Rain, again

1. Rain, again. 

After an extremely dry winter and spring. Hm.

And they were right.

2. Roof

Despite all the work on the roof, we still have leaks. Well, that is no surprise really, the rain was extreme, and the roof is not yet finished. Only the ends of the roof tiles are now mortared, the sides still need their Lanko treatment.

Still, a little disappointing. Not much water, just a few drops, but irritating all the same, as the sound of a drop of water on a wooden floor is like a smack on the head, at night, when you are sleeping. And there were about 15 locations with a small leak.

3. Road

The canals work. But, with lots of water coming from the field at the back, the gravel fills especially the middle canal, and it ceases to function, and the water simply flows over.  

The big flow of water stems from the field behind us, right behind that white electricity pylon. It then flows onto our road, filling up the canal you can see below. After that the water simply flows over, damaging the road, again. The solution will be to block that flow of water. There already is a canal dug there, by us, but the water flows too quickly to be contained. It needs a row of those concrete blocks to contain it. We will order a pallet of those and lay them in a row, right next to our road.

So, here we go again: repairs. 

Luckily our neighbour makes roads, he made this one, and he came with a machine the afternoon of the day after. No need to add extra sand or gravel, there still was enough material. That machine is great! They use it in one direction to collect material, then reverse it to spread it. Clever.

The concrete of the canal was broken by the machine.  They said that is was because the machine is really heavy, but engineer Jansen thinks they simply hooked the concrete.  we re-inserted the bits, with some wire mesh in between, and a rather liquid mix of cement and sand to fill the gaps.

We put a reflector triangle at the entrance gate, to keep people out while the road was unusable. That did not stop the damn arrogant kutneighbours down the road. They arrived in their car, got out, put the triangle and block of stone to the side, went back in their car, continued, saw they could not continue, got out and walked. 

4. Water tunnel

Water in front of the garage, again. This time engineer Jansen noticed that there is a plastic tube in the wall that expels water from the tunnel. At midnight he thought of this, and got out of bed: the water is now caught in this contraption, the grey plastic pipes and white blocks, and directed to the irrigation channel, away from the garage:

This pipe in the wall was always there, but in the past expelled its water into the irrigation channel that we severed and redirected to build the ramp to access the garage.  Never noticed it before!

The ad hoc construction is now permanent:

The stones around the white plastic pipe were rather loose, took them out, re-inserted them with some sand:lime:cement:water 2:1:1:1 mixture. 

5. Septic overflow (no pictures)

Well, last time we had very substantial rain we noticed a slow rising of the water in the downstairs loo. We attributed that to the soil becoming saturated with water, and thus raising the water level in the main septic tank, resulting in that rising water level in the downstairs loo. 

But, engineer Jansen was never really satisfied with that reasoning, noticing that the water canal behind our house was full of water. The overflow of our septic system exits into that canal via a buried pipe. But, if the canal is full of water the situation might be reversed, and the overflow might become an inflow.

So, when we noticed the water level rising again, but now very quickly after the onset of the rain the theory of waterlogged soil was abandoned, and the overflow pipe became the suspect again. While rain was gushing we removed the septic's lid, and yes, there was the water flowing in.  Used a bit of sponge in a plastic bag to block it, as a temporary measure.

The previous time we prevented trouble using our Gardena pump to pump out water, and lower the water level. That did not work this time, as there was some dirt in the pump, and it refused to work. Used a siphon as an alternative. Still, a bit of smelly water ended up on our kitchen floor. The engineers had a busy evening. 

(In Waar is de kak? // Where is the poo? you can read more juicy story on the septic tank(s). ) 

6. Gravel

The gravel in the orchard was inundated too. We are extremely lucky and happy that the water flowing actually was clean, and left no muddy residue. So, no tiresome cleanup there! 

Canales: Dutch people do waterworks

When it rains here it pours, as you obviously will have read in the past, *here*. Yes you have.

The Dyke

Much of the trouble is due to a barranco that should drain away rainwater from the hills, via a terraced campo behind us. Gaps in the walls surrounding those campos drain the water to the next terrace. However, the upper campo has a collapsed wall, so quite a lot of water drains onto the road there, eventually ending up at our entrance. 

We asked the nephew of the owner to close the gap, as he’s into the business of moving earth with digging machines. He said "it's my uncle’s land!". We knew that, and he’s living in Barcelona (really).

We asked him to move some earth against the gap if he had a machine here. He said yes, but nothing happened, even when his diggers were here and I asked again. 

Also, officially, asked the ayuntamiento to do something about it. No reply. Nada. 

Okay, be that way. So, we put up a dyke:

3 Drains

Next step: we made 3 drains across the road, draining water away to the side. Many roads here have concrete channels across the road with a metal grid, to get rid of water:

Drain 1 of 3

We made drain nr. 1 at the entrance of the property, draining away into the canal we had dug:

Spot the nice reflectors? In Spain the right side has orange reflectors, white on the left. NL has red reflectors right.

Drain 2 of 3

In the middle of our bypass canal number two:

Drain 3 of 3

And finally canal nr. 3:

Channel and overflow

And, finally, deepen the existing draining channel in our land to the overflow opening in our lowest wall:

The rains may come!

hm, careful what you wish for now.

And the road, again

And the road. Not as bad as last times, but still. I think it's a lot better now there's a lot of stones and broken concrete blocks in there. But, engineer Jansen exercised his ground moving skills once more.

Fixing the road, again

Let’s not replace the washed away sand with new sand, as that may wash away too.

The wall of the field that was demolished in the past was still lying around in loose stones. Ingenieur Jansen put them to good use. Nicely cleaned up the field too.

Then cover and fill with the sand that was washed into the lower garden. The Delonix Regia will be happy to get rid of all the sand on it's roots.

Filled in with sand, and watered.

Removing the sand around the Flamboyant tree (delonix regia).

And this is what Ingenieur Jansen did with the bigger stone blocks of the demolished wall. The main reason our road is damaged when there's a lot of rain is that the water from the hills eventually flows onto our land, and exits via the road, for a big part. In the past it all exited through a lower bit in the wall, 20 meters further down the road, but the new bypass is even lower, so it gets washed away. Use these blocks to extend the wall, and hopefully contain the water, and force it through the proper opening in the wall.

And surprise surprise, we went to the ayuntamiento yesterday to ask them to fix the (public) road to our house. They said they'd await the weather forecast, and they'd come next week. In fact, they meant "mañana"! In the proper sense, that is.

Rain. Again. Back to the drawing board.

We're back where we started. Another heavy rain, again a waterfall in our back yard, again the road washed away, and the Endesa electric cable visible. But the deltawerk at the back has held! No water through our back gate! Oh, and the steps to the upper orchard are washed free from soil too. Which enables me to put the second one really horizontal, this time.

(Vain) attempt to direct the water off the road.

Another vain attempt.

And the result a few hours later.

But this one held! No water entered our back gate.

At least I can now put the second step horizontal.

Before the deluge we build Deltawerkjes

Heavy rain is predicted, up to 100 mm per m²! Oh dear. Better be prepared a bit.



When it rains heavily the water from the road nears the back gate. It has not been coming through, but better prevent that anyway. Same for the road around. A small dyke of sand (many wheelbarrow loads, actually!) and some old concrete blocks to gently direct the water away...?