Going solar

More news. First the bad news. Last week we were robbed for the 2nd time. This time it happened some time shortly after 2 in the afternoon. I had been home all morning, but had to leave at 2. Barb was out in front of the wall working in her flower gardens. As far as we can figure out, they came over the wall from the house behind. Our neighbour there has an electric security fence, but had been having some work done. Apparently, the fence was not on. The person who is living in the house left about 2 also. In any case, they came in, took money from Barb’s purse and found the money I kept in a drawer. I think that we lost about $400 - 500 dollars. We are going to get a bit more upgrading to the security. Again it seems evident that someone in the neighbourhood is watching and takes advantage of any opportunities.

We are in the midst of having a Mexican incident. On Saturday when we came home, the water pump was not working. I finally got it going briefly and decided to do a load in the dishwasher. However, while the timer worked, the pump inside didn’t. We began to notice other things; lights would dim, then brighten; the fan would slow down and then speed up. In fact, the power was fluctuating. I got the water pump and the dish washer going just before bed. However, Sunday we were back to no water pump and fluctuating power. I called Jose Luis and said we should get a new pump as this one had caused us a great deal of trouble. He came and thought that it wasn’t the pump malfunctioning again.He took it to check and he was correct. He had a voltage tester and sure enough the voltage was fluctuating massively; the juice was never enough to run the pump. He checked all our circuits; we then went next door to Steve’s house and the situation was the same there. Finally, he called the power company, CFE. They said that they were aware of the problem. Our street plus the next cross street were affected. Finally, at 5:40, I tried the pump and it worked; hallelujah. Altogether, it was over 50 hours.

The other news is that after talking about it for about 2 years, we have finally moved to have a solar hot water heater installed (the small photo is from the company site, but you get the idea). There are several different systems. Ours uses evacuated tubes (i.e., a vacuum) to collect the heat. The water circulates by convection up the tubes into the tank. Because we have a pressure system, this water is not connected to the domestic water system. Instead, there is a copper coil in the tank and the domestic water is pumped through the coil where it is heated.The unit was delivered last Friday and the plumber has done a bit of work already. It should be installed by the end of this week. In the end we decided to get the 280 litre tank. It cost $300 more than the 210 litre tank which is said to serve 4 people. However, this tank will give a bigger margin, not just when we have guests, but also on those rare occasions when we have several days in succession of rain and cloud. It has happened only once in 3 years. When we decided on the size, we weren’t sure that we would be able to keep the existing gas heater as backup. However, the plumber figured out a way to do that. The company says that during the hot weather especially, the heater can heat the water to 75º C (almost 170º F).

We have been spending 600 pesos a month (about $55) for propane. We recently discovered a small leak (now fixed) so that might not have been just our consumption, but the price of propane has been going up. Just last year it was about 4.75 pesos per litre. This year it is 5.6 pesos (about Can $0.49)--still pretty cheap as it is subsidized by the government. They say that heating water accounts for 75 - 80 % of power costs in a home. I figure that the payback on the water heater should be about 3 years, more or less. If so, that’s over 30% per annum as an investment--not too shabby. It will also make a small reduction in our carbon footprint. The heater is being installed on the flat roof over the bathrooms. Thus, an additional advantage will be that we won’t have to wait for 2 minutes running the hot water for a shower the way we do with the gas heater, being on the opposite side of the house. We will have to run the water longer for the kitchen, but the only time we use hot water there is to run the dishwasher, less than once a day. It has taken us a long time to take the plunge, but we are pretty excited.

Lake Chapala Society

I am now a Director at Large on the board of the Lake Chapala Society. I was not looking for such an ‘honour’. In January I met Fred Harland, vice president, at LCS. Barb and I had gotten acquainted with Fred and his wife on the trip to Morelia over a year ago. They are Canadians and very nice; we always chat a bit when we meet. At the encounter in January he asked me if I would let my name stand for the board. The new constitution, which was approved last December, called for 3 or 4 additional members on the board so they were looking for new bodies. I thought for a couple of minutes and finally agreed. I was certainly not eager, but I thought of all the people who volunteer to work at LCS. Almost everything is done by volunteers, many of whom give quite a few hours a week. I had already decided to stop doing my online courses so no longer had that as an excuse. The Nominating Committee, by whom I was interviewed, provided only sufficient nominees to fill the vacancies. There were no nominations from the floor at the annual meeting in March, so I and the other nominees were elected by acclaimation for a 2 year term. Actually, this was all indicative of a salutory situation. Two years ago, everything was in a turmoil as some previous members of the board were very unhappy with a new constitution proposed by the new board. They were attempting to put the organization on a more business-like approach and some of the people were unhappy that the old, ‘club’ approach would bechanged. However, the board brought some of the former members in and revamped the proposed constitution sufficiently. When the revamped constitution was put to a vote in December, there was opposition voiced and only 2 or 3 people voted against the new constitution. Everything has calmed down; things are running better. I have attended 2 board meetings and have been appointed to 2 standing committees.

Once again we have evidence about how quickly we can get medical stuff done. I had a recurrence of a pinched nerve in the lower back. Last time was just shortly before we were to leave to drive to Mexico in 2008. I was given a couple of exercises plus a very good book, Treating Your Own Back. The exercises cleared up the pain very quickly and I had no problem driving to Mexico. However, with no pain, I long ago stopped doing the exercises. This time, there was referred pain down my right thigh above the knee. I should have read the book and started the exercises again before going to the doctor, but I didn’t. On Wednesday, Dr. Garcia arranged for me to see a specialist in Guadalajara the next day. The latter did electromiography; that uses small electrical charges to the nerves to locate exactly where the problem was. By that time I had already decided that it was probably a pinched nerve in my back and he confirmed it. When we expressed our amazement that we got in so quickly, he laughed and said it was probably because it was the week after Easter and a lot of people had not returned from holidays as a lot of businesses and schools shut down for 1 or even 2 weeks. Anyway, he gave me the report and I took it to Garcia the same afternoon as he had requested. Garcia then called a physiotherapist to make an appointment for the next morning, Friday. It turns out that the latter lives only a block or so away. As a result, she came to my house for the 2nd and 3rd treatments. Some of the exercises she gave me weresimilar to those in the book. The exercises are the real answer and I have been having little pain most of the time.

More people are coming down here. A friend of Kate’s, Carol, who has been visiting here regularly for 7 years, finally got her husband Joe to come here in March. Joe really liked it and they decided to buy a house as Joe is finally thinking about retiring. The house they bought (they were down to close last Friday) is just a block and a half west of us on Camino Real so they will be close neighbours. They are very nice; Kate and Jack were unable to go out on Friday night to celebrate with them, but Barb and I did.

For 2 Saturdays we were invited to Jack and Kate’s with the girls to swim in the pool in their new house (they moved in about April 10th). It is a lovely pool and especially good because, as you can see, there are steps at one end. The twins are well on the way to being able to swim, Fatima not so much.