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Buying a home in Portugal

Considering buying a home in Portugal?

There are Three words which top most peoples list of home requirements.

Mine would be Safe, Dry and Warm in fact my wife would say not just warm but COZY!

appropriate,complacent, convenient,cosy,cozy,easy,enjoyable,happy,healthy,loose,pleasant,pleased,relaxed star,satisfying,serene,snug,soft,useful,warm,adequate,agreeable,at rest,cared for,cheerful,contented,delightful,enjoying,gratified,made well,protected,relaxing,relieved,rested,restful,restored,satisfactory,sheltered,snug as a bug in a rug,soothed,strengthened,untroubled,well-off
buying a home in Portugal

From this ground zero starting point we can add View, Location, Size and so on. It is very strange to me therefore that when people come out here to Portugal looking at houses to buy or land, building plots the three fundamentals are forgotten or pushed to the bottom of the list. I genuinely believe that this is a great mistake.

Because unless you start off with a home that has these fundamentals then you must make sure that they are built into the refurbishment or rebuild project from the beginning. Any home that is not safe, dry and cosy will not be enjoyable to live in and will add a lot of stress that you don’t need to add to your new life in Portugal.

There are many insulation product available in Portugal some take a little technical experience/ knowledge to get the best out of. Others such as Wall mate, Floor mate and Roof mate are pretty self-explanatory. http://building.dow.com/eu/gbr/en/

There is a real cultural difference between the average Portuguese person and northern Europeans in the way we look at home insulation. Insulation is fairly new in Portugal and often thought of as unnecessary.

A typical example would be that a local builder when his client is negotiating the price of the build would say OK we can save ***Euros  if we don’t put any insulation in. Even though it is required by building regulations and is detailed in the planning project. With many years of construction experience I can spot these houses from 100 meters away you probably could not. The added unexpected additional cost is not something you need.

Times are slowly changing and most modern homes will be built with rigid insulation boards with 40 mm being the regulation thickness at the moment. This differs massively from what we have in Germany, Holland and the UK. (Therefore homes built before then will have progressively less insulation the older they are). This is very important to understand because it is going to cost you in heating and comfort.

Also If you want more than 40mm of insulation it is vital that you add this requirement at the design stage because there will not be any room to retro fit it.

If you prefer stone houses then you can have these well insulated too. Again the insulation must be one of the first things that is done in the renovation of the property. Call us to chat about the best and easiest ways to make your stone house in Portugal Safe, Dry and Warm/COZY.

Telephone 00351 927168247  or email info@casteloconstruction.com

We work throughout Portugal