After some delay and confusion the work has now started on the roof.
Expecting it to take a couple of weeks we are hopeful that it can be done before the rainy season starts properly here in Vale de Prazeres. The forecast is for some light rain by the end of this week but we are assured that it should be generally watertight by then.
In true Portuguese style, the team arrived some time after we expected but within an hour they had a small scaffold tower erected and the roof was being removed.
After a further 1½ hours almost half of the roof tiles had been removed and off they went for lunch.
The bow in the ridge line of the roof is not a trick of the camera, it really does sag that much. By the end of the first day the main roof and most of the timber structure had been removed. These guys are simply work animals and have a lot more faith in the existing structure than I do, but the building has not collapsed - yet!
All this debris is piled up on the 'floor' of the loft space which is just ½" thick cladding boards supported on 3" joists which are mostly just nailed end-on to a master cross beam. In addition to this, although the supporting wall in the room below is a brick construction it is built onto a wooden floor with very little support beneath and has already sunk significantly - very worrying.
Not surprisingly, there were a number of strange sounds emanating from the room upstairs overnight. And we still have to go through there to access the bathroom. I would say that we're not travelling to the bathroom under open skies but there are so many holes and gaps in the ceiling that does seem like that.
