Pilings. I guess pilings are going to be the platofrm on which my house will rest. Whether the compact or the organic proposal, pilings will be the anchor. Jeremy, pictured below, is in real estate development, and he gave me a quick explaination of pilings.

He tells me that a house will be grounded onto pilings. The pilings are driven into the soil by a pile driver. The pile driver uses a set pneumatic strike each time, delivering the same psi to the pile. A chief will count each pile drive, and someone esle marks the distance the pile was driven. At a certain point, the pile will not drive much further. This indicates that the soil friction is sufficient to know that it is irrevokably anchored, as if it had hit bedrock itself.

What is the Costa soil like? Well, its poor. It has that romantic red hue that tells you that there is a lot of clay, and a lot of iron, but little of the ole P, K, N that makes plants grow tall and strong. You see a lot of land slides in Costa Rica.

Better question yet...what it my soil like. Well, I need to perform soil borings at some point, no doubt. Wouldnt it be nice to find a bed rock layer at about 20 feet? Yes Michael it would, and it would be nice would be nice to discover that my parents had lied to me about a trust fund they established, but highly unlikely.

The best news is that Jeremy tells me that once you reach sufficient friction, at about, say 40 feet, you can build skyscrapers on those pilings. If that is the case, then my land can certainly hold a little ole surf house.

Now, what are the odds of getting a pile driver into Guanacaste?