Life in Playa

Water Mayhem!

Let me start out by saying that its been touching 99 degrees here for weeks and I am beginning to feel a little bit cooked.

This week was going to be “tranquilo”, I didn’t have anything planned to do and all the paperwork for PlayaResale is either done or submitted for approval at a later date. All the heat makes people use their air conditioning a lot, when people use their air conditioning a lot, abnormal stress is put on the electrical system here in the yucatan peninsula. We get brown outs, we get black outs, we get power surges and voltage fluctuations. All of these abnormalities in the electrical system cause mischief with things like air conditioners and pump control boxes, I have had it happen before and expect to see it again. I have not encountered any viable options for safeguarding all of the electrical equipment in my buildings against this, its just not realistic to put voltage regulators and battery back-ups on everything.

So, on Monday morning I got a phone call from a property manager that lives in Las Olas and keeps an eye on the place. This guy got PDC Management the job for Las Olas, he takes great pride in the appeance and functionality of Las Olas, he is a big help with the daily operation because he is always around and can let us know if anything is wrong. I know that if I start my day with a phone call from him there are problems, but usually we can get them taken care of quickly.

There was no water in the building, but the pressure gauge was reading a little bit of pressure. I figured it was something easy like the float switch was broken or the cistern was empty, so I headed over there. The cistern was full, the float was fine, the pumps had power, they were just not working. The limit of my expertise with pumps is connecting wires and pipes and troubleshooting simple problems, the pump system at Las Olas is a complicated system using submersible pumps and control boxes and little electrical switching mechanisms that have never worked right and I don’t understand. I have known for a while that the electrical switches were a problem, because they blow quite frequently and have to be replaced.

I know how to replace them, you write down which wire goes where on which switch, take the old switch out, go to Promesa and ask for a new one. You put the wires back where they go and the pump works again. That is simple. I don’t know how it works though. Electricity should work with two, maximum three, wires making a circuit, this electronic switch takes nine wires and has all kinds of funny cryptic markings on it. I do know that these particular switches are microvolt sensitive, which means minuscule fluctuations in the voltage makes them stop working correctly.

Anyway, both of the pumps were not working and I couldn’t get them to start, no matter what I tried. I didn’t really have time to change the switches myself, so after discussing with the property manager our options we decided to try a new guy that he had heard of through the contractor that was taking care of various projects around the building. We called the guy, who was an engineer, he showed up promptly, with an electrician. We were very pleased with his timeliness.

The electrician looked at various parts of the system and pointed out a burning smell and odd noise coming out of one of the electrical control boxes, claiming that it needed to be replaced. He told me that the electrical surges we had been experiencing in the recent days had burnt out the box and the switches, they all needed to be fixed. I took it at face value, this guy is a trained electrician and the engineer came highly recommended.

So the electrician started tearing out control boxes and electrical switches and I decided that I did not need to watch, this is a trained professional and I need to give up a little bit of control over my pumps. Everything would turn out alright, whether I was there or not. I went to do some PlayaResale business and about an hour later I got a phone call, the engineer needed $5000 pesos for new parts. I went over to Las Olas because this seemed a little excessive to me.

The electrician had pulled apart the main switching box and decided that the pressure switches needed to be replaced as well, he gave me a detailed list of what needed to be purchased and what needed to be done. The pump control box was going to cost $2500 pesos, the new pressure switches, $1000 pesos, the new electrical switches $1500 pesos. Wait, new electrical switches? I had to explain to him again that I wanted the mechanical switches, not electrical. I had to explain why again. I thought I got the message across this time. The engineer went to the store and got the parts and the electrician started to put the pump back together.

Later on that night the engineer called me to tell me that it was done, I should come and inspect it and pay him. I checked out the work and it looked incomplete, everything was put back together but they had disconnected the part of the control system that allows me to turn the pumps on manually, now they were controlled completely by the pressure switches. That doesn’t work because some times I need to be able to turn on a pump for testing purposes without waiting for the pressure in the system to drop low enough to trip the pressure switch. I explained this to him. He said he would fix it tomorrow, but he still wanted to get paid today. I know better than that, I paid him half and told him that I would pay him the other half when the switch started working properly. He said tomorrow. He also pointed out to me that the second control box was going bad and would need to be replaced soon. My feeling on this was dismissive, I thought he just wanted more money.

The next morning I was awoken again by a frantic phone call from the property manager in Las Olas, neither pump was working and there was no water again. I rushed over there. Again, I couldn’t figure out how to get the pumps to turn on and I was extra-annoyed that there was no manual override so I could turn on the pumps by myself.

