stuck in Portugal/Spain ? too many oranges , too much time ?

n brown said:
have you got electric ? we ran a house on an old diesel citroen bx made a really quiet and economical 12v genny for a couple of years . i always really enjoyed the hillbilly life !
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We have 1150 kw input (simple tarriff) and solar lights, candles and oil lamp. We had a generator for a few years mainly for power tools but never use it now. Yep...hillbilly life is really relaxing and appealing! Nothing posh, just functional.
 
n brown said:
i remember now . anyway ,re; solar panel , we had a 1000ltr tank on the hill behind us , and i put a 50metre roll of 25mm irrigation pipe in the feed to the house. very cheap black pipe from the local drogaria. sometimes the water got so hot it was dangerous and i had to cover the coil , but it worked well
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Yes we have done it with black pipe too, but the water gravity feeds into the barn at the moment. Dave has built a water tank which will fill by gravity from source about 200m away and then plans on pumping it up to a storage tank higher up behind the barn. Then we will have a decent pressure and head of water to work the solar panel and fill pipes etc. Does get extremely hot. Earlier solar panel was lower down so filled by gravity but no pressure so not very effective. It's fun working these things out.
 
Maybe just a we back up just in case.
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We have a friend who rescued a rusty 1.5 m satellite dish and stand from a campsite tip.
He wound a long black hosepipe inside it , coupled up to the outdoor tap
He can adjust it to optimise solar efficiency.
Ex- motorhomer, of course.

He can relax , with a wine, and watch his wife washing up the dishes, for free.
How I envy him, sometimes.
 
REC said:
Most was done in first couple of years, first picture is now the kitchen/diner and third is mezzanine level living room with bedroom behind. You can see the living room and bedroom space before conversion, in first picture. We did it completely ourselves. Still a work in progress after 14 years...the adega needs to be made into a room, and the water tank has to be connected to homemade solar panel ( left the original one out for a summer and the perspex melted! Glass bought now since we know it will be hot enough!) With all the land, it gives us a free choice of jobs to mess around with.
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wow what a project...you must be mighty proud of yourselves............ was it a tumble down house to start with or a barn/outbuilding etc.......
 
trixie88 said:
wow what a project...you must be mighty proud of yourselves............ was it a tumble down house to start with or a barn/outbuilding etc.......
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It was a barn which was four reasonable walls no windows or doors, and jokey roof, plus a tumbled down two storey farmhouse which only had lower floor left filled with rubble from top floor! The barn was converted first, then, not long ago Dave and a friend dug out the lower floor of the farmhouse and made it into a one storey bed/ sitting room. Made a concrete flat roof and could rebuild the second storey again but tbh, no real need for more space. Also have a two berth caravan which was our home and then spare bedroom for first few years. We love it but I think many would class it as a hovel:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
REC said:
It was a barn which was four reasonable walls no windows or doors, and jokey roof, plus a tumbled down two storey farmhouse which only had lower floor left filled with rubble from top floor! The barn was converted first, then, not long ago Dave and a friend dug out the lower floor of the farmhouse and made it into a one storey bed/ sitting room. Made a concrete flat roof and could rebuild the second storey again but tbh, no real need for more space. Also have a two berth caravan which was our home and then spare bedroom for first few years. We love it but I think many would class it as a hovel:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
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Not me, sounds about perfect (y);)
 
REC said:
It was a barn which was four reasonable walls no windows or doors, and jokey roof, plus a tumbled down two storey farmhouse which only had lower floor left filled with rubble from top floor! The barn was converted first, then, not long ago Dave and a friend dug out the lower floor of the farmhouse and made it into a one storey bed/ sitting room. Made a concrete flat roof and could rebuild the second storey again but tbh, no real need for more space. Also have a two berth caravan which was our home and then spare bedroom for first few years. We love it but I think many would class it as a HOVEL..
:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
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HOVEL?
Some of the nicest people live in Portuguese hovels.
We've been in ours 17 years .. It's still a work in progress.
We would have been bored witless these last 12 months, without it.

We really miss having the Moho parked nearby.. Escape pod, Guest bedroom, spare bathroom, kitchen.
Still we could be worse.

No TV.. ?
Us too.
Do you play dominoes..?
My sweet, silver haired, dimpled Granny of a wife , turns into a Hell Bitch, with 7 bones in front of her.
Barred from most tap rooms in Yorkshire.
 
Dominos, yahtzee, Jenga, cards. Also dvds, memory stick with downloads and now streaming. Think some people assume we have a smart villa on the beach.
We definitely don't think of it as a hovel, but it is basic! ;)
 
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