# Portugeise building regs



## honeyvalley

We have brought a property in central Portugal which is in need of some essential repairs and are looking to do some of the work ourselves but feel we need to understand the local Building Regs to enable us to complete the work to the standards required, in particular the electrical regulations, 

Does anyone know where I vcan access the building regs for portugal?

Alternatively if you know of English speaking trades men in the Castelo Branco area that would be helpful?


----------



## canoeman

I'd suggest you visit the Camra's engineers department, to see what you can or cannot do yourself, what requires a licence or a registered trades person.

This tends to dictate how and what you do as regards building regs. I'm sure they are there but I've not yet come across any easy to understand regulations.


----------



## honeyvalley

*Thank you*



canoeman said:


> I'd suggest you visit the Camra's engineers department, to see what you can or cannot do yourself, what requires a licence or a registered trades person.
> 
> This tends to dictate how and what you do as regards building regs. I'm sure they are there but I've not yet come across any easy to understand regulations.


Thank you

will go and see them when we visit, but if anyone know where we can access building regs they would be helpful to referto between visits or I can see we will spend all out time in the office and not doing any work


----------



## omostra06

Having spent far to many hours at the council offices in meetings with the council engineers when building our properties, going over the regulations, i can tell you that even the council employees struggle to interpret the building regs, (and they can read Portuguese!) better to go and ask specific questions to the council engineer, but be aware if you ask two council engineers the same question you will get two different answers! (and maybe even two different answers from the same engineer on different days!

Good luck with your renovations, if you cant make it to the council and want some advice drop me a message and maybe i can share what i have gleamed over the years.


----------



## honeyvalley

omostra06 said:


> Having spent far to many hours at the council offices in meetings with the council engineers when building our properties, going over the regulations, i can tell you that even the council employees struggle to interpret the building regs, (and they can read Portuguese!) better to go and ask specific questions to the council engineer, but be aware if you ask two council engineers the same question you will get two different answers! (and maybe even two different answers from the same engineer on different days!
> 
> Good luck with your renovations, if you cant make it to the council and want some advice drop me a message and maybe i can share what i have gleamed over the years.


Thank you for your response

We will call and see them but may well take you up on your offer as our Portuguese is very limited and we are concerned that we will get something wrong.


----------



## PETERFC

*Reply*



honeyvalley said:


> Thank you for your response
> 
> We will call and see them but may well take you up on your offer as our Portuguese is very limited and we are concerned that we will get something wrong.



Hi Honeyvalley

Before you are able to use the Private Messaging you need to post 5 times.

Good luck with your works

Peter


----------



## canoeman

honeyvalley said:


> Thank you
> 
> will go and see them when we visit, but if anyone know where we can access building regs they would be helpful to referto between visits or I can see we will spend all out time in the office and not doing any work


I know this is going to sound a bit bizarre, but the first thing to get your head round, is understanding what you can or can't do without permissions.

If the property as you say needs some essential repair you might require a licence, for some or all of it, normally that means you must employ a builder with the correct "licence" to then do that work. 
It's when you reguire that licence or planning permission that the building regs kick in.
Very generally if your renovating internally you don't need permissions but if your altering size or use of rooms you might need to inform Camra or Financas 

Depending on age of building, you might want to totally rewire, older buildings will probably have a box or boxes above doorway, cable from fuseboard to box for power, lights and sockets are then run for that room from that point.

Planning is the key to electrics, phone,TV water and C/h here as nearly all cables/pipes are run in tubes buried in floor or walls it's very difficult to suddenly decide you want an extra plug, telephone socket or TV point etc.

It often helps to do a search for subject in Portuguese so try this for electrics, but then you have to make head or tail of the PDF files
português regulamentos de instalação elétrica


----------



## paramonte

Do you already have an habitation licence for the property? This will make all the difference


----------



## honeyvalley

Yes we have a habitation license for the property, however the previous owners had started replacing the electrical works I believe that these will need some sort of certificate and while we could complete the works need to ensure they are to the standard necessary to obtain the electrical certificate, and how we go about getting one we are unclear at this time.

Being novices to property in Portugal we welcome any advice


----------



## canoeman

What age is house? generally you only need a certificate if your renting, if certification was required it would have formed part of Escritura.
If your unