Welcome!
This is the first time I've made a foray into publishing on the web.
I did once have a small company (long since dissolved) which had a web page which was essentially a placeholder. It never had any real content though.
Most of what I'm going to write about here, is going to be about building houses - and specifically building in Central Portugal.
We actually have two properties just south-west of Tomar:
- a plot outside the hamlet of Machuca, which has some large registered ruins we can rebuild
- a house a little further away from Tomar (at Carvalhal Pequeno), which was built in 1990: it is habitable but needs some updating (for example - there is no automation in the hot water or central heating at all, and we think the walls and roof probably have a U-value that is between 0.7 and 1.0 - and it has an ancient and very scary boiler modified to burn oil)
Our intent had been to buy the plot, but the negotations took a long time, and the house was an unexpected find.
We'd like a modest income from holiday rentals, and our plan is to live in one and rent at the other - but we haven't decided which way round yet. We also value guest space, even though there will only be two of us most of the time: we hope that our children (and in time their families) will come and stay.
Consequently I'm interested in techniques for both renovation and new build.
Our plan is to stay in the house and see whether the location - it has stunning views - makes up for some limitations in the building itself.
Once we have made that decision, it will be clearer how to proceed with the projects - there is limited demand for rental accomodation over the winter, and as a result the economics of capital against running costs are quite different for rentals, since the demand is for cooling (whether active or passive) in a modest fraction of the year with limited demand for heating.
That said - Central Portugal is still a lovely place in the swing seasons - you just have to be aware that it might rain (and possibly rain a lot) and that it might be chilly. The temperature can vary a lot, and change quickly in the course of a day. The payback is that the rains make it a beautiful green oasis.
Some of the content has already been on the web in a private wiki on Atlassian; it seems a shame to keep it locked away.