So you want to live in Spain and bring your 80 with you.

[Dave2000]

Today I thought I would help perspective buyers who fancy moving to Spain

We discussed about living in an apartment or house avoiding certain areas, for example a nice house near the beach would be perfect for some people, whilst staying at a friends apartment in town (I needed a break from the silence where I live and the boredom as not being able to get out and drive either of my vehicles) well I was out walking my dog 'Cookie' this morning at around 5.30 and this apartment is three roads back from the beach, and within two roads you could hear the beach parties that have been going all night! True I could not hear them from 'Ana's' but another street nearer the beach and they were there in your head loud music screaming an shouting along with someone version of singing LOL, but hey this is Spain, so give that a thought when visiting and remember we are still a couple of months away from the holiday season! There is an upside, you can always go on holiday yourself during the summer months!

So 'campo' or countryside living which I have done for some considerable time now. Many people live in the countryside in the UK, but most have electricity and gas and even toilets and running water! Well the issue here is to define 'countryside'. First if you are more than say well........500 metres out of town you will not get gas, that will be bottled. Electricity is different and I live around eight kilometres out of town and have electricity, "woooo look at you" I hear you say.....just give me a moment to finish that line with 'most of the time'. I do recall when electricity was temperamental when I lived about 2 kilometres out of town but it has improved. But now at eight kilometres it is shall we say tolerable? So no mains gas, no mains water, no mains sewers and an 'iffy' electricity supply which to be fair may go on and off three times a week often for one or two days, two being the longest so far. As I mentioned gas will be bottles and will remain so for years to come. The thought of lugging around heavy steel gas bottles in and out of the boot of the car is not very appealing but can be done, it will be a bit of a bind as you get older (more of getting old in a moment), so what's the answer? Big gas bottles! Yes big, are are talking five foot or more in height and silly heavy. Get a contract for TEN bottles and then have a cupboard constructed to hold them, they will be propane so there must be vents in the top and bottom of the doors if you want keep them hidden, many have them in a simple cage so obviously well vented, remember propane being heavier than air will vent out at the bottom so allow for this. So now the ten bottles are connected to a manifold with ten being the maximum, but only five in use at a time. So ten bottle connected to the manifold and there is a changeover tap (not a switch but possibly doable if allowed?). So now you have a decent boiler for showers a gas supply for cooking, bathing and showers, a gas fridge freezer which are very reliable and even central heating (yes it gets cold here and UK pensioners who live here DO NOT get the winter allowance each year), and you have five of these great big bottles connected. There has to also be a tap near the boiler to turn of the gas in an emergency or servicing. Now obviously depending on usage you have a great gas supply, and when it runs out you simply go to the cupboard and use the changeover to to allow the supply from the other five bottles, the tap indicates from which 'set' you are using. Go back indoors and everything returns to normal, make a phone call and five more bottles will be delivered with a truck with a small crane within a couple of days, he or she will then disconnect and remove the bottles and fit five full ones in their place and reconnect them, you now have your back up supply reconnected. Usage, to give an idea how long these bottles will last is very difficult indeed, obviously in the summer if you are all salads and sangria, and of course no heating in use then the gas will only be used for an early morning showers as the water will be a little chilly depending on your 'deposito' or well supply, so to give you the closest guess was a good friend of mine used five bottles about every 7 - 8 months she lived alone in a four bedroom house with double glazing but no carpets except a large one in the lounge, radiators were kept on in all the bedrooms but set on minimum during the winter to keep dampness to a minimum, summer usage rose considerable when her three daughters came over with their friends, showers some home cooking and so forth, that's the best guess I am afraid. To add a little information, I live in a three bedroom country house alone and have three small gas bottles. There is one in a cupboard next to the cooker, one out in the boiler cupboard and one I use in a gas heater, I have an electric fridge and no central heating. The gas bottle for the cooker lasts a long time, mine has been in there three (3) years and has not run out, the oven is electric as is the kettle. I cook perhaps three or four times a week, a shower every day and during the period between October and unusually this year end of April use the gas heater for an hour each morning and a couple of hours each evening. I do have air conditioner with the inverter fitment which is a good back up for heating the lounge. I also have a log burner and these are great, they will heat my entire house and it will stay comfortable for at least 24 hours, they are cheap to use, you can can get logs delivered just like the gas, Store them dry but keep an eye out for quite harmless snakes as they like to live in the log storage are, I have four large plastic boxes where my logs or wood supply is kept, I have even cut up old pallets I have picked up at the side of the country roads, so literally zero heating cost! Discounting the somehow self replenishing gas bottle for the cooker I purchase one bottle per week, so it may be needed for the boiler one week or the gas heater the following one.