I called the engineer, he came promptly, but the electrician didn’t show up. The engineer looked around for a while at the pump and decided that the problem was that through the night the second control box had burnt up and that there was something wrong with one of the new pressure switches they had installed. He started fiddling with the pressure switch with a screwdriver to get it to kick on, but to no avail.

We waited for an hour or so and the electrician showed up, he looked around for a while and started testing things with their voltage-meter. For some reason there was no power coming into the pump that had the good control box. After about 30 minutes more of investigation, the electrician found the problem, the wires were connected so that both pumps had been run through the second control box, which went bad, therefore when it burnt out both pumps had no power.

This is when it starts to get good, the electrician said that it was not wired that way when he left the night before and I must have changed the wiring. I have one of those managers that has really had to work hard on not losing my temper, I have learned that not saying anything at this point and leaving is a good way to deal with situations like this. I left with the parting comment of, “Just fix it.”

I went and got a cup of coffee at Coffee Cafe, talked with Robert, the owner, for a little while, and decided I could go back to Las Olas to see if I could get this fixed. When I got back, the electrician had a pump wired to the correct control box(the brand new one) and was testing it.

I managed to walk in to the pump room as the same time as the pressure gauge was just about to reach 100psi. Normal systems run at 25-45 psi. We keep Las Olas at 55-65 psi usually, but that is a controversy because things like the hoses for toilets and sinks are not made for use at anything higher than 60psi and they break sometimes. I have explained this but the board of directors likes hard showers, not my decision.

Anyway, 100psi is too much pressure, and why wasn’t the pump shutting off at a normal 55psi like it was yesterday? The engineer looks at the pressure switch and the spring that controls shutoff is broken off(think back to the engineer digging around with a screwdriver), they volunteered to fix it for free. Thats great, but the problem is still that my building has no water, we cannot leave the pump running like that.

Engineer comes up with a great idea, he leaves the electrician in the pump room to watch the pressure valve while he goes to look for a new pressure switch and a control box. But first he wants another $2500 pesos for the new control box. I left because I had to get other things done and I figured this would all be taken care of in its own time, I didn’t need to be there. I reminded them about putting the switches back so I had a manual override.

Six hours later the new pressure switch showed up but no control box. The electrician installed the pressure switch and they told me that they would return the next day with a control box. We had water, but I started to get complaints about different hoses in various apartments exploding and flooding the apartments.

The next day came and went and there was no control box, but we had water. The problem is, I have grown to be very nervous when there is only one running pump in Las Olas, I know that they go bad. Running water is very important to the people that spend that kind of money for a vacation rental, I understand this.

On Thursday afternoon, the control box shows up, the electrician shows up and installs it. There is still a problem, the pump is not pumping water. They decide that the problem is the pump motor, they will need to replace it. I am starting to lose it. I just want my pumps to work, but this is getting silly. They give me a price of $10000 pesos to fix the pump motor, I tell them we need to make sure that is the pump motor. The engineer says he will come the next morning to take the pump out of the well to see if that is truly the problem.

Friday comes, no engineer. I call, he doesn’t answer his phone. I called a few times, the phone is off now. I start making arrangements to get another technician to come, but the problem is, I have gone through this before and I have a long “Don’t Use” list of technicians. It will all wait, we have one pump working and I can get a guy that I know is competent to come in from Cancun next week, that will have to do.

Las Olas is pretty full, it is hot, the guests are taking lots of showers. The building is using a lot of water. Saturday afternoon at five I get a phone call from the property manager, again the building has no water. I become really worried about what is going on since it is the weekend and there is no water, so I rush over.

I opened the cistern lid and could see the problem right away, an easy fix. The city water was not running into the cistern and had not been and the safety float switch was not allowing the pumps to pump the rest of the water out. The cistern was about one quarter full but the safety switch is set to not let it pump at that level, I overrode the safety switch. One quarter full on the cistern is 3000 gallons of water, so I figured that we would be ok. There was now water in the building.

Now here is the kicker, while I had my head in the cistern and because the water level was pretty low I could see the submersible pumps very well. Usually they are pretty distorted by all the water and it is usually pretty hard to get a good look at them. The pump that was now not working that needs a $10000 peso replacement motor had broken off of its feed pipe. This happens sometimes, especially when the pressure in the lines gets to 100psi.

This excites me, I immediately go to the switching station and turn on the “burnt-up” pump(I had to trip the pressure switch with a screwdriver because there is no manual switch). I rush back over to the cistern cover and look in, I gleefully watch as the water swirls around in the cistern from the broken off pipe at the end of the “burnt-up” pump.

So, at the end of all this, I can fix the problem myself. On monday morning, a $5 peso PVC fitting and a little bit of glue will fix the $10000 peso pump problem.