New sidewalks.
Its been a while since my last blog post. I am so happy to be busy. I am lucky to have many of last years clients returning and, just as lucky to have new clients staying at Casa De Compai. Even though I have a full house I still need to continue with my schedule of improvements.
The next large project required me going back to the Nolberto Martinez, the contractor who build the one bedroom condos. Its always a positive experience working with Nolberto. This time is was getting rid of the old sidewalks that were uneven , cracked and were an eye sore. I have had some clients ask why I paid to have the new sidewalks installed and not wait for the city to do it. The simple answer is , it probably wouldn’t happen anytime soon, and the appearance of Casa De Compai and safety of my clients is much more important.
The first thing that was done was to remove the old sidewalk, that was the easy part. Two guys with shovels and a pic ax to break up the old concrete and toss it into a truck and its gone!
The next step was installing the new curb. This is where living in the Caribbean, things have another purpose. Yes the curb holds the sidewalk into place but this also acts as a channel to funnel the large amount of rain we get very quickly at times.. Every time they pave the streets they add more blacktop to the street without scarping up the old layer first and this makes the channel deeper.
Then after the curbs were completed the installers prepared the sand base with the correct pitch and replaced the pool discharge drain and the buried electrical feeds. When all this was done the workers installed the pavers.
The reason I went with pavers is because I like that look a lot more than concrete. The other reason is, if I have to dig up any buried service cable I am not destroying my new sidewalks. Now all we have to do is lift up the new pavers, do our work then restore the sand base then reinstall the pavers. Then its all back to normal.
The color of the pavers is the lighter of the two choices I had. I think this color matches best with my paint scheme.
After the pavers were installed we had to concrete the side and the ends to keep the pavers in place. The other important reason for concreting along the front of the wall is to keep rain water from filtering down the front of the wall and under mining the footing of the front wall. After time the rain would erode the area under the footing and the wall would settle and crack or worse. Yikes !!
The last thing I had done was fresh paint. Whats a new sidewalk without a fresh coat of paint for the wall making everything look equally as fresh.
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Hi John – nice job, looks good and much safer. Emailing you with a few queries.
Thank lindsay, Its wonderful getting kudos from another successful condo complex owner. Check your in box.
Absolutely fantastic work, it looks wonderful and is a great addition not only to Compai but to the neighborhood. Wonderful work. Thanks John!!
Thank you Jason!! I appreciate your wonderful comments, I am happy owning Casa De Compai and lucky to have the guests I who stay in Compai.
Looks great John!! You have come a long way with the upgrades, not that it was not plush to begin with . Can’t wait to come see it this year. I trust that Shadow supervised from the patio above.