Bedrock

Archive for the ‘solar’ Category

We had to drop Maureen’s sister Elizabeth off at Granada airport first thing this morning so we took the opportunity to visit the Alhambra by travelling down first thing on Wednesday morning and stopping overnight in the city.

Don’t forget to click on any image if you want a larger version.

First thing in the morning (7.30am) the views of the mountains were spectacular with low-lying clouds hovering above or in the mountains themselves.

We arrived around 9.30am and had to wait a while for the British guide to turn up to take us around the famous Alhambra. It’s not my first visit but you always see something new. The guide was superb, sadly the audio technology he was carrying was rubbish so we ended up missing some of what he said. Non-the-less a thoroughly enjoyable if hot way to spend the day.

Looking every bit the tourist with my hat and “I love Alhambra” badge, I set about taking photos – I’ll put the lot into a Google Album and include the link rather than filling this page up with pics. There are a couple I need to show you… these two in particular – spectacular panoramic views from the top of the city…

Maureen and Elizabeth thoroughly enjoyed the trip – sorry the latter had to leave so soon. Afterwards as I took a nap back at the hotel they went off for the bus tour and we all caught up later on for a drink.

Thursday morning we dropped Elizabeth off at the airport and headed back to the Alhambra car park so we could park up (now I know how to get there from the motorway instead of weaving across half of Granada) and continue the bus tour. HOT does not begin to describe it but we found ourselves at the science centre – WELL recommended…  The roof of the science centre below has photocells over the roof (out of site here) generating – wait for it 200kw of electricity! Again more photos to come – on the way back up home from Granada I took a wrong turn off to Almeria and though it only took around 10 minutes to twig I’d got it wrong, I was glad I did as we found the largest alternative power plant I’ve ever seen, firstly a massive solar plant (heat pump type) and photovoltaic but also a massive wind farm all in the same location – how to do the job properly!

Unfortunately the photos just don’t do it – I forgot my large camera and what looked really impressive in real life just doesn’t cut it here. What you are looking at below – is part of an image with hundreds of huge arrays of curved, reflective solar panels. To the left off-image was a fairly large photovoltaic array and to the right out of shot, hundreds of windmills… unbelievable.

The BEST way to see these and many more photos of the trip is to go to the relevant Google Album. Click here to visit Scargill’s Google Album of Granada, 2011 – if you prefer to see this stuff in Facebook – checkout our Facebook Bedrock page here

I got up very early this morning for no apparent reason and started looking through blogs on the subject of cave homes in Spain.

What a lot of rot some people write: We’ve been here for over 2 years now (part time) and so I thought I would create a short FAQ for those of you thinking of setting up shop here, not to put you off but to give you some real information:

Q: I’ve heard that cave homes maintain a constant 18 degrees all year around

A: Rubbish – and you see this repeated all over the place – it’s almost as farcical as some of the claims for Android tablets. The only way you’ll keep that temperature in a cave in Andalucía is if you keep heaters on all winter with the thermostat set to 18.  It’s October here now and when I walked into the place last week the cave was around 12 degrees. We’ve decided not to come here between November and May because it’s FAR TOO COLD inside and out. Last Christmas even with a wood fire on all day we still ended up shivering. If you live here all the time and can afford to run a decent pellet heater or similar then you might just be fine – but constant temperature without assistance – erm, no.

Q: I’ve heard that Cave homes in Spain need little maintenance

A: Re-painting is one of the main hobbies for Brits over here and it’s not that unusual to hear of bits dropping off – like parts of ceilings. You just have to look at how many places sell “Pictura Plastica” and various other white paints, plasters and mortars to realise they must be going SOMEWHERE. Every winter, mainly due to really poor building practices and materials employed in some areas, the lovely white paint just drops off external walls and needs re-doing. Part of the problem is the way they construct a lot of the caves with external walls being made out of simple breezeblock, improperly prepared and with plaster or paint slapped straight on top. Take a real look at any quiet area in the hills in winter or early summer and you’ll see the kind of renovation that needs constant attention. Where we are outside of Galera, it seems to be commonplace to utilise a fairly useless substitute for sand when mixing up mortar and it has very little strength – with the result that the nicely rounded walls you see (breezeblock with a dollop of cement on the top) fall to bits as soon as the frost hits them in winter. We’ve found that the choice of materials is paramount to getting the place to look good and STAY that way… and in many cases you’ll end up doing your own renovations if you need the job doing properly. If renovation is not you thing, then you’re going to be needing a good relationship with your local builder/plasterer!

Q: Isn’t living in Spain cheap compared to the UK?

A: No, it’s not. It WAS, but fuel is now almost comparable in price to the UK (strangely, diesel is cheaper than petrol here so there’s a price advantage there), small shop pricing (at current pound-euro conversion) is expensive and electrical goods are often priced through the roof. You can buy lots of things cheaply at the Chinese stores but the level of quality generally starts at poor and goes downhill from there. On the other hand thanks to free tapas, a night out at the pub can be very reasonable indeed. The thing I miss the most here in Andalucía is B&Q. I’ve not found anywhere that holds a candle to it, the nearest being Brico-Depot in Granada and elsewhere – DIY stores in nearby Baza are so very expensive.

