No Water in Mexico? What Nearly 7 Years in Mérida Taught Me About Plumbing

Imagine waking up in the morning, turning on the shower and...

Nothing.

No water.

Not because you forgot to pay the bill. Not because somebody shut the water off. You turn the faucet and absolutely nothing comes out.

If you’ve lived your entire life in the United States, your first thought might be, What in the world is going on?

Here’s the thing. Plumbing in Mexico can work very differently from what you’re accustomed to.

I originally wrote about this years ago because we had started experiencing water problems at our house here in Mérida. At the time, I thought I had learned quite a bit about how the system worked.

Well...

Nearly seven years of living in Mexico, several houses and more plumbing problems than I care to remember have taught me that there was a whole lot more to learn.

And recently, I managed to drain the water out of my entire house while trying to fix a completely different problem.

I’ll get to that.

But first, you need to understand how this stuff works.

Your Water May Not Come Straight From the Street

In the United States, most of us don’t spend much time thinking about how water gets from the street to the faucet.

You turn the knob. Water comes out.

That’s about the extent of the relationship.

Here in Mérida, there may be several different pieces involved before that water ever reaches your shower.

At our current house, water from the street enters a cistern, which is basically a water-storage tank at or below ground level.

The cistern is important because water pressure coming from the street isn’t necessarily something I can depend on all the time.

I’ve gone outside, turned on the water at the street and gotten very little water—or none at all.

That’s not something you want to discover when your storage system is already empty.

Our previous house was different.

That house relied on a pozo, or well.

So that’s lesson number one right there.

Two houses in the same city can have completely different systems.

And when you’re looking at a house to rent or buy, this is the type of thing that’s easy to overlook because you’re busy looking at the bedrooms, kitchen, pool and whether your furniture will fit.

Meanwhile, there’s an entire infrastructure keeping that house running that you haven’t even thought about.

Then There’s the Tinaco on the Roof

Getting water onto the property is only part of the story.

At many homes, that water then needs to get pumped up to a storage tank on the roof called a tinaco.

The tinaco stores the water the house actually uses.

Depending on how the house is configured, gravity can move that water down through the house. A pressure system can also provide the kind of water pressure you may be accustomed to.

At our current house, we have a pretty robust setup.

We have two tinacos.

We also have six and a half bathrooms.

Yes. Six and a half.

Which also means I have six and a half opportunities for a toilet to decide it wants to ruin my day.

Remember that because we’re coming back to it.

Good Water Pressure Doesn’t Just Happen

One of the things I’ve learned to appreciate is the pressure system.

Some houses use an on-demand pump that kicks on when you open a faucet.

Others have a system that keeps the house under more constant pressure.

Our current house uses the latter.

When everything is working correctly, the water pressure is great.

The key words there are when everything is working correctly.

Every pump, float, toilet and connection becomes another potential failure point.

A running toilet in the United States might mean you wasted some water.

Here, depending on how your house is configured, that running toilet may keep pumps cycling, drain your stored water and create another problem you weren’t expecting.

And because those pumps use electricity, a water problem can suddenly become an electric-bill problem too.

I learned that one firsthand.

A Tiny Leak Can Become an Expensive Problem

I started noticing that our pressure system was running more than it should.

That’s one of those sounds I’ve learned not to ignore.

If nobody is taking a shower, washing clothes or running water and I keep hearing that pump...

Something is wrong.

We had been tracking down leaks when eventually the pressure system itself failed.

Then one of the toilets got stuck.

That running toilet drained the water out of both of my tinacos.

Now we’ve got a problem.

The water pressure coming from the street wasn’t strong enough to refill everything quickly, so I decided I would use the well to put some water into the cistern.

Simple enough.

Except I connected the wrong outlet.

Instead of solving my problem, I managed to drain what little water I had left from the tinaco back into the cistern.

Now the house was bone dry.

No water coming out of the faucets.

And, of course, I’m figuring all of this out at night.

But we’re not finished yet.

And Then There Was the Lizard

Once I finally figured out how to get the well connected correctly, I turned everything on.

Still no water.

Now I’m really confused.

Eventually I discovered the problem.

There was a lizard living inside the spigot.

When I connected the hose and turned on the pump, that poor lizard got shot straight into the hose and lodged inside of it.

So now, in addition to pumps, tinacos, cisterns, toilets and wells, I’m performing a lizard extraction in the middle of my plumbing emergency.

I eventually got him out.

I don’t think things ended well for the lizard.

But once he was out of the hose, I could finally get water flowing into the cistern again.

Welcome to homeownership—or in my case, renting a house—in Mexico.

Hard Water Is Another Thing I Didn’t Understand

Getting water into the house isn’t the end of the story either.

Here in Yucatán, I’ve had to deal with very hard water and mineral buildup.

You’ll hear the word sarro.

Over time, those mineral deposits can affect shower heads, faucets, toilets, pumps and other parts of the plumbing system.

You’ll notice it.

A shower head that used to flow normally starts spraying water in every direction.

A faucet slows down.

A toilet doesn’t fill like it used to.

At our previous house, the water was extremely hard.

Our current house has multiple filters in the system, and I can actually feel the difference in the water.

I’ve also gotten accustomed to periodically removing mineral buildup from shower heads and fixtures.

Again, these are things I never spent much time thinking about before moving to Mexico.

Now they’re just part of maintaining a house.

Know Where Your Breakers Are Before You Need Them

This may be the most practical advice in this entire article.

When you move into a house, learn how its systems work before there’s an emergency.

Where is the cistern?

Where is the tinaco?

Does the house use city water, a well or both?

What pumps does it have?

How is the house pressurized?

Where are the filters?

And which breakers shut those pumps off?

Don’t wait until you’re standing in the dark listening to a pump run dry to start flipping switches trying to figure out what controls what.

I have learned that lesson.

More than once.

This Is Really a Story About Moving to Mexico

You might be wondering what any of this has to do with planning a move.

Quite a bit.

When people think about moving to Mexico, they naturally focus on the big questions.

Can I afford it?

Where should I live?

Can I get residency?

What neighborhood should I choose?

Should I rent or buy?

Those are important questions.

But living somewhere isn’t just about answering the big questions.

It’s also understanding all of these little systems that make everyday life work.

Plumbing.

Electricity.

Internet.

Transportation.

Healthcare.

Banking.

Schools if you have children.

Housing.

And the thing I’ve learned after living here nearly seven years is that those things don’t exist independently of each other.

A plumbing leak can cause a pump to run.

The pump affects electricity.

A failed water system affects whether you can comfortably stay in the house.

And suddenly that inexpensive little leak isn’t so little anymore.

During the period when we were dealing with these water problems, my electric bill was more than 30% higher.

That’s why I tell people that planning a move isn’t just collecting information about Mexico.

You have to understand how the pieces of your particular life fit together.

Before You Choose Your House in Mexico

The next time you’re looking at a beautiful house in Mérida, don’t just look at the kitchen.

Don’t just count the bedrooms.

And don’t let the pool distract you.

Ask how the house actually works.

Because eventually you’re going to stop being a visitor and start living there.

That’s when the cistern, tinaco, pressure pump and that toilet that won’t stop running suddenly matter a whole lot more than the pictures you saw in the listing.

And hopefully, if something does go wrong, you won’t have to learn about your entire plumbing system at night with no water and a dead lizard stuck in your hose.

If you’re planning your move to Mexico, this is exactly why I believe you should pressure-test the entire plan—not just the obvious parts.

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