#1 First days at my cabin in the Italian Alps.

Hey guys, welcome to this channel. My name is Martijn Dolar and this is the first day into my new adventure, which is building a homestead in the Italian Alps. Signed the documents yesterday, I've got the keys and here I am. It's on the top of this hill at 1200 meters in Val Pellice, which is west from Turin, about two hours from Turin, quite close to the French border. Quite a lot of land, 2.3 hectares, which is almost six acres I believe. So it's these two stone cabins or they're more like barns, animal shelters, dating from 1903, which is very old. Thick walls, dry stone walls and it's very bare bones. It's basically four walls and a leaking roof. There's no plumbing, there's no electricity, there's no toilet or whatsoever. It's very basic. So there's a lot to be done, but that's why I bought this. I didn't want to buy a house to simply just live in there. I wanted a project and I fell in love with these historical buildings, which are beautifully built. The walls are drywall, so all the stones are neatly stacked on top of each other. Very thick walls, so it keeps standing by the weight of the building. There is a water connection very close to the house, so I don't have to worry about that. I do have to create all of the plumbing, but the connection is there, which is the aqueduct. So the water that comes from the mountain is filtered and then goes through a pipe to all the houses towards the valley. I brought all of my tools, obviously, and I've prepared the solar system so I would have electricity from day one. It's just plug and play, if all goes well. The idea is to renovate one place first, because the smaller cabin has a floor. The other one has a floor too, but it's very old. So renovate one cabin first, like build a stove, build a little kitchen, and then in next spring do the bigger renovations. So, unloading. There's quite a lot of walking to do. Luckily I have a wheelbarrow to bring it all down to the house. Right now there's a tractor of the old owner. It's a French guy. They're picking up their stuff, which is much easier because the tractor can go closer to the home. But this is okay, with a wheelbarrow. Just some walking up and down. Luckily it's down and up. This view is so gratifying. I'm gonna enjoy this for quite some time, I think. So this is the end of the first day. Let's do a recap. I arrived here in the morning. Everything went well. I thought it would be difficult with the trailer because of the steep road, but it was alright. It took me, I think, 30 minutes from the village to here. Maybe 40. But it was nice. It was a cloudy day. And it cleared up for a moment when I arrived here. So it was beautiful. I got like the present right away. The beautiful view. So that was really nice. And after that the clouds came back. I met the neighbor he introduced himself. He's a guy from Austria. He lives there for six years. So he's just around the corner on the other side of the hilltop. He's a priest, I believe. A Catholic priest. But he does it via YouTube. Why not? Yeah, so he was really nice and really helpful. His help. Yeah, and then just walked up and down. The car is about 50 meters away. 70 meters. And I think it's 20 meters up the hill. But luckily carrying everything down is easier than up. But it is still a lot of work. But most of the car and the trailer is here. It's getting dark so I have to quickly do the electricity. So I have light in the evening. Just connected the gas. I probably sleep in my tent because it's very dirty inside. I have to clean it up. Probably do that tomorrow. Yeah, beautiful first day. It's super exciting to be here and to see the potential of this place. It's a lot of work to be done. But I'm excited about it. Not the entire winter here. But at least a few weeks and then we'll see. I know this is a strange place for solar. But they need to be close to the battery and the charge controller and everything. And the inverter. I have to build a little house for them. A little shed. I'll probably do that over there. So for now I put them here so they can charge the batteries. And just testing a bit. But they need to be in full sun. Otherwise they don't work. I thought they would work also in the shade. But it's too bad. Maybe they're older. I have to do some research about that. But it's charging now. About 5 amps. I'm gonna put them all in the sun now and see how that works. That should be 15 amps charging capacity. So that's gonna be good. So it only charges in full sun. So that's just a few hours a day. Which should be fine. But yeah. I think I have to put them over there. Cooking some schnitzel with onion and mushrooms and potatoes. Everything is still a mess. This is my desk. It's the kitchen. It's where I cook. It's where I store. I mean everything is still in different places. Different boxes. It's a mess still. That's the first thing I have to do. Is organize where I live. How I can prepare my food. It's the first time I cook and it's chaotic. And I have to be careful with food. Storing it. Because there's probably mice here too. So it's a slow start. Ow hot. Broke the light again. I just put it on like a few days ago. After the accident. But I mean the trailer got blocked here in this little ditch. And it's so low. So the lights hit the bottom. It happens. It's okay. So good thing that there's water here. A water connection. Which is water coming from the mountain. And that's the company that manages that. So there's a few water points. It goes to all of the little houses down the valley and also that way. But the bad thing is that the previous owner made a bad connection. So in winter if you leave the tap closed it would freeze and explode. And then the water would drain and he wouldn't be here. Because he lived in France. And because all the water would drain here into the ground. The rest of the mountain would have no water. So a huge issue. So this is all badly done. Like the water connection is over there. Just out near the house. And from there I have to create all new plumbing. Something for next year probably. So now I do it with the water containers. So this is where the water connection is. And because there's a leak at the house I have to close it every time I fill up my bottles. And I have to dig a trench here like a meter deep to connect a new pipe. So it's properly done. So in winter it doesn't freeze and explode. Because right now when I leave this open for a few days. Which I did on the first day. The whole rest of the mountain won't have water. Because all the pressure goes away and it all leaks into the mountain. Like in the soil right there near the house. So all the people came to me. Or the company which runs and manages the water. They were checking all the places where it could go wrong. And eventually the problem was here at the house. But you know I've been here three days. I didn't know. Now I know. So I need to fix it. Works. It pulls well. The pipe is too short. I should have bought a longer pipe. I can do that tomorrow or the day after. I just didn't want to do another night in the cold. So I think this will be fine. As soon as the pipe gets hot it will pull better. And if there's smoke coming in the house. I mean it's ventilated very well. So it won't be a problem. Maybe it smells a bit. But let's see. So there's this great app called PhotoPills. Which shows the direction the sun is going in the day and night. You can see you have quite a bit of sun in the afternoon. And it says there around five. Goes behind the mountains. And it comes up here around ten. Comes over the trees. Now it's set to winter as you can see. The sun barely rises over the trees. The solar gets like just a little bit of sun at noon. Because the solar is a bit backwards. Right. It's a bit more over there. Yeah. Winter is not a great place to be here. It's fine in November and February onwards. The sun will rise. It will be higher. It will be similar to now. So that will be better. But December. Christmas. No. So now I've set the 21 June. The longest day of the year. Obviously a lot of sun. Even the house has got a bit of sun in the mornings. Sets over there. Goes down.