Horrorhor

We have nice aluminium doors with glass, and as an extra a mosquetera: another set of alu doors with a grille at an angle to keep the sun out, and mosquito netting to keep the mosquitos out. The mosquito netting was rather holey. The netting is kept in place with aluminium strips that are screwed onto the door with little screws. Nice construction, for easy replacing of netting.

Well… engineer Jansen has been at work all morning on two doors, as the screws were all corroded. He cunningly used his spraycan of WD40 to eeeeasily loosen the screws. Damn! Blast! etc. 

Holey mosquetera!
Probably a tiger.
Could have lost my leg!

One done, one to do

Moving to Aargh 13 - Fly screens

We don't seem to have many mosquitos here, but there definitely are flies. 

Kitchen, upstairs bathroom, and downstairs wc, now have nice aluminium fly screens, crafted by engineer Jansen himself.

The downstairs wc screen has aluminium mesh, as you can reach it from the street, and the window is large enough to climb through! Don't want that.

The kitchen window has two large panes that swing open to the outside.  Chose to restrict that to the space between window and screen.

Splash screens

Ground floor windows acrylic rain splash shields, in aluminium profiles. One of these days the house is all finished. Oh, the big window still to be done. Comercial Vera here I come. Well, tomorrow. Maybe. Mañana.

Still to be done

(This house has no gutters, so rain splashes from the roof onto the pavement. If you look in Antas when it rains they all have plastic bags in front of their doors.)

Ow, and the window on the terrace. TWO more!

Shutters, mosquito screens and oil

Some people may think we're lazing in the pool all day, but at least for one of us that is not true. There are some shutters, screens and windows to do up. Not seen sandpaper or brush in at least ten years, so high time to sand off the old dry wood stain, and apply a nice Tung oil. (These are the windows and shutters of the kitchen, at the side of the house.)

Shiny!

 Now for the windows themselves..

Fly Screens 5

Now the big windows of the bedroom and living on the first floor, on the east side. No old fly screens, though they definitely have been here, seeing the evidence...

I counted 50, weighed them: 3g. All together these weigh 36 grams, so ca. 600 staples.

Fly screen 4b

Yesterday: 123 staples. Well, no. As you ar sanding, more show up. 8 more!

Fly Screens 4

Are you sick and tired of my window frames and fly screens too? I am sympathetic with me too. This wood may be sanded heavily... It is not rotten! Only the top layer is weather-beaten.

 123 staples. PIGS!


Correction: 131. While sanding 8 more showed up.

 Lucky this is a window that is accessible from the outside. (Bath room 2)

And the fly screen, also made today. Of the last bits of aluminium corner stuff. The aluminium is now all used, all 15 pieces of 2 meters. And the Lopez is out of stock, because we bought the whole supply. And, as everyone at the aluminium center is now on holiday new supplies will only be available in September.. That is not even "mañana"..

Fly Screens 3

, it keeps a man occupied.

Fly Screens 2

Now the screens for the two big windows. A bit bigger aluminium profiles, 1.5 cm. Each a day work, but they work! Immediately after installing a few flies could not get out.

A bit of a nasty surprise with window number two: I had not seen that there is a sill/beam on the lower end of the window that sticks a centimeter beyond the window frame when the window is closed. So, you cannot install the fly screen in the window frame, because this beam will push the fly screen our of the window frame. Which explains why the old fly screen was loose on the underside, too. It was stapled onto the window frame, but also detached when the window was closed.

So, the fly screen needs a hinge at the top, so it automatically gets pushed out a bit when the window is closed. No problemo señor.

Fly screens

Now the old fly screens skilfully have been removed from the window frames, the mosquito's game was on. And yes, there are mosquitos here, now and then. Probably related to the irrigation of the orchards here. Sometimes some puddles of water remain. I am very attractive for mosquitos. Even with evening showers, and DEET. So, a new job: about ten fly screens need making.

Bought aluminium angular profiles, 1cm x 2 meter, labelled "hoekprofiel". Yes, the stuff is imported from The Netherlands. And a whole roll of fly screen screen, 30 meters for 40 €.

The first fly screen took a whole day, the second just a few hours and only a quarter of the curses. And it turns out quite well, thank you. Dark wood with a strip of aluminium looks quite good!

I had expected the tensioning of the screens would be quite a job, but it isn't. The screen stuff is not elastic. Only a little bit. So it's quite right when first put in it's frame. Which was nice. And it saves a lot of cursing.