Now to the water supply, I have a well, yes I can see you thinking already, a deep hole in the ground with bricks built in a circle around it and a bucket hanging from a rope, well your wrong.....there is no bucket! The well I draw from has a well pump, these are long narrow pumps with filters on them, picture a small tubular exhaust silencer and this is lowered into the well with a pipe attached along with a cable for the electricity supply, the pump is a demand pump, that is it is only on when you run tap or a shower for example. There are a couple of problems here, Spanish water tends to have a lot of calcium in it so one way valves and toilet cisterns and so forth do not last long, You may need to pull the pump out of the well and clean the filter once every six months, easy five minute job with a wire brush. So let's remove the one way valve that stops the water running back and you do not have to wait three or four minutes to get the tap to run! And with the tap turned off and no one way valve the water returning to the well pushes out the calcium from the pump filter saving you cleaning it, so now it's just a once a year job...if that. So the trick it to have a small water deposit, on the roof of my house are two one thousand litre storage tanks joined together, they have a similar ball cock valve in them to stop them being over filled and the valve switches off the electricity to the well pump. The storage tank is gravity fed to another pump in garage and this is also a demand pump, you turn on the tap and the pump starts up within a second and pushes the water through three filters and onward into you home. The water filters need changing about once a year and are sold in a kit of three, each individual filter doing a different job, this includes one to make the water more palatable but, I NEVER drink the water or even use it in a kettle, bottled water only for drinking and the kettle for coffee, it is perfect for showering and the washing machine etc. If the property you purchase does not have a well then it will almost certainly have the aforementioned deposito, this could be a closed in version or an open one (not the best option). You then get a tanker delivery of 'agua potable' or drinking water, and no I would not drink that either! There is another option and that is have a well drilled for you, cost varies with depth needed to get to water,the cheapest I have seen was 5,000 euros and the most expensive IIRC was 8,000 euros. Bu this does include the special pipe that is supplied. The drill 'bit' is around 25 cm wide and like an oil rig the guy will keep adding sections to the bit until he strikes water, he then goes down about another 10 feet. once he is happy the hole has not collapsed he pushed down a tube around 15 cm wide but this is no ordinary tube, it is a filter tube, it has thousands of small holes in it and it is lowered to the bottom of the pre drilled hole and now semi filtered water fills the tube, filtered meaning no stones or whatever bigger than say a match head get into the well pump I mentioned earlier, and the job is done so now just pump to a deposit or storage tank, building a brick circle with a roof and a bucket on a rope optional.

So to toilets, and all that stuff. It's a hole in the ground and that's that. Most country houses have dug a large hole and have them lined with concrete along with purpose made holes around a couple of feet up the walls. When you flush the toilet the waste go into the 'pozo negro' or cess pit, solids sink and break up and the water level as it rises goes out through the purpose made holes in the concrete liner, depending on size the need to empty will vary. You can dig a large hole and purchase a concrete tube that is cut into rings like a tin of pineapple rings if you like and stack these in the large hole, fill around the rings with gravel as a 'soak-away' and of course make sure the pipes to your house are well support with the grave and you pop a lid on top of it as you would a sewer drain. Mine has never been emptied and upon checking it may be another two or more years before it needs to be. One of the thinks we need the cess pit to do is break down solid waste and it does this by creating bacteria, so the Spanish tend to see some road kill perhaps a cat or dog and pick it up and drop it in the pit , the bacteria breaks down the solids and you may never need to have the pit emptied. Well what about the washing machine water, well herein is the problem, the soap power or liquid kills the bacteria, so you can have nowhere to run the washing machine and sink pipes to (some point the pipes out to the campo and let it drain there. including bath water) or you can have a separate pit for that as well. One of the best solutions (no pun intended) is to purchase packets or sachets of dried bacteria from the supermarkets....no honest, you flush one of these down the toilet once a week and that's it, the liquids run out of your toilet deposit and the sachets of bacteria keep the solids breaking down, when it needs emptying you call in a guy with a tanker and he lifts the lid and hoovers out everything, and you start over apart from the emptying process there is no smell from these whatsoever..........of course there is always the road kill option.

