Convert under the house
Convert under the house – When we are selecting a Portuguese house to buy you very often find a house which has at least two large rooms underneath which have normally been used to keep livestock such as chickens rabbits and goats. The other of the rooms is normally a room for storing and making wine, garden produce, olives and seeds. This is called the Adega and is the place thatyou are usually invited to for a drink of home made wine. These rooms can make ideal living accommodation when converted there are usually a couple of major things to overcome first. Headroom – very often as the livestock areas were only for goats the low head height wasn’t an issue. To make a habitable room you need at least 2.4 meters between ceiling and floor. So you may have to dig down to achieve this. Quite often we have to chisel the rock away.
Damp – The damp didn’t matter when the wine and goats were in residence . As the adegas are often built into the earth and don’t have damp proof courses they can be damp all year round and positively wet in the winter. Damp proofing or tanking must be carried out if you are going to live there.
Natural light – Many adegas don’t have windows just an external door or a missing stone in the wall. To make the space habitable you need to install windows which means knocking windows through thick stone walls. Fortunately we are very experienced in this type of work. Insulation/heating – Converted rooms under houses can be very cold so its always a good idea to thoroughly insulate when you carry out the conversion work. For more information contact For information on how we can help you and what we do go to www.casteloconstruction.com
Phone 00351 927168247 or SKYPE casteloconstruction email casteloconstruction@gmail.com
PENELA, Portugal