Q: Isn’t the weather great in Spain

A: Generally yes, it does depend where you go. For example right now in October, at the coast there are temperatures up to 23 degrees and it doesn’t get that much cooler at night – REALLY nice – but here in Andalucía we’re looking at 16-18c with early morning temperatures as low as 4-5 degrees.  In the height of summer this year we’ve seen temperatures exceeding 40c in the afternoon – which is not much fun if you’re working but is bloody marvellous if you’re up to your neck in the local pool or one of the lakes.

Q: What about broadband?

A: All depends where you live. Spain has horrendously high costs of telecoms and are still very restrictive overall. For example you can get Skype-In numbers for many countries in Europe – but not Spain (still true in 2015). If you’re out in the sticks you have a choice of very expensive 3G dongle or in some cases Iberbanda Wireless. We use the latter – and it’s expensive – basic cost 40 Euros a month for less that 1mb/s – though it is that in both directions which can be handy for teleconferencing friends and family. It’s our experience that reliability varies unpredictably (2015 update: the broadband situation has changed, we use Habland and they are reasonably priced – but the broadband has a tendency to go off in storms).

Q: And car hire?

A: Beware, we just hired a car from the airport and they asked us to take their insurance (we have our own – and you need it as people here really don’t think anything about dents in cars as you’ll see looking around) – when we said no we have our own, they insisted on a 300 Euros returnable deposit – even though there was nothing on the website or the paperwork we had for the rental to indicate that this would be mandatory.  In the summer a truck took away one of our mirrors – and back at the airport, because we’d not had the driver fill in one of the company’s unfeasibly large accident forms at the time, on the road, they simply didn’t CARE who’s fault it was. Always check EXTRAS and the fine print and when parking, retract your mirrors – never fit into a tight parking space unless you want side dents in the car when you come back.

Q: What about crime?

A: There’s a reason people have bars on everything. Be prepared – it’s a recession – but then that’s the same back in the UK. We initially took the approach that crime had to be low or non-existent out in the hills around Galera – that was before local yobs broke through the front door in our absence and stole our TV etc.  Now we have a very pleasant steel gate which remains locked when we’re back in the UK – and inexpensive cameras we can monitor from anywhere. Local kids have been known to come out and cause damage to other properties. Don’t have false expectations and you won’t be disappointed – oh and out in the sticks – don’t even think of assuming there will be a police presence.

Q: Postal Services?

A: Well, we have a post box and post arrives  – but it can apparently take weeks for post to get to and from the UK. Also if you’re not there all the time, the local post office will only hold onto parcels or letters for a short time – then you’ve had it.  We’ve had 2 notices of deliveries and each time we’ve gone to the post office it’s been too late with no information as to where the delivery came from in the first place. Couriers are UTTERLY USELESS and will not want to deliver anywhere but the town centre. They need constant pressure to deliver and sadly many locals have given up trying.

Is there a happy side to all of this? Yes of course there is – the scenery here is wonderful, people are generally friendly and the weather is MUCH better than the UK. In my experience the Spanish are very friendly – the Brits tend to form into cliques little – but I guess that happens anywhere.

Yesterday was the airport run to St Javier (Murcia) – to pick up Maureen – and in the process I decided to make a travel day out of it and stopped by at Puebla De Don Fadrique at the same time.  A small town but it has some interesting sites as you’ll see in the included photos. I actually stopped off at some of the towns on the way to the airport just to check them out to see if any are worth visiting in the future…  I was wandering around Puebla De Don Fadrique when the solar power people rang me on the mobile to make arrangements -  they’re considering photo-voltaic tubes for our flat roof area(s) back in Wark in the UK so we had a brief chat on the subject and somehow by the time I shut the phone off I ended up near a Kodak moment.

I actually took quite a few pictures – at first with the conventional camera but I have to say for the likes of blogs I’m beginning to think I’m better off with the iPhone and the new processing software – slow but it does make decent pictures.

With only intermittent sun but decent temperatures, stopping off at the various towns made for a nice day out – sadly some are in bad shape no doubt not helped by the recession. Eventually after a shopping expedition to Eroski and the large Chinese store in San Javier, I arrived at the airport – Maureen’s plane turned up on time – sadly along with 4 others so it took them half an hour to get from the airplane to arrivals – this in a tiny airport carrying only hand-luggage!

We  headed off to San Javier and beyond and stumbled upon a pleasant looking Italian Pizzeria in the next town along…  and stopped for a pint and a pizza – my favourite type – Calzone – and one of the better ones I’ve had here (though I’m sure the Spanish know what they are doing, to me, most of their bread and pizza dough tastes like cardboard -  unless I’m just looking to the wrong places). This was the exception – very nice. Next time we’re there I’ll detail the name of the place and the location.

So the plan for today (Sunday) is to go to one of the better restaurants for lunch tomorrow then head off to Huescar for the last day of the festival. I’ve no doubt in between all that I’ll get a load of drilling jobs – re-sighting the letterbox etc etc….. All good fun.