I mentioned pensioners earlier, in the big scheme of things men tend to die before women, it's one of those facts of life. But men without being rude tend to be more practical with country house 'stuff' than the average woman, so if the man of the house dies could 'wifey' cope with all this, it is odd that so many women are living the dream in a beautiful house but cannot drive, so keeping that in mind along with the fact that most country areas do not have a bus service, it can be a hard graft unless you have a phone and a healthy bank account to call in for taxi's, and people to maintain the property.....by the way I did say call in for help? But what about if you don't have a mobile phone signal, there are no hard lines for phones here, same in that you need a good (read excellent) satellite or microwave signal if you want to watch TV. Of course none.....or shall I say most of this is insurmountable but keep it in mind eh?

So in a nutshell:

Electricity most of the time, if not then solar panels and a backup generator.
Water to be from a well, or brought in by a tanker.
Gas again brought in by a small lorry along with small bottles which can be delivered but are expensive.
Toilet system in the ground.

It really is not as bad as it sounds but the key here is as usual.....money.

Regards

Dave

 

[Dave2000]

So some more about Spain, this write up is about living in the 'campo' or countryside as I do.


So, let's talk about utilities in Spain, this is more about living in the 'campo' or countryside and this one deals with water and how to get it.

Of course let's start with water, so where is it coming from? There is a well (which I have), and yes it does look like the one you see in a kiddies book, just the little roof and bucket on a rope is missing. So who can have a well? Well anyone really assuming there is water down there somewhere, a guy comes along a forked stick or a couple of copper rods (least I think they are copper) and tells you where he is going to dig........no really it's that simple!

But your new well is not going to be like mine where it is a metre plus wide with a brick surround (unless you want it to be?) add a pitched roof and a bucket on a rope attached to a handle as per the kiddies book if you want but the cost will go through the roof! Mine has two pipes (one for the neighbour) with pumps on the end. Nowadays yours will be drilled by the guy who just sprayed a bright coloured cross on the floor, this is where he got the most sensitive reading for water and where he is going to drill, yes drill as per a mini oil rig. He will return assuming he found water (I have yet to see one of these clever people fail to achieve this) with what is a small drilling rig, there is the 'bit' and a selection of tubes that he attaches as he drills deeper into the ground adding extensions as he goes. Eventually the drill bit comes out with water and mud, he then adds another extension about two metres long, and the drill 'bit' is just around twenty five centimetres wide so a little under a foot. When he is happy the hole is deep enough and the sides are stable he removes the drill and the various attachments removed he then picks up what appears to be a two metre length of soil pipe, for those who know nothing about plumbing it is a pipe that is wide like the one used on the toilet waste. By using the plastic weld glue to join up the sections by the depth he knows the water to be at he lowers them into the ground however, the first pipe that goes in is perforated with millions of tiny (and I mean tiny) holes. This will go down into the water so there will be at least a couple of metres immersed into the water table, the rest of the pipe sections are solid and they are added and sealed and glued in place until the pipe is above ground level normally around a foot. His job is done apart from shoveling what soil was brought to the surface down around the side of the pipe to stabilise it and keep it in place. Now you need a well pump, this is cylindrical and with the electrical lead and of course a pipe attached it is lowered down the tube into the water, the pump has a filter along it's length which may mean pulling it up once every couple of years to give it a clean depending on how clean your water is, mine has been pulled up once in three years to be cleaned.

So what are you going to do with your now 'free' water although the drilling operation may have cost you as much as 10,000 euros depending on how deep the water was to get at, oh and of course cover the fine if the guy drilling it get's caught! A general price is around 2,000 euros for the well to be dug and 'tubed' in Murcia some other regions/provinces it maybe be more or less? But the fine the water companies charge can be ridiculous as they believe that all water under ground or not is theirs! If the well is found on your property (although a check is extremely unlikely) you cannot be found guilty of putting it there, if at the time of the drilling the fine is passed to the digger guy, after that once he has gone it is simply passed 'down the line' to previous owners of the land until the water company solicitor gives up or one of the previous owners has now passed away.

