Hi Omostra, Just thought I'd say hello.We have a place on the Algarve near Albufeira in a small village but dont live their , use it for holidays and rent it out as well. Hope your weather is ok in central Portugal as its been very cold on the algarve for 3 weeks. Are you originally from the UK? Cheers Jayjan

hi Jayjan
yes were originally from the uk, left there about 4 years ago spent a couple of years touring around looking for a good place to live then bought in central portugal. been here a couple of years now, bought an old farmhouse that we are restoring slowly.
weather today is very wet but it has been quite nice over the last few weeks.

Hi Omostra, Are the property prices cheaper where you live than the Algarve.Where-abouts is Tomar is it near Lisbon? Our house is a typical algarvian farmhouse but we only have a reasonable size garden area with pool, no vast expanse of land so to speak.We renovated it over 3 yrs ago as it wasnt really fit to live in, not by my living standards anyway. The shower was out in the yard with only a cold water connection, Wood worm in all the timbers & the waste water from the kitchen sink went into a bucket underneath, animals had been kept in the house & a big pig sty outside, we laugh about it now what it was like. My hubby whos a joiner lived there while he carried out the work with the help of other trades, we now have 4 bedrooms 3 bathrooms lounge and dining-kitchen but nearly 4yrs on we are still finding things to improve its a never ending thing,sometimes a hair tearing experience. Hope your renovations go well without too many problems. Cheers Jayjan

hi
sounds like you have done lots of work on your house. i bet its more comfortable now.
The prices of houses in Central Portugal are a lot cheaper than the Algarve, you get a lot more house and land for less money when you move away from the Algarve.
there are farmhouses and cottages for sale near us from around 30,000 euros that need restoring.
We live in between Tomar and Abrantes, which is one hour north of Lisbon, near the big lake of Castelo do Bode which is 40 miles long, lovely place to live lots of nice little villages and towns feels rural but bigger towns and cities quite close for shopping etc.

Hi omostra. The house is certainly more comfortable, at the moment we have a problem with the salamandera (Log Burner) Keeps blowin smoke back into room, plus a problem with chimney, we are thinkin of scrappin the fire and building a proper open fireplace, only upset is this logburner cost us nearly 700 euros, we have tried everything to remedy it but to no avail, possibly next job when we back in Algarve in March (Put it on the scrap heap or try and sell it)Prices are a lot cheaper up your end, we paid 130,000 euros for ours nearly 4 years ago and with renovations we are now maybe up to 210,000 euros. and still will spend more improvin things. Are you on a fossa or mains sewerage? We have a fossa but we connected to mains via a pump(Macerator) to the road sewer cos we had problems with the fossa not draining into the land properly & fillin up too quick , this was expensive to connect cost us 2300 euros, but it now does the job ok. Are you also on bottled gas like we are?, would luv to be on mains but only in parts of Albufeira can u connect to it. I luv goin in the local Portuguese bars in the stix, we have a neighbour who we very friendly with and he takes us occasionally to the unknown places where they dont speak a lot of english, what an experience!!! very enjoyable. Still cant speak Portuguese been tryin for 3 yrs and cant get my head around the lingo, understand some of the written, but conversation is another thing putting it altogether to make a sentence hahaha (Back to front). Do you speak the lingo? well hope u do after living permenently there for a few years.Hubby once got lost around Lisbon driving down first time from UK took a wrong turn and ended up in city, he spent 2 hrs trying to get out of it and nearly cryin, hes never made the same mistake again. Cheers Jayjan

hi
well weve been trying to learn the lingo, my other half is much better than me at talking Portugese but were getting there, can get by in most situations, there are not too many people in our village that speak English so that makes it a little easier to learn Portugese.also the local camara put on free language lessons so that helps.
our house is not finished yet so were living at my brothers place until ours is more livable, so this house is on a fossa and we use bottled gas and gasoil for the heating and were doing the same at our place.
a lot of people weve spoke to seem to have problems with smoke from the chimney i think it might be the shape and size of the chimneys here in Portugal, if your putting your log burner on the scrapheap let me know and ill come and get it! i could do with one for our annex we think we might just have an open fire in the main lounge as we like open fires as long as i can make sure it doesnt smoke.

Hi Omostra, What is the gasoil thing for heating? I havnt heard of that, do you have to have a big tank outside? Will let you know about the log burner when we decide what we are doing with it. Hubby was thinkin of trying to turn it into a barbecue, but whether that works is another thing. I have seen lots of open fireplaces and they dont seem to have smoke problems, maybe they have a large flue chimney to draw the smoke up fast. Could do with finding out from a builder who specialises in building chimneys and pick his brains. Hope your weather is better than ours here in UK, its freezing and lots of snow around the country, but the snow hasnt reached us yet up here in Manchester. Cheers Jayjan

we have a big tank under the ground holds the oil for the boiler.
weather here is not too bad today we had a little rain in the night but some sunshine today...still a bit chilly...roll on summer

hows the weather in Manchester now jayjay, is it getting any warmer. were not to bad at the moment blue skies and sun, although not hot enough for shorts and tshirts yet

Hi Omostra, just read your post sorry for delay in replying. The weather here is not bad at the moment rain & sun but temps arnt that cold. I believe its quite cloudy and dull in Portugal at the moment but bet its warmer than UK. Did you have any problems with the earthquake last week? one or two folks have said it was felt as far over as Vilamoura on the Algarve. Hope you & your wife are both well. Cheers Jayjan

Hi jayjay, were both fine here.
the weather is a little mixed here at the moment yesterday we had heavy rain for a while then sun and blue skies then later rain again, today so far is sunny, but it has rained in the night.
No problems with the earthquake, we thought we heard something around the time of the quake sounded/felt like a large truck driving past slowly, looked outside nothing around so didnt think any more about it untill we saw it on the news.

Hi Omostra. Was looking on the net last night at a website called Geeko Homes real estate. There was a lot of property around your area of Tomar, Abrantes, Ribatejo . Abrantes looks quite a busy place with lots to do, the properties were cheap compared to the Algarve., came across a brand new 6 bed villa with lots of land for 245,000 euros(Thats cheap). Other properties (ruins) needed extensive renovations and started at 25,000 euros upwards, some of them had no connections to electricity & water etc, but anyone wanting a major project would get a real bargain.
Hubby back to the Algarve end of March & I have already given him a list of more jobs to be done on the house bet he's cussing me under his breath hahaha. Cheers Jayjan

yes there are some real bargains to be had in our area, you get much better value for money, the prices are starting to creep up as more and more people seem to be moving to central portugal. i think its because its unspoilt, its better value and a cheaper cost of living than some other places in Portugal.
The website you mentioned is called http://www.gekkohomes.com and is a great source of information for anyone thinking of moving to the central portugal area.