Taxis Family at Il Pero

Hot water

Phase TWO

With solar water heating it is, of course, necessary to have the solar panels, and generally the most effective place to have them in on the roof. Gravity and all that!

Out come Mr JCB once again to the rescue. But he can only help get the panels to first floor level.  This is of course where the BFG comes in very handy!

Between them, William and BFG, manage to , with the help of the scaffolding to get the panels up onto the roof.  Not forgetting of course that they have, Blue Peter style, already prepare the landing place for the panels. Large sheets of copper taking the place of the roof tiles that were there, with the fixing frame and plumbing all in place.

Heave ho and hey presto everything fits perfectly - I am unable to think for a moment why it wouldn't after all William is the project manager! Though I did notice a bit of head scratching up there on the roof - perhaps he was wondering how it all turned out to be so easy!

It won't be long until we have hot water running out of the taps in our house and I for one will be VERY happy!                                                   

    Now we just have to wait for the Gas man to come and hook up the back up system just incase the sun doesn't shine over Tuscany which, as we all know is impossible!!! At least that's what they say isn't it - somebody should have looked at the winter weather here. The sun may shine over Tuscany, but quite often there is a big fat foggy cloud between us and that famous sun!    In the meantime, the panels are all ready for connection and are already huffing out warm air from their empty tubes.  May they enjoy all the sun they can get! 

   

Hot Water

Phase ONE

Over the past few weeks William has been working hard to get a hot water system up and running in out home. Not that there isn’t any anywhere in the house you understand – our apartments at the eastern end of the house have had hot and cold water and heating for some years now. It’s just our end of the house that has been lacking in hot water for some time.

We decided to go ecologically friendly here with Solar panels – after all in Tuscany you get a whole lot of sun all year round so it seemed the obvious thing to do.

The reservoir tank had to go up into a corner first and this was a  feat in it’s self, I say first… actually there was a whole load of plumbing to go in first which took a fair amount of time, and then there is the wiring for the control panel and regulator and electronic switches … at this point I become lost in techno speak of which I know nothing about!

The tank weighs and enormous 130kg when empty and so it was with much sweat and heaving that it  was manoeuvred up into the house. First with the digger, (who said the dog is a man’s best friend, William’s is the JCB –his biggest and best toy!) making it look easy getting it up the first 20 feet onto the first floor of the house, followed by brut strength as William and Dave (the original BFG) dragged in through the ‘soggiorno’ and on through Annie’s bedroom and up the stairs into it’s resting place.

Finding it’s resting place was no mean feat either – at just under 2 metres tall, it was shoehorned into position and onto wall hooks and a sub-frame invented by his ‘cleverness’ William. It is now in place and woes betide anyone who decides it needs to be moved again!