So the water is slowly entering the perforated tube and can now be pumped up to your storage tank, yes you are going to need one of them as well. The perforated tube can only allow so much water into it as it is effectively being filtered, so a washing machine may draw off enough water to drain the tube and delay the machines action, it would also allow air into the pump and not having water around it cooling can be an issue, so a storage tank it is. So how big should the storage tank/s be and where should you put it/them? Well if you are sure your roof can take the weight by putting the tanks/tanks over a supporting wall, and of course there is the aesthetic point of view if it/they cannot be hidden then that is the best place in my opinion. During the summer in the south the water will be heated during the day and so you get to wash up with hot water, even shower with warm water and of course find yourself being rather posh as you flush the toilet with hot water! Your water boiler may not even be used at all during say from the end of June through to the middle of September depending where you live.

So to the tanks, on my roof are two 1000 litre tanks that are shaped like large round dustbins and the well pump easily pushes the water up to this height, the two tanks are linked at the bottom with a small 20mm pipe, so the pump pushes the water into one tank and it flows into the next, instead of the normal float that shuts of the water as per a typical toilet system in the UK, the float is attached to a switch, when the tanks are full it switches off, the switch floats and will not come on until the tanks are about half empty/full depending on your point of view. My tanks were piped together wrongly in my opinion, the small bore pipe at the bottom of the tank cannot flow the water into the second tank as fast as the well pump can fill the primary tank, this results in the primary tank where the water is being pumped into filling before the water has reached the same level in the other tank. If I had done the install I would have used two 20mm pipes (obviously you cannot increase the diameter of the pipe between the tanks) one at the bottom and another at about mid way, the result would be that both tanks get filled to the same level before the pump switches off, remember my/our well is huge so there is no need to store water but there are other advantages. The first being that the water settling in the tank allows any fine sediment (if any) to settle, another you can gravity feed the water down to your house but it will be slow as it should filtered first as it passes though a set of filters (normally three) the first being course, the second is finer, and finally a carbon one to take out any 'earthy' scent that the water can have, do not drink this water in particular if you have fields around you, the various chemicals used on the veggies (yeh I know, don't you veggy's start me off) will eventually leach down and work it's way into the soil. So the water is perfect for washing, showering, washing up, and of course the toilet, you could of course boil it which I have never tried however, with water costing around 70 cents for 8 litres and the three filters being around 20 euros a set and changed around every couple of years why bother? As an asides some towns in particular mountainous areas have 'springs' which are fed from the mountains, this water is free and drinkable, but you can only take around 25 litres per day, seen taking more can be seen as a little naughty, just copy the locals, you get to chat and discuss the weather and so forth, seemingly odd to the typical English person but a genuine way to practice your Spanish and get to know the locals as it can be a typical daily exercise if you have nothing better to do....which is why your going there right?

So back to the tanks, if you have with worries about weight restrictions on your house you can have a huge tank built into the ground on your property, it will be concrete and reinforced and once water proofed will be fine for many years to come. The tank can also be on the surface but this can be a little unsightly, a water tank with a decent capacity and of a thick plastic will cost around 2,000 euros against the price of the 'dustbin' style I have on my roof which cost around 200 euros each and you can slip it into the back of an estate car, the large plastic versions that go underground added to the cost of digging out the hole and the delivery cost it makes sense to use the dustbin style besides, you want your house to look Spanish right? You can have the plastic tanks in green and leave them standing on a concrete platform that is smooth and clean, small stones under the weight of the water can cause them to pierce the plastic despite it's thickness, and you will need a pump and might want to disguise the tank by putting a wall around it and some nice flowers and so forth, think about the cost though. Now the pumps, I do in fact have the pump in the well and another in the garage, the well pump is around 350 euros and the 'normal' pump used for swimming pools and other watering needs your garden and for your house for example are around 200 euros and work perfect for all your needs, these pumps last for years and years, and when they fail it is rarely the actual pump, more likely the capacitor that starts the motor, this costs as much as 20 euros....wow big deal! As an aside you can have water delivered if you have the underground tank fitted. The problem is not only the inconvenience of it running out, you have to find a reliable delivery driver who will turn up and not overcharge you for the 'convenience of his service'. You will be charge for the delivery of let's say 10,000 litres, but of course your tank may hold that amount but you don't want to let the water get too low in case he does not turn up for a couple of days, and 10,000 litres will be what you will be charged for whether you pour the excess on the floor or he takes it away. There is also the charge for the water being 'potable' pronounced 'poortablee', this is drinking water and will be from the towns mains supply however, is is not uncommon to be charged water for water from a local reservoir or even the drivers own well, so don't drink it, charges vary so ask around, or simply watch what tanker seems to be seen in your 'manor' often enough to be trusted.

