Wow we had some rain last night.
We are experiencing the autumn rains which appear every year around October/November. Thankfully we have equipped our house with the modern strip formed aluminum gutters and down pipes which lead the rain water away from the house otherwise I think we would have been flooded out.
In a country where there is so much sun it is tempting to forget about the stormy winter weather and many properties have no rainwater pipes at all the rain just runs off the roof tiles and onto the pavement or street. It will then either run down the walls making them damp or then splash back up and onto the bottom of the house wall causing what looks like rising damp on the internal walls when in fact it is penetrating damp.
You will see many houses in Portugal with an extra thick protective strip of render running around the bottom of the walls it is often painted in a contrasting colour to the house. This strip is to cope with the splash back of rain falling from the roof and is not very effective in keeping the home dry.
Old properties that do have gutters almost always have very narrow cheap galvanized steel gutters and there are either to stop rain falling on people above a doorway or are there to channel rain water to a storage tank for drinking or irrigation.
Here is an interesting adaptation?
The old watering can is being used to transfer the rainwater from the guttering to a rubber Hose and a storage tank. A real example of “waste not want not”
Our modern gutters and downpipes are light weight come in a wide variety of colours and shapes and can be formed into any length and angle to suite all requirements.
They are made on site with a van equipped with a special machine and rolls of aluminum sheet. The machine forms and seals the joints in the rain pipes and also forms the corrugated bends and angles.
Two people working together can complete a house in a couple of hours.
Contact Castelo Construction for prices
kelvin@casteloconstruction.com
