fuerta liberally, but could’nt do much because of the fumes produced. Little did we know it was eating into the grouting cement.

Tommy managed to finish a lot of snags with his new materials, including the downstairs sink and shower. We had our first shower downstairs late afternoon. The shower floor area now had a step built in to it, which we had not specified. It had been intended that the floor would slope towards the drain, allowing water to drain away, but it was clear the step had been built to contain water within the shower area, as the floor was level, and a pool remained after each shower.

By now, our euphoria of the real progress that had been made whilst we were away had evaporated, and we decided to make a “snag list” (I think it’s called that in the Trade) for each room. The main snag …..well its more than a snag…..more like a big problemo, are the 3 expensive glass security doors, which don’t close or lock properly, handles graze the frames, and are very noisy and difficult to open/close, as they don’t really fit properly. Another irritating snag is that the light switch for the front bedroom is behind the door…..my fault as I drew the door opening the wrong way on the lighting plan…..at least, that is easily fixed , by changing the hinges and re-hanging the door.