I will deal with waste water in the next installment soon, hopefully over the weekend.

Regards

Dave

 

[Dave2000]

With a little time on my hands and with it being 36*C during the day, I stayed indoors with the AC on and finished the water write up.

So we have our water coming int the house and now where does it go when we have finished using it?

You will need a 'pozo negro' or 'cess pool', basically a hole in the ground where your sink, shower/bath and of course toilet waste goes. There are a few options to be considered, a hole in the ground dug out with a JCB, deep and narrow and with a few planks over the top and your waste pipe goes straight into it job done, that however is something I would advise against. Being just a few inches below ground you will find things like snakes looking for a hiding place they will appear in the toilet and pop in and visit you on occasions, and if you have been shall we say a little silly with your choice of property (I mean it was cheap right?) near a landfill site for example then rats of various sizes will also like to come and see you, and you think you have seen big rats in the UK....yeh ok, so you will need a bigger cat......with a gun!

So the next options are a lot better, the big hole you dug could be lined with 'gunite' and 'rebar', the same way as swimming pools are made. This can have gravel around it and during the building small pipes are laid in the walls but well below the surface or ground level, this also prevents the holding tank becoming a boat, I will explain that a little later. Using this method with a concrete roof and an inspection/drainage access manhole cover to finish it off is a good system.

Next is a system that is a lot cheaper and yet just as effective and does not expose your 'pozo negro' to becoming a boat. A much smaller hole is dug deep into the ground around a metre square, two metres is better. You then lower rings made of reinforced concrete down into the hole and stack them on top of each other, each one has numerous holes drilled into each of the rings to allow liquid to flow out into the gravel whilst solids sink to the bottom, this is how all pozo's work. The last couple of rings below the surface are solid, that is there are no holes in them for liquid to escape and of course prevent snakes or rodents entering, the final ring is in effect a concrete cap with a round manhole cover in it. The outside of the pozo from about two feet down is surrounded by gravel, this is the drainage medium for the liquid allowing it to dissipate around the pozo and gravity pulling it downwards into the soil. a soil covering the gravel is then done for flowers or whatever.

So the size of the pozo is up to you, almost certainly there will be one when you purchase the house but it may be of the older style (not good), or it could simply be within a few feet of the house and in the way of your planned extension so a new one made need to be built, in general a round concrete ringed pozo with a diameter of say one and half metres will suffice for the average family, of course this does go with the 'how long is a piece of string?' question in how long will it be before it needs emptying. The Spanish tend to pick up road kill (a cat, a dog, or even a fox for example), and then simply lift the lid and throw it in the pozo, this will keep the bacteria going and break down feaces and so forth, using this method it could mean you never need to empty the pozo however there is catch. With our modern way of living we do like our washing machines and dishwashers and such like, the detergents in these kills the bacteria and so the pozo will need emptying and remembering our piece of string it depend on how many people live in the house, how often you do your washing.shower ect. So you can appreciate how often it will need emptying can be difficult to calculate. The cost of emptying will vary but expect a minimum of 150 euros thru to circa 300, and it does depend on you being a native Spaniard or not, but please do make sure all house windows and doors are closed and you don't have any washing outside drying, the stench leaves nothing to the imagination!

But is there an alternative? The answer is yes, you can dig and fit two pozo's and never have to empty either of them ever! One is the pozo negro and is for toilet waste only and the other is for sink/shower/bath/washing machine and dishwasher. For the pozo negro you might not find picking up roadkill is 'your thing', so when in the supermarket you can pick up packets of 'bacteria', it is similar to a T bag, pick up a couple of them once a month or two and flush them down the toilet, the bacteria ensures that all waste matter is continually broken down, and before you ask, yes there is a weak bleach that cleans and does not kill the bacteria, most people keep the sachets of bacteria in a cupboard in the bathroom and throw a couple down the toilet every month. Of course having a second pozo built can be a little difficult getting the waste plumbing reworked, but it is not as difficult as it first sounds, you redirect the toilet pipes to the new pozo and leave the other utilities in place, so not so bad as you might think. Other than the hole in the ground with a couple of planks over it the other versions with the man hole cover they do not smell however, in the warm weather the 'traps' in the sink/shower can dry out in just a couple of days, so you will find you will get odours, so plugs in when you go away for a couple of days or more, if you do smell anything then just pour a little bleach down the plug hole and then run the tap for just a few seconds and no longer, this will clean the trap of any odours and leave some diluted bleach in the trap, If you don't break down the bleach with a little water you will find it will corrode the cheap chrome plug holes you tend to get here, and if don't it will remove the chrome on the plug hole completely in very short order!

