Alicanteos

One thing I noticed in Spain is the high level of noise in certain apartment, your neighbour way too high…. It was the case when I various flats in Valencia. As I remember Alicante was a quieter place especially where I stayed en La Urbanicazion La Marina (Elche)
Now some good news on the front of sound isolation in Spain.

According to minister Carme Chacón, 1/3 of Spanish homes have too much noise it affects 12 millions people in a country of 40 millions people.
There are new projects to increase the level of sound protection of homes. It involves better isolation of walls and windows.

At this level of the project, they are just doing studies and writing a new official document on the subject.

Technorati Tags: sound, protection, isolation, spain

Since September 2006 new constructions who use hot water (houses, flats, hospitals, hotels, etc…) are required to conform to the new Código Técnico de la Edificación (CTE), installation of a solar thermal system, the system will be used to heat water and produce electricity.

Requirement isn’t the same depending on the regions and the climate of the area. As a whole, the European Union hopes by 2010 that 12 % of his consumed energy will be renewable energies.
The cost of solar thermal system is high but it last in average 25 years, except 10 years for amortization.

Buying a property off-plan (off-plan property is a property that has not yet been fully constructed) can present certain risks.
First you cannot check what is offered to you until some substantial construction have been made, secondly the developer can vanish in the air even before the date of the construction. There are a few guarantees that you should always check out when you buy off-plan.

An off-plan reservation contract starts with the deposit of a sum of money then the buyer and developer can sign agreements, the contract presented to the buyer should always be negotiable, if the developer refuses to negotiate the buyer has the right to receive a full refund of his deposit.

The buyer has the following rights:

To know the identification information of the developer and the architect

Detailed description of the property and its surface.

(more…)

Smoke detector are kind of alarm that detect airborne smoke, they do are useful but they have some limitations important to know.

Using inadequate battery is one of the problem often encountered, another problem is when the battery run out and you don’t know about it, the solution is to revise often the smoke detector battery, the model on lithium battery can last up to 10 years.

Another aspect to consider is when the alarm isn’t powerful enough to be heard in the entire house or outside the house. There are also case when the alarm doesn’t start it usually happen after strong explosion such those caused by gas.

Sometimes, it is possible that the fire doesn’t produce enough smoke to be detected for that reason it is recommend to install a greater numbers of smoke detectors to ensure a faster alert.

Two of the most reliable type of smoke detectors are the ionization type and photoelectric type, it is recommend to replace them every 10 years. (more…)