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Water Shortage Issues


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Considering a move to Lakeside. Big concern is dealing with water shortages. Trying to educate ourselves before we choose a gated community. Would love to hear from you which gated community you live in, how long you've been there and whether or nor you've experience water shortages and if so how often?  Thank-you up front for any answers.

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R U serious?        This is almost as bad as the guy trying to pick a new cell phone on here.....at least this is relevant to lakeside tho.

Make a visit for several months, rent something in 1 or more places, and check things out directly.          

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Do not rely on hearsay from anyone who lives in a fracc or your real estate agent.  Pick one and ask for the fracc records so you can verify what percentage of the fracc members pay their dues.  Compare the math of a small fracc with 50 homeowners that collects 50% of the dues vs a large fracc with 450 owners that collects 50% of the dues.  When the time comes to drill a well, and it will, an assessment will be the method to pay for the new well.  A lot easier to pay for a well when you have members who pay their dues.  There is strength in numbers.  A fracc that has amenities such as a club house, pool, tennis courts, racquet ball courts, and/or gym, etc will have leverage with non-paying members because they can ban the deadbeats from using the facilities.  A fracc with few amenities does not have that option. 

Also it is common to hear at lakeside that "Mexicans do not pay their dues."  It all depends on which fracc you are referencing.  Some yes and some no.

Good luck.

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1 hour ago, Kiko said:

Do not rely on hearsay from anyone who lives in a fracc or your real estate agent.  Pick one and ask for the fracc records so you can verify what percentage of the fracc members pay their dues.  Compare the math of a small fracc with 50 homeowners that collects 50% of the dues vs a large fracc with 450 owners that collects 50% of the dues.  When the time comes to drill a well, and it will, an assessment will be the method to pay for the new well.  A lot easier to pay for a well when you have members who pay their dues.  There is strength in numbers.  A fracc that has amenities such as a club house, pool, tennis courts, racquet ball courts, and/or gym, etc will have leverage with non-paying members because they can ban the deadbeats from using the facilities.  A fracc with few amenities does not have that option. 

Also it is common to hear at lakeside that "Mexicans do not pay their dues."  It all depends on which fracc you are referencing.  Some yes and some no.

Good luck.

Interesting information. Thanks, Kiko.
I think I checked all the realtors’ websites in Lakeside.
No one mentioned it. :)
I wonder if anyone else could share more on this.
 

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13 hours ago, virgo lady said:

R U serious?        This is almost as bad as the guy trying to pick a new cell phone on here.....at least this is relevant to lakeside tho.

Make a visit for several months, rent something in 1 or more places, and check things out directly.          

No need to visit, ask away is more accurate over time as it reaches a larger audience. That is what this board if for.  Many areas get very low on water in May and the water can be quite dirty. Some fraccionamientos and towns get water 3 days a week for several hours each day year round so they have to have storage tanks whereas others gets water 24 hours a day often 365 days a year and the water is drinkable for most. In many fraccionamientos hundreds of septic tanks are above the water supply whereas in others waste water goes to a septic system.  There are many options in between. Like wise internet and electical supply can vary a lot.

 

 

there are many options in between.

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8 hours ago, Bob Liu said:

Interesting information. Thanks, Kiko.
I think I checked all the realtors’ websites in Lakeside.
No one mentioned it. :)
I wonder if anyone else could share more on this.
 

Drilling a well is often not allowed by Conagua.

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I think the OP is rather freaked out about now reading "water for several hours for X number of days a week". They may not understand the water storage systems in Mexico that nearly every house has. So here's a sort of a primer...

Water comes from wells that are controlled by the local water government authority. They pump from the wells to your house. You may have a meter or they may have guesstimated your usage based on number of bathrooms/ pool etc. in some parts of town. You pay them and, imho, it's not much. Most people pay for the year in January.

After the meter, it's your responsibility to have storage for your water. This may be an underground aljibe (cistern) or a tinaco (roof top) or BOTH. The pressure from the street water is enough to get water up at least one floor into a tinaco which then feeds the house by gravity. If the pressure from the gravity fed water isn't enough for you then you can add a small booster pump (1/6 or 1/3 HP) beside the tinaco. Tinacos come in various sizes with the most common being 750 liters.

More upscale homes do not have a tinaco at all. They only have an aljibe from which they pump water to the rest of the house... often through water purification systems. An aljibe can be any size and it's important to find out HOW big it is. Mine holds only 6,000 liters aka small. One cubic meter of water equals 1,000 litres.