The boat.

Now I mentioned the boat 'thing' that happens. Well this ties in well with swimming pools and the theory that you should not leave a swimming pool empty as it can make the grout dry out between the tiles and leave the pool in need of re-grouting. Well there is an element of truth and depends on the type of grout used in the construction, but something much more serious can happen.
If your swimming pool was built in a hole dug in soft ground and then made with the gunite and rebar you have in effect built a boat! The ground around the swimming pool often starts to get very wet, and in fact get very wet in particular after a lot of rainfall. Now if your swimming pool is full of water there is nothing to worry about however, if it is empty for any period of time and this varies with the water content of the soil under and around your pool then it is now a boat, and concrete or not, if there is enough water under and around it your swimming pool it will literally lift and float! This will lift the floor and any tiles around the pool with it, and the pool when your boats is eventually refilled it may well crack, and this is normally at the point where steps are built in, which they should be from a safety point of view as you should never use steps that hang over the side, and the pool may also crack at the very deepest section. Having said all that, if the ground that was dug out for your pool was very rocky then there will not be enough water to create the buoyancy needed to lift the pool as the gunite and rebar will bond with the surrounding rocks.

So there you have it, water and how to get it and how to dispose of it and a little something about having a swimming pool.

If I have missed anything out or you need to ask a question, please let me know.

Regards

Dave

 

[Bob]

This sounds an awful lot like the systems we use in rural Ireland, including my own. The major difference being that they are completely legal, certified and in fact grants are available if you are sourcing your own water depending on if you are a new build or not. I for one am much happier as we have our own clean source, and you can really taste the difference if you drink 'town water' from the mains supply in a house that has it. Spain certainly seem to do things their own way

 

[Dave2000]

Apart from the water divining and drilling you can pretty much have a pozo anywhere you want, you would be surprised what at what happens overnight here, holes get dug and walls get built and so forth. Funny but you have to keep an eye on your property. Funny enough I know a place near Romford in Essex in the UK where the six or seven neighbours that had houses in a country lane, all agreed to move out their fence line, this their small gardens could be extended, Overnight they all moved their fences outwards extending their gardens, over the years they managed to steal something like 20 metres into the local woods! As far as I know a local police officers parents who moved on and left the land to him, he then sold it to a developer to build houses, this would have been a blot on the fields in front of the house I owned at the time, it was only when the land was measured the developer realised what had happened. As the neighbours that had stolen the land had dug a malice trench, and the land had become theirs.

Unsure what happened as I had then moved to Spain so.............

Regards

Dave

 

[Shayne]

Thinking on the water divining .

Surely the ground is a sponge and even rock holds moisture , so if you dig a hole deep enough almost anywhere it will fill from the bottom up with water eventually ?

Regarding the theft of land i've a vague notion from something forgotten i read years ago that it can be claimed after maybe 10 years of free uncontracted use unchallenged ?

Just now i learn because it sprung to mind the movie Hamstead is actually based on true events !

 

[Bob]

Yes, it's called vacant possession. Had a case of it with the field beside us a couple of years ago. Family put in a claim, which seemed legit, but also included parts of our property wich I spotted. I challenged it and met with the claimant and explained in no uncertain terms what was going to happen. A week later a new claim was lodged for a smaller piece of that field, which they got, but I retained our part of it, including 250 year old buildings which they had their hungry eyes on.

 

[Dave2000]

Thinking on the water divining .

Surely the ground is a sponge and even rock holds moisture , so if you dig a hole deep enough almost anywhere it will fill from the bottom up with water eventually ?

Regarding the theft of land i've a vague notion from something forgotten i read years ago that it can be claimed after maybe 10 years of free uncontracted use unchallenged ?

Just now i learn because it sprung to mind the movie Hamstead is actually based on true events !

Land grabbing is quite common hence the use of the malice trench. Re the divining Shayne, I get what your saying however, I am assuming the guy looking for water is looking for 'free' water, and given the arid nature of the top soil he will be looking for water in cracks or fissures in the ground deep below the surface, either way it works.

Regards

Dave