Hello from Spainbridge!

[Mr Alan]

“Spainbridge”?

 

Well we’re in Cambridge now but we just bought a big old farmhouse in Spain and it needs a bit of work. Probably about ten years. It’s off grid and neither the water nor the electricity works. There’s a flat asbestos roof that leaks. There are two open fires, otherwise no heat. Single glazed windows. It is an ideal candidate for a bulldozer but that opens up Pandora’s Box with planning so we’re going to renovate. New roof, new floor, with UFH, 11 internal walls going. New kitchen, new bathroom, new bedroom, new bathroom extension, new windows, new doors, new terraces, new solar electrical system, new solar hot water system, water filtration and purification system from lake.

 

I arrived here at Chez Buildhub yesterday after researching underfloor heating manifolds and discovered a world of likeminded people all doing the hard stuff yourselves. I’m intended to do all the work myself and even though we’ll be in a different country with a different climate, it’ll all be similar.

 

Do you allow foreign residents in your group? If so I’m looking forward to documenting our journey, describing what worked and what didn’t and picking the brains of people who know more than I do about pretty extensive renovation. I’ve got a hammer and a set of screwdrivers, what could possibly go wrong?

 

 

Al

[Gone West]

Hi Al. It seems everyone is welcome here as long as they don't use the forum to advertise their business.

[SteamyTea]

Welcome.

Ah Spain, where drains run uphill.

9 minutes ago, Mr Alan said:

I’ve got a hammer and a set of screwdrivers, what could possibly go wrong?

I got a notebook and pencil, so I can be your Project Manager, I can swear in Spanish.

[joe90]

Welcome @Mr Alan, I take my hat off to you fir such a project, just wish I was younger to have a go at that myself. This forum is full of knowledge and we like  people that are hands on. Just remember there is no such thing as a stupid question, stupid is not asking, and we like loads of photo,s.

[Mr Alan]

@Peter Well my business is technology marketing in the Far East so this forum is probably not going to be quite right to reach that market. You’ll be safe from advertising from me. Thanks for the hello.

 

@SteamyTea I’ve got a Project Manager too. Well, I’ve got a Mrs Al with a notebook and pencil. And a stopwatch. I’m being unfair of course, she is a capable and enthusiastic part of Team Al. I think she’s got a pair of pliers somewhere too so she’ll come in handy.

 

@joe90 It’s not courage, it’s naivety combined with unfounded confidence and hopeless optimism. I wish I was younger too - it’s now or never. Trust me, I’m hands-on. I have a property developer friend who constantly reminds me that things will take longer than I think. The difference is that he is commercial - time is money. This is a journey for us and we’re going to enjoy the process. Some of it. Probably. I know I’m learning on the job, I know it will take time, and I know I’ll make mistakes. If I get it wrong I’ll do it again a different way until I get it right.
 

Re photos, well we’re considering a blog to chart our progress on HMS Disaster and there’ll be lots of photographs on there but perhaps, for those that are interested, I should post one here. I’ll write a longer introduction to the preposterously long and diverse roster of projects I’m lining up, some straying a little beyond the forum’s focus no doubt.

 

Here’s a photograph of the front of the house taken from the middle of the garden. It’s at the top, in the centre. We haven’t explored the whole garden yet, probably never will, it would take a few days to hike around it...

 

 

Al

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, Mr Alan said:

And a stopwatch

That is proper management.

Carrot and stick is needed for the donkeys.

[Mr Alan]

I like carrots. Not keen on sticks.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

The Portuguese have a saying "nothing good comes from Spain, not the wind or the men".

You can check that saying out as you look to be on the border.

[joe90]

@Mr Alan just make sure you both enjoy the journey otherwise it’s not worth the effort, I enjoyed my build but I,m tired now  ?

[Mr Alan]

More intro. I’ll respond to any replies here but otherwise post in the appropriate parts of the forum. Conscious that I’m on transmit but, well, you don’t have to read it do you.
 

We’ve primarily bought this property for the land, some 224 acres. We don’t yet have any specific applications in mind for it, at least not more than for a couple of acres. We would like to invite local farmers to graze their livestock (cattle but in particular pigs, we are in jamón ibérico de bellota territory and we have about 10k oak trees). Other than that, looking at, walking about on.
 

Northern Europeans are not like the Spanish. We covet our castles, almost as if we are insular and want to repel the ‘other’. The Spanish are gregarious and like nothing more than to shout at each other from about 20mm away. Our Spanish friends think we’re mad. Our English friends are envious. We just seem to have a culturally different attitude towards space. We love people and resist solitude, but ‘our space’ remains compelling.

 

We are in our mid-fifties so this kind of project is a (quoting Boris) ‘do or die’ opportunity. And look what happened there. We’ve been looking for the right place for a decade, driving around the whole of Spain, nearly 50 autonomous regions, every year for a month each summer. Only in 2018 did we find what we were looking for, our utopian Shangri-La. We are now the proud owners of a place that makes Stonehenge look like a ready-to-move-in Barratt home.

 

But we have two lakes, three streams, a six bedroom ‘farmhouse’ and a separate ruina para reformar (ruin to rebuild). And enough land to detonate our own medium sized atomic bomb* without seriously alarming the neighbours.

