It’s that time of the year again. At the end of summer, we’ll be inspecting our homemade limestone caves, just like every year. Pardon? Where might that be?
Those limestone caves are growing in our boilers
Calcium-rich water combined with heat does a lot to your equipment. Not just your equipment, by the way, because outside you can also see those distinctive, lumpy limestones with holes everywhere. People used to decorate their gardens with them – now everyone just leaves them where they are.
The mineral water that, until the 1980s, made for a popular spa because it cures skin diseases, still flows abundantly through our bathhouse. It’s heated to about 30°C by Mother Earth in a deep subterranean lake on the opposite hill. (Which, unfortunately, you can’t reach – too bad, no limestone caves of our own.)
This not only creates a huge space with underfloor heating (the bathhouse hall), but also our own water source. Five-star mineral water, with a whole list of ingredients, that flows straight from your tap. A blessing in these difficult times. Even better, and a touch decadent: you can even flush the toilet with it.
Unfortunately, it’s not a blessing for your water heaters
They, in particular, suffer from limescale buildup, because they’re on 24/7. That’s why we clean them every year; in early autumn. We use a lot of vinegar in the process. It’s always exciting, because this time it was the biggest one’s turn. (We have five, spread across all the houses.)
The previous tenant had “done it themselves”—that is, had it done by a company that apparently had no experience at all, because they replaced the drain valve with a lousy little pressure balloon, and nothing else. Completely unnecessary, because the boiler is in the attic; it doesn’t need that silly balloon. On the other hand, we really miss that drain valve, because now we have to use the vent hose, which takes quite a while.
A nice trick, we discovered, is that if you unscrew the flange just a little bit beforehand, so that air can get in, it goes a lot faster. However, if you unscrew too enthusiastically, the flange suddenly comes down, and you get all 200 liters all over your ceiling and yourself.
“Damn it,” I said, my shirt dripping wet, “they can send people to the moon, but apparently, they can’t come up with a decent design for a hot water thingey. What idiot puts that cap on the bottom? Have they never heard of gravity??”
Broes is already laughing about it, but he was sitting next to the boiler and stayed dry. I was standing underneath it.
That was a good lesson learned this past year. So we’ll take a little longer this time
When you finally open that thing, it’s always a surprise what kind of homemade limestone cave emerges. This is a big one; start scrubbing it down! Then put it in the vinegar, and then it’s time to look at the magnesium rod. It’s next to the heating element to ensure that the limescale eats away at the rod instead of sticking to the element.
“Imagine what happens when you don’t have that thing in there!” Broes says, and then tells me that this boiler has an M5 connection for that rod, which we don’t have. Magnesium rods of all shapes and sizes are in stock, but not one with an M5 thread.
Luckily, we have a great place for those things. The service from Tien21 Azenha & Irmãos in Tojeiro is unparalleled. I’ve often gone in a bit dejected with what seemed like an insurmountable problem to me, but it’s always resolved. “I did give you an adapter last time,” says the woman from Tien21, but: “Oi, I don’t know which boiler it ended up in, but definitely not this one,” I reply.
Now, after all these years being a happy client, I can text her when we’re about to start the big limestone cave boiler cleaning. And I can start with absolute confidence because the Senhora of Tien21 always has a solution for any problem –
if it involves a (limestone cave of a) boiler for sure!
(Disclaimer: I’m a bit tired of the keyword stuff and Google’s dictatorship. So here they are, and I’m also hoping for the cleverness of AI in this matter that it will still be found and read, but that I don’t have to force myself to use the right terms in the title and headings. #limestonecaves #boilers #Tien21 )
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We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal. We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa. You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.