There's lots more to learn about purification systems but the above is the short version of understanding your water. Now you have to think in metric but the important thing to know is to conserve water all the time and to understand how the water system works here. Suerte~

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I have been in my home in upper Ajijic for 17 years.  I have a cistern (10,000Liters). Over the years, particularly the last five or so the water supply and quality have become a problem.  About one year ago SIMAPA changed the well to my area.  The water now has a very, very bad smell and is dirty.  Prior to this I used  use the water from the tap (I have a good purification system).  I changed one of my filters to a 10 micron charcoal filter and this helped with some of the smell. Now, I would not think of using the water for drinking, etc.  The problem with the water supply to our houses is mainly:  1.  SIMAPA is not able to keep their equipment (pumps) working (age?), and a  huge increase in developments/customers?).  When one or more pumps are not working they have to shut off the water to areas so no water is coming from the city into my cistern.  Also, 2.  The pipes from the street to our cisterns can become corroded (plugged).  Think of our arteries as we get older.  This results in the flow of water into the cistern diminished, and with water not always coming I can run out of water.  When this happens the city is supposed to supply us with a free truck of water but the demand frequently does not permit this.  So far, this spring I have called for a private water truck three times to deliver water to my cistern.

Yes, water is problem, but it is not so much the supply but in the delivery.  In time the underground water will be used up and then there will be a real problem.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Floradude said:

Yes, water is problem...

Ajijic is not the center of the universe. I have been in Chapala Centro for over four years and we have had no water problems.

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And I have never run of water, anywhere in Mexico. Understand the systems.  Understand your usage. Understand when the problem may be yours (pipe leaks or aljibe leaks, etc.).

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1 hour ago, AngusMactavish said:

Ajijic is not the center of the universe. I have been in Chapala Centro for over four years and we have had no water problems.

There are problems in eastern Chapala.

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Water available is a worldwide  problem,  yes some places can handle it  better than others. Sadly for the generation we have been here the issue has not been addressed in a professional manner.  One fracc that always seems to boasts  of having the best quality and  quantity is Chula Vista, I am not sure if this is a fact or perception..

Come on down and rent awhile there plenty of places, shapes and sizes in town or out in the boonies 

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18 minutes ago, lakeside7 said:

Ha so now you have new responsibility of being Mistress of Accuracy and Ability to post. Are we becoming a  Nanny State here like CA..OMG

 

It is the responsibility of all posters on the subject of Accuracy. Guess you don't know the answer.

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You're a weak poster lakeside7.

Upper Chula Vista and lower Chula Vista both existed in 1996. I toured both areas. Both had good water. The newcomers on the block are all those whose entrances front on the Libramiento. NONE of them existed in 1996.

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This is pretty easy to figure out. The clear, fresh water falls down from the hills. It finds underground seams, small creeks, then it reaches ground zero. Where the groundwater is now saturated. The only way to get more in, is to take some out. This is where wells come in. They are surprisingly irregular. For example we have one in Chapala Haciendas and another nearly finished - but we are at the top of the mountain, so it doesnt' make sense. Most of the soil here has a high clay content. Not good for running water. So I would say to ensure good water, go as high as possible. Eventually, they may start harvesting more lake water, like they already do near Ocotlan. That wont make sense unless they build some sort of distribution system.

There is a famous Canadian writer, Paul St. Pierre, who wrote living in Mexico is like living in a live Opera.

I would say living in Mexico is like living with a mild form of insanity.

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Charlene, if your two biggest questions are water and which gated community, you are in for a world of hurt. (I ASSUME you don't know the area.)

Come down, RENT, decide if you even LIKE it here, if you can adjust to Mexican ways of doing things, if the first area you pick is the "right" one, and host of other things before you leap into the deep end. Check out all kinds of areas that make up "Lakeside".  As questions re: each. Ask why some people love gated living, while others would rather eat ground glass than live in one. And why.

And do NOT make the mistake of thinking a Realtor will tell you the good, but also the bad and the ugly about any/all of the above. That is NOT their job. Finding the warts and pimples is part of your own due diligence, which should be done BEFORE you make any decision. It could make all the difference between being hugely disappointed or being happy to stay here for many years to come.

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4 hours ago, AngusMactavish said:

Ajijic is not the center of the universe. I have been in Chapala Centro for over four years and we have had no water problems.

We have lived in Chapala Centro for eleven years and never had problems with water

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