Works in I've arrived!

Since writing the previous entry, priorities have changed somewhat in terms of getting things done in the new (old) house. Mainly due to the heating system. We got it working, eventually, but that was when we discovered the true cost of running a big house on propane cylinders. It’s an absolute no. So we got a quote to put in a pellet boiler. Insane.

One of my new friends here in Portugal put us in touch with her hairdresser. While Paul and I were with her, having our hair cut (stupidly cheap - 6 Euro for him to have a dry cut, 9 Euro for me to have a wash, cut and blowdry - I kid you not!) we were talking to the hairdresser about heating, about our house, the cost of the propane and so on, and she told us her dad had been ripped off, but had got his system re-done by a really good local guy. She said she’d give us his number.

When we got home, she messaged me with the guy’s number. We had that day received the quote for the heating system - a stupidly huge amount of money for what it was. We knew it would be in the thousands anyway, because these systems are not cheap to install, but once in, the overall heating bills are reduced due to the cheaper cost of the renewable energy source (wood pellets). All the same, we were not expecting the (English) house renovation guy to quote us nearly 18,000 Euros including tax.

No fucking way.

So I contacted the hairdresser’s friend, and he came straight out. I mean within 5 minutes he was knocking on the door. He had a look at the house, the plumbing, the system, the number or radiators, the number of panels on the radiators, and said he’d have a quote for us the next day. And sure enough he did. It was almost HALF the quote the English guy had given us (and yes, I know it’s still a staggering amount of money, but that’s what these systems cost here). That’s for a 30kw system, a 300 litre water tank, a hopper to feed the boiler with the pellets for automation, and solar panels to heat our water in the summer. It’s a very good price, given that the entire house also needs to be completely replumbed and attached to the mains water system (up to now, we’ve been using our bore hole for water).

Lovely guy, speaks good English (worked in the UK for 4 years and learned how stupid Portuguese plumbing actually is!), and we know we’re not getting ripped off. He’s been here for the past 2 days with his employee, drilling holes in the walls, passing pipes through, taking up floorboards, making more holes in walls AND ceilings, shifting the washing machine and tumble dryer out of the laundry room to make way for the (huge) boiler system, and has worked his little socks off. He was here until almost 7pm last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is again today, and possibly also tomorrow.

I just want the heat now. I’m fed up with being cold, and even when we had a working system, we could only put the radiators on for an hour a day due to the raging cost of the propane cylinders and the speed with which we burned through them if the heating was on for any length of time.

I did a cost analysis, and this system will have paid for itself very quickly due to the fact that if we kept the propane system, a decade of winters would cost us something in the region of about 50 grand. I’m not kidding.

So that’s saved us 40 grand just on putting the bloody system in. Nuts isn’t it?

The other major priority has always been the kitchen, and of course my swimming pool is on the list - but we’ ve shifted that back a bit, because we need to get a decent sized loft ladder in so we can get all our shite out of the way and stop living in squalor. Then we can do the kitchen, and after that, possibly delaying the installation of the pool, we’re moving the staircase to a more sensible place in the middle of the house, rather than at one end, where it’s basically taking up the space of 2 large rooms. Whoever thought that was a sensible place to put a staircase was out of their mind. I will post photos at some point. You will laugh. And you have my permission, because I did too, but now it’s not funny any more.

I’m sitting here typing this listening to hammers and drills going like crazy downstairs.

Hopefully before the weekend is over, we will have a working, efficient central heating system. And then the weather will change…