 

We have looked at a lot of regions before deciding on western Andalucía and only then started looking for properties. And then it took us four years to find just seven to look at. And when we found this dump we knew it was the one. All the others were better in every way except that we couldn’t justify demolishing them, they were too nice. But this one has the land and is a blank canvass. I will not think twice about taking a TS410 to a wall in this house, it is without any architectural or structural merit.

 

I am an enthusiastic DIYer. I’m prepared to tackle anything within reason and I learn quickly. Mostly from my mistakes. But really this is a monumental shot in the dark for us. Most jobs take me about 17 times longer than a professional because I need to stop and stroke my beard (I don’t have a beard, that’s metaphorical). And I do have slightly more tools than previously advertised. We’ll need another shipping container. I just bought 1.5 miles of 50mm potable water pipe - man that is heavier than I expected.

 

I am an innovator. I want to try new techniques, processes, materials, tools. I don’t mind a bit of risk. And I’m happy with a spade or a CAD system. I’ve got plans that make traditional developers roll their eyes but I ain’t a traditional developer. They know a whole lot more than I will ever know about how to profit from the construction of a conventional residential property. But we will, one day, wind up with a unique dream palace. Probably. Or a dump and us in bankruptcy.

 

I am not a hippie; I don’t usually knit my own sandals out of lentils. But rural Spain comes with caveats, properties tend to be off-grid. So I am embracing this through the application of technology. I appreciate that this will be beyond the scope of this forum so I’ll concentrate more on the building oriented issues in my posts. But for anyone who might be interested, there will be an insinkerator processing kitchen scraps and other biomas to a black soldier fly larvae incubator which self harvest to a chicken coup where the roosting perches are mounted above hydrophobic glass which will automatically harvest chicken poop and pump it to an anaerobic bioreactor which will produce methane and carbon dioxide. Separately a pump will extract water from the lake which is used nightly by deer and boar as a drinking water source. I’m building the pre-filter in our garage in Cambridge right now. This will pass into a processing tank that will be fed with O3 (ozone) from a high voltage corona discharge O3 generator supplied by oxygen from an electrolysis unit and introduced into the untreated water via a nano bubble generator and Venturi. It will subsequently pass through a reverse osmosis filter and activated carbon purifiers and before entering the house as potable water, a UV-C irradiation chamber. The hydrogen from the electrolysis unit will be piped to the anaerobic digester where, under precise pH control via dosing pumps of sodium hydroxide and sulphuric acid, CO2 will be converted to CH4 which will then be compressed into used propane cylinders. The near pure methane will then be used to power a forced induction jet burner to top up the temperature of water in buried IBCs, encapsulated in CLC to power the underfloor heating system via a heat exchanger. And power a home made plancha for the shrimps.

 

Right, all you builders out there, ignore this rhubarb. I need a solution to a problem and instead of paying someone ten times as much to achieve 10% of what I want, I’m going to do it myself. But the big challenges are those that the members of this forum tackle every day and I am just an amateur.

 

I have only just touched the surface of what we are planning. Anyone interested in cellular lightweight concrete, watch this space.

 

I know that we are going to enjoy this journey. You might not but you will have the luxury of ignoring (and not paying for) it. I really hope, on the other hand, that our ridiculous journey is interesting to you, and perhaps inspiring (or the opposite which might also be a service). And I really hope that I can learn from you experts because I really don’t even know what day it is.

 

Cheers

 

 

Al

 

*not actively considering this.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

11 minutes ago, Mr Alan said:

I appreciate that this will be beyond the scope of this forum

This forum likes off-grid, I think most members would go for it if it was cost effective.

13 minutes ago, Mr Alan said:

Separately a pump will extract water from the lake

Our Jeremy is a mine of information about water systems.  He build his own.

 

[Mr Alan]

@SteamyTea Ah yes, but MRDA.

 

If you’d like an explanation of that then please let me know. Or Google it.

 

You’re right, the border between Spain and Portugal runs down the centre of the river Guadiana which is pretty much at the bottom of our garden. There has been historical animosity between the two countries for centuries and in fact the closest village to us, Sanlúcar de Guadiana, has a castle, Castillo de San Marcos. It is where they defended from the Portuguese (with whom I have some sympathy) across the river in what is now Alcoutim. And we Brits were of course allies of the Portuguese and enemies of the Spanish. Well, it’s a few centuries on now. There’s a ferry between the two villages, and even a zip line (the only one in the world between two different countries). Plus, Alcoutim has more restaurants. Well, I learned Spanish and not Portuguese so we ended up on that side of the border.

 

 

A

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, Mr Alan said:

If you’d like an explanation

Mate of mine bought a house of her.  I said put a blue plaque up, but then, most houses in Bucks and Berks could claim she slept there.

[Mr Alan]

5 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Mate of mine bought a house of her.  I said put a blue plaque up, but then, most houses in Bucks and Berks could claim she slept there.

Brilliant.

[Ed Davies]

28 minutes ago, Mr Alan said:

and even a zip line (the only one in the world between two different countries).

 

…and two different time zones:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCwpVtqcqNE