Casa Neroli

Well this is hopefully the last entry against “The Old Hut” our visit has confirmed that it has in fact gone. The rubble has been used to build up the bank along part of the stream, which should help to retain any excess water when the rains come.

Rubble can never look pretty, but it has been well covered with soil on the non-stream side. The side that is visible from the stream is a bit messy but there’s not a lot that can be done. Time will be the healer here, when the natural vegetation returns I am sure it is going to hide the mess.

Either way the guys have done well to hide the rubble on the land, which obviously saves the cost of removal and disposal.

So that’s it, it’s done.

We were hoping that September would see the demolition of the old hut, but in true Portuguese style it didn’t happen. I am sure many of you that read this blog and therefore have an interest in the Portuguese life style would now that there are two dates with every job, the promised date and the actual date.  It is very rare indeed that these two are the same. The challenge is to try and get them as close together as possible.

We had been pushing hard for the work to be carried out as quickly as possible, before the rains came, as we knew the landscaping work we had commissioned needed to be completed to ensure there was no, hopefully, further issue with the flow of water when the rains started.

Well last week the first real rainfall was seen in the area and we think that may have stirred some action with the builder as he had agreed that the work would be done before the rain came and any compensation claims from nearby neighbours etc. would be pointed in his direction. Maybe it wasn’t that, it was just circumstantial, either way, mid-week some heavy equipment appeared.

Over the next 3 days, first the roof disappeared, then the walls, by the Friday evening most if not all remnants of the “Old Hut” had gone. The next question is where has it gone.

We now as mentioned in an early blog the Portuguese put great stature on old weathered roof tiles, we know the intention was that they were being stacked somewhere on our plot for keeping, but where we wonder.

Also the old main roof timbers they were going to cut up into “log burner” size pieces and would be stacked somewhere on our plot so we can store and use during the colder months. Again we wonder where.

The thought on the remaining of the brickwork was that it would be used, some to build up a higher bank along the stream side to help prevent future overflows, and the remainder along the tracks down to the lower fruit farm.

There was also agreement to use some of the old drain pipes removed from the earlier failed attempt at bridging the stream to form a drain to channel the rain water on one track direct into the stream.  Also to re camber the second track so the water flowed away onto the land above the stream, thus keeping it away from the fruit farm area. Any remaining brickwork from the hut to be spread over the tracks to try and firm up the dirt. Has this happened we wonder.

As you can tell, we haven’t yet been able to see if this has all happened to our satisfaction, however we will be back at the house this week to see for ourselves, so watch the blog for updates.

The one thing we do know if the old hut has finally gone and there should now be clear views right through towards Monsanto, weather permitting of course.

GONE

In combination with the landscaping work that we need on the farm, we have also agreed with the same contractor to get the old hut demolished.

The plan is that he will remove all the roof tiles, as these may be reusable, the Portuguese seem to put great value on roof tiles. These will be stacked at a suitable point on our land. The wood inside, mainly the structure of the roof, will be removed and cut into log size pieces that we can use on the wood burner. I expect these will just be left somewhere and I will have to move them and store them in the garage along with all the wood stacked there last year from the pruning of the Olive trees.

The main fabric, e.g. the tile blocks and bricks would be broken down and form a wide path down the original dirt track to the farm area, sloping away from the neighbour and down towards the stream. At the same time reuse the old 500mm pipes that were removed from the stream bridge, mentioned in an earlier blog, to form a large drain to take the flow of water that will run down the track, along with the water dispensed from the pool plant room, when we clean the pool system, or empty the pool and take the water and run it into the stream.

Again, it was planned that this work would happen in September, but as mentioned in the farm blog, we are still waiting.

At the start of the building of the house project, we needed to get electricity on the site. The main supply, delivered by overhead cables was already to the edge of the plot so we just had to drop a connection down to a meter and connection box.

In conjunction with the builder we decided to go one better, after the meter connection we would run a cable to the new house where the internal MCB panel would be and a further connection to the shed, so we had power we could use on our trips.

It was a great idea and worked well, but later as the new house came to completion and we thought about demolishing the hut, the power supply to the hut was now a problem and would have to be removed before we could even think about demolishing it. This was further complicated because we had a supply now running from the hut to the new Pool room plant room.

So Phase 1 was to work with the electrician who had worked on the house and get him and his team to sort the power and run new supplies to the new pool plant room and remove everything from the old hut.

At the time of writing that has now been removed and we are free to get the hut demolished.

So who does that we ask?

The original hut that came with the land when we brought it is just in the way of the view towards Monsanto, so it has to go. It’s been great having it whilst we have been building the house, somewhere to get out of the sun or the rain when needed, plus a great place to store all our bits.

The builders also put it to good use for the storage of tools and materials, but that is all done now and the building is basically empty.

We also now have the garage which came with the extra piece of land we brought later in the process and that is perfectly adequate for all the storage we currently need.

In many ways its seems a shame to remove it as it has history with the plot, but at the end of the day it is just old bricks and tiles and just is in the way of the view so it has to be demolished.

So that’s the subject matter on this project, the demolishing of the hut and its disposal.