What is a Tico House?

Tico construction is not inherently bad but it is a different standard than what US and Canadian citizens are accustomed to. Tico homes are extremely efficient (frugal?) in their use of space and amenities. While not all Tico homes have all of the symptoms listed below, you will find many of the following conditions in the typical Tico house.

• Typically 80 - 140 m2 or about 1,000 to 1,500 sf.
• Walls are made of 12 cm wide concrete block.
• Roofing is galvanized sheets of steel that may or may not be painted. It literally sounds like a freight train in heavy rains. The rains are heavy for about 5 months of the year.
• The roof has a low pitch and may or may not have gutters.
• Floors are gloss finished tiles that are slippery when wet.
• The ceiling height varies. The lowest I have seen was about 6’ 6” and the highest was about 8’ high with the average being about 7’ high. For me, at 6’2” this is too low, hot and is claustrophobic.
• The family room is usually narrow and leads directly back to the kitchen. The family room is not large enough to hold a large screen TV unless you have a new Plasma type. Even then, you will be sitting too close to the TV to feel comfortable.
• Off to one side of the family room is a small hallway that leads to two or three bedrooms that all share one common bathroom.
• There is no hot water.
• Bathrooms are very small with no storage.  If you are big like me, they are claustrophobic.
• There may be a “suicide” hot water heater on the shower outlet.
• You cannot flush toilet paper because the septic system and drain field is woefully undersized.
• The sewer system is not vented so do not be surprised if the toilet “burps” when flushed. That burp is the natural gas released from the septic tank and has a rather unpleasant odor.
• The electricity coming to the house is 220V at 70 amps.
• There may or may not be a 220V outlet in the kitchen for the range.
• The range may or may not have a hood.  If there is a range hood, it will not be vented to the outside.
• There will not be enough electrical outlets for the normal collection of kitchen appliances.  All of the kitchen outlets are attached to a single undersized breaker. This means your coffee maker and the microwave cannot be used at the same time.
• There may or may not be a water connection, water outlet or a drain for a washing machine. If there are connections, they usually are outside under a porch exposed to the weather.
• There normally is no electrical outlet for a clothes dryer and there definitely is no dryer vent to the outside.
• The gray water, water from showers, sinks, laundry etc. is usually dumped outside some 5 - 20 meters from the house.  If the road has a gutter that is a common place otherwise it is usually dumped into the nature.
• Plumbing more often than not does not have “P-Traps”   That means that the sinks will stink unless one puts bleach down the sinks on a regular basis.
• Nothing regulates the water pressure.  You get what the municipality delivers which can vary by day and time of day between 2 PSI to maybe 30 PSI depending on the municipal water system.  Some areas have the water shut during certain hours of the day as the municipal systems often cannot meet full demand.
• Bedrooms are small.  If you have a king size bed you might as well sell it.  They will not fit in a Tico House.
• If you have queen size beds for the guest rooms, you might as well sell them also as they may fit but you will have to climb over them to get in and out of the room.
• The bedrooms will not have closets, thus making the room even smaller once you put in furniture or racks to hold clothes.
• Windows will not have screens so you will get to your flying friends by name.

After reading this description one may think it is impossible that housing can be as I have described. Well, Costa Rica has a population of just over 4 million people.  Less than 5% are wealthy and about 20% live below Costa Rica’s definition of poverty. The type of house I have described above is the typical house of the middle class family and below. I estimate that over 80% of the housing, even the upper middle end housing,  in Costa Rica has most if not all of the characteristics described above.  Sadly, the people who live below the poverty level would consider such a house a luxury.

Remember, every house is unique. Newer houses may be built to better standards as I have seen some well built newer homes but they still don’t have room for king or queen sized beds. This is nothing more than a collection of my observations of over 100 local style homes. Also, the homes vary by location.  If you buy in the cities, they may have more restrictive codes covering waste water for newer construction.  If you are looking out in the country, almost anything goes.

Be sure to check out the defects photo gallery.