Lovely. Full moon, it’s 9pm and around 13.5c outside which isn’t stunning but it’s not freezing either… got a nice fire inside (22c) and the worst broadband connection possible! I screwed up TomTom on the iPhone and the only way to reload it is via the PC – which says it’ll be done in another 10 hours!!!!

As you can see on the right, I’ve now got 2 sets of the colour-changer solar lights – what a bargain (B&Q) and they work as well. Everything you see there is solar – sky was pitch black but the picture was a 6-second exposure. Tomorrow Tony the builder turns up to fix the gateposts and I’ll put a final coat of paint to cover up my wires.  I spent the afternoon working on the WIFI – I promised neighbours I’d try to come up with an arrangement that lets them use the connection when I’m not here for a contribution to my monthly bill (which I pay whether I’m here or not) and I’ve now got an extended external aerial and teatime I tested it – it pretty much covers the entire area, outdoors at least, I doubt it’ll penetrate cave walls. That meant fitting a second router internally but I had one lying around and now that’s all fitted up properly and tested.

I notice this fellow (left) appeared in the grassy area just in front of our place – he tethered – I’m guessing the farmer put him there to eat the growth – thankfully he’s not quite close enough to smell!

In the process of doing my wiring I ended up face to face with the horror you see below and right – something of an irradiated cricket – except I’ve never seen a cricket even REMOTELY that size, this fellow was near enough 6 inches long! I say was because he’s now languishing behind the woodpile with a mouthful of wasp killer. Hopefully he’ll have told his pals to keep away before going to meet his maker. Nearly gave me a heart-attack!

So not a bad day’s work altogether, finished off with a nice chat with my pal Jonathan and Maureen – though in both cases the quality was crap thanks to the TomTom download. I need to get shopping tomorrow and finish the vacuuming so I’m ready to to my rounds on Saturday which include a trip around Puebla De Don Fadrique for Kodak moments, shopping along the coast and finally a trip to the airport to pick up Maureen – that sure was a quick week… but then I learned how to do some serious programming in PHP (a language for the non-technical reader) and I’m feeling quite de-stressed which has to be a good thing. Hopefully Maureen  and I can find a suitable gate and post-lights next week and that’ll look really nice.

Well, I could get used to this… with the blinds closed here in the cave I managed to sleep in until at least 9am this morning – which is a rarity for me…  and thanks to turning off the email I didn’t have to worry about keeping up! Quite liberating. There are quite a few beetles about… and by that I mean slow-moving rather large black armoured types. They make a great crunching noise.

I have to say it was COLD first thing – 4C outside but that quickly changed as the sun came up – clear blue skies and by lunchtime it was 18c – QUITE warm enough to sit outside and relax in a t-shirt.

As planned I spent some time reading my PHP manual (computer programming language – I’m determined to master it this time in peace and quiet) and then started off downloading a bunch of TED videos to watch in the absence of decent TV (no Sky card until my wife Maureen comes over next week).  I watched a great TED video about our false ideas about the “third world” – some of which now has lower birth-rate than the west and lower child mortality. China’s progression in the past 30 years has been nothing short of stunning – though I still wouldn’t want to live there.

I sat with my sandwich at lunchtime looking down at the valley and noticing the utter lack of sound or movement – no-one here but me – though I understand that’s not going to last.

I spent part of the afternoon wiring up the solar lighting outside – new sets of colour-changing lights with separate solar cell which are miles better than the stand-alone units who’s solar cells point up (as if the sun is EVER directly overhead unless you’re in a hot desert).

Tonight I went off to Huescar to get some supplies, but not before taking a few HDR pics as the sun went down – this new technique (well, new for me) really does get across the imagery that normal cameras somehow miss. I note the road from Galera to Huescar has been resurfaced – shame they couldn’t have put a little bit of that money into fixing our dirt track road!! 

Now I’m back, log fire is on, it’s warm as toast in here and the solar lighting outside makes the place look like something out of Disney. Thanks to the miracle of Skype I can video-chat to folk all over without cost – which makes all the difference when you’re on your own! The only sad news is that my colleague Steve has apparently had a fall over the weekend and is in hospital back in the UK – if you’re reading this – best wishes.

And the question I’ve been asking myself since I got here…. is there a CHANCE of delivery to the remote mountains here just outside of sunny rural Galera where our road doesn’t even show up on Google Earth?

The answer is a resounding YES. Last week I ordered a pair of blue solar wall lamps on EBAY from the UK  – payment was taken on 17th – I wrote to the fellow who sent them off, he thought that deliveries to Europe might take 15 days and yet mid-day today the package arrived in perfect condition by the postman – no problem! I’ve just had the drill out and mounted the lamps on either side of the living room window – it’s all down to time and sunshine now.  I still plan to bring several solar spots back with me next time we’re over as I can’t see B&Q delivering…  Still – nice to know the postal system works.

Here you see the two new blue solar lanterns in action on the wall – indeed with the exception of the orange glow from inside, all the lighting you see outside (and more that you don’t) is solar the purple spot on the far wall is an infra-red light from my new IP-camera which will keep an eye on the place when we’re back in the UK.