Before I came to Paraguay no one would ever have thought to describe me as good at DIY. In fact anything beyond the most basic would not have been attempted by me.
Quite simply I have always approached manual tasks on a need to know basis. In England there was little need to know anything about things like electrics and building. There was always someone available who did.
Living now as I do in Paraguay things are very different. More so in that I am out in that I am out in the countryside. Here plumbers and the like are not on call 24 hours a day.
Furthermore I have discovered that in order to get things done when you want them done and in a manner that you like it is better to if at all possible do them yourself.
Roofing is one of these skills I have learnt.
This I first had a call to grip with in the first few years after the house was built.
I soon discovered that in order to cut corners the builders had not bothered to secure properly all of the roof tiles.
As a result whenever a gale blew a few tiles would move and occasionally one or two would fall down.
With builders only half doing their job I was not getting them back in to put things right and so instead taught myself how to straighten up the roof and secure correctly the tiles.
Storm by storm I discovered and repaired the bits of bad building and now with the roof how it should always have been it stands up to the strongest of winds.
That was a good way to learn roofing as it was always just small jobs to put things right.
I was then confident enough to work on the roof when a much larger job needed doing.
That was the replacement of the kitchen roof.
On exceptionally powerful storm wind got under the tin sheets that were the roof and lifted it right off along with the heavy wooden beans it was attracted to.
Post storm I could see why it had happened. The tin sheets overhung the walls. This was done to provide shade. The wind had hit the wall and been diverted upwards by it ripping off the roof on its way past.
To avoid that happening again I lowered the pitch of the roof to just a couple of bricks so the it sat less exposed at the back of the house. Then having done that I lifted up once more the fallen roof beams and cemented a course of bricks around them. Now the are not going anywhere.
Then I climbed back onto the roof with the tin sheets and secured them with no more than a couple of inches of overhang. Nothing for the wind to get under.
With bricks than had come from the roof I tried my hand at bricklaying. They along with a bit of scrap tin sheeting have been turned into a berbecue.
All aspects of DIY have needed to be mastered. So simple electrics are also dealt with. Nothing too dangerously complicated but I am quite good at tracing a fault and turning the power off before anything is touched.
Unlike in England where changing a light bulb was an issue here lighting problems are quickly sorted out. Currently I am replacing the florescent tubes with low energy bulbs. As the tubes last for years it will be a while before all the light fitting are changed.
Also from time to time there have been short circuits that blew fuses. Removing, cleaning and replacing plug sockets is easily done.
Further to that. For a while the power would suddenly go out and could only be restored to resetting the fuse in the electric meter by the front gate.
It took a while but eventually I locked the problem to a disconnected wire behind a rarely touched light switch. Whenever it was touched the break in the wire was causing the power to go off.
There have been a couple of similar problems with electricity but really the wiring in my house is not complicated.
The other utility, water, demands more attention.
This is because the pipes used are plastic and so are the joins. All of which are prone to fail from time to time.
This can be caused by for example fluctuations in pressure damaging a joint or tree roots contorting a section of pipe.
I always keep spare water pipe in the house along with a bag of various joints.
Water bubbling up to the surface is the sign of problems below.
To put things right I dig a whole. At the bottom of that the offending piece of pipe of join is exposed. Then it is just a case of removing what is damaged and replacing it was something new.
Once done I always leave the pipes exposed at the bottom of the whole for a couple of days to monitor that there are no further problems.
The most inconvenient troubles I had with plumbing was when the stop cock failed. That left me with no way of turning off the water before disconnecting pipes.
So to deal with that I had to go to the main stop cock half a mile down the street and turn off everyone’s water whilst I got on with the repair.
Then beyond all these home repair skills I have had also to learn the skills of an outdoors man.
There is constantly work to be done in the garden. Grass and weeds of which there is much grows with great vigor.
On top of that trees grow at a great speed.
In my capacity of tree surgeon there are constantly branches that need trimming.
Then once a year I climb up into the eucalyptus to pollard them to the height I want. This provides firewood for the next year and ensures they never grow dangerously tall.
All in all my life in Paraguay has made me much more capable when working with my hands. New skills I always bring with me whenever I travel over to England.
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