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Maintenance

At the end of the day, no matter how well built the roads are, they will always require maintenance. The key to a successful maintenance plan is one single word: prevention

There is really only one main concept to understand when it comes to unsealed road maintenance and it is the concept of erosion caused by water. Assuming that the water has been forced to flow inside the gullies on the side of the road thanks to this small angle that we described on the previous page, assuming that the water is allowed to escape through culverts and also at the curves by going straight while the road is turning, what happens with time? Erosion. This manifests itself in different ways:

  • the initially shallow gullies get deeper and deeper as the water keeps carving them until they finally collapse
  • OR the gullies fill up with sediments and small rocks carried down along with the water until they block up
  • the channels making the water escape at the curves fill up with dirt and rocks
  • the culverts get clogged up
  • landslides occur in some places blocking the gullies and forcing the water to flow in the middle of the road

The answer to all these problems is the same: before the gullies gets full, before the culverts clog up, before any water is forced to flow in the middle of the road, the sediments have to be removed. This is easy and in some places can even be done by hand with shovels.

If this is not done on time, when the water starts flowing in the middle of the road, it only takes a few serious downpours to damage it so badly that it will take hours of machine time to repair it.

To compound the problem, the passage of cars and trucks, always on the same exact place, tends to carve tyre marks which with time become new channels for the water to flow. We then enter a vicious circle. The more the cars drive on the same place over and over, the more they deepen the channels and the deeper the channels the more the rainwater wants to flow in them causing them to get even deeper forcing the vehicles to drive with their tires inside them etc...

This problem requires a different type of action which is called grading

A grader is a very long machine with a diagonal knife under it that literally "cuts the road" and removes any irregularities such as holes, bumps and ditches. They use these machines all the time here. At the time of this writing the entire road from San Pedro to Sacapo has just been graded. Such a machine however cannot get up our road but we can do the same with the front bucket of the backhoe.

Below are a few photos that I took recently which show the wear caused by traffic.


Tyre marks becoming channels for the rainwater


Ditto


Gully allowing water to escape in a curve getting full with sediments


These points above, i.e. wear and tear caused by vehicles, sedimentation in gullies/curves/culverts and landslides are the essential maintenance requirements of the road.  

For people interested in buying a quinta in our development it is important to understand that the maintenance of the road (as well as the maintenance of any other part of the infrastructure) is to be covered by the fees that each owner will have to deposit into an account accessible to a person (at this point in time myself) in charge of maintenance, the "maintenance manager".

So far, we, the developers, have paid for all the maintenance. Today with 6 quintas sold and a lot of building activity taking place, generating some significant wear and tear of the road, it is time to change this. We are currently discussing what a fair amount to be paid per year would be for each owner. As explained above, with good preventive action no serious damage should ever occur and the fees should be very reasonable. Our position is a position of transparency. Everyone will know what is required, how much it costs, what has been done etc...