How to Build a House in Costa Rica Stage 1

How to build a house in Costa Rica

Stage 1

The first step is to get a set of plans. Costa Rica will require that the plans be stamped by the municipality and for this to happen the plans must be signed by either an Architect or a Structural Engineer. When dealing with either one you decide to go with remember this is a negotiation, they are going to want up to

6 1/2% of the building cost to do your plans but you should be able to get into the 4% area. The way they determine the building cost is pretty simple and can be used to your advantage, basically the they charge based on the construction being $400 per square meter for construction area inside and $200 for patio or outside area under roof.

Now is also the time time you will have to decide how you want your house to be built, meaning what materials. You will have a choice of four different construction methods. The first is steal frame. The steal frame house uses steel supports ( called perling here ) and is covered on the outside with Cement board

( fibrolit) or if your willing to spend about twice as much you can use a Fiberglass board ( Denglass) which is a much better product and will finish nicer. On the inside you can use Drywall ( Jypson) or the Denglass. Usually there is no insulation installed here. The next way which has gotten very popular is building with Styrofoam. Styrofoam building uses 6x6 boards that are placed between steel or concrete structures, wrapped with what looks like a chicken fence ( only it's supposed to heavier gauge) than stucco is shot into it with a Gunite machine. Building like this can be a very energy efficient and cost effective, but I have yet to see it done correctly here and I really do not know much about it. You may also decide to build with wood. You might think in Costa Rica that a wood house would be cheaper but you would be wrong. Wood is more expensive here than the US but the there is lots of different woods to choose from. I have seen some places that are building prefab house out of Teak and they look good but even that will cost about 20% more than say block. Block is the last choice and what I use. The reason is everyone here knows how to lay block and they are very good at it. I will explain the process later as this is how we will be building this house. Pura Vida for now.