Yesterday marks one week of owning our windmill. Hooray! What did we do? First thing was to try and open the doors and windows with the aid of a little WD40 or in Spanish 'doble uve de cuarenta'
Remove a tree and bushes growing outside the front door.
Look at a huge pile of rocks - and quickly look away again.
I wonder what is inside the container? The estate agent said that there were just a few bits of garden furniture and nothing else. He said it was a problem to open the doors to show us, as they were a bit rusted. I made him promise there was nothing nasty in there.
So when I finally managed to prise the doors open it was a bit like 'Storage Wars'. Those of you who watch rubbishy television will know what I mean. Sure enough there was a work bench, a box of tools, a chainsaw, garden tools, a welding set, a lawnmower (where's the lawn?) and loads of useful bits and pieces. Jackpot!
On Tuesday I met the builder who built the windmill in 2004. Senor Bernat Jove. He has lent us photographs taken during the building works, which is fascinating. Particularly the picture of the fellow dangling on a rope hung from a large crane fixing the windmill sails.
We plan to make a few changes, a larger kitchen window to let in more light, new kitchen units, and repairs and painting the outside of the windmill. I found in the container a body harness so that in theory I could tie myself onto a roof beam on the top floor of the mill and clamber out of the skylight onto the roof armed with a paintbrush. But Wendy had other ideas and we agreed we should get the professionals in.
On Wednesday we met two young lads who run a renewable energy business in Villaverde - Solarland SL. They had installed the photovoltaic (PV) system and wind generators 10 years ago. Since then PV prices have tumbled and it is now not normally economic to use wind generated power. Which is just as well as the two wind generators are totally knackered. So, we discussed fitting a solar powered unit to provide hot water to the bathrooms and kitchen, with a back up gas boiler. This will reduce the electric power requirement considerably. We will need to fit more PV panels to replace the power generation from the wind generators.... So here we go - more money!
We plan to make a few changes, a larger kitchen window to let in more light, new kitchen units, and repairs and painting the outside of the windmill. I found in the container a body harness so that in theory I could tie myself onto a roof beam on the top floor of the mill and clamber out of the skylight onto the roof armed with a paintbrush. But Wendy had other ideas and we agreed we should get the professionals in.
On Wednesday we met two young lads who run a renewable energy business in Villaverde - Solarland SL. They had installed the photovoltaic (PV) system and wind generators 10 years ago. Since then PV prices have tumbled and it is now not normally economic to use wind generated power. Which is just as well as the two wind generators are totally knackered. So, we discussed fitting a solar powered unit to provide hot water to the bathrooms and kitchen, with a back up gas boiler. This will reduce the electric power requirement considerably. We will need to fit more PV panels to replace the power generation from the wind generators.... So here we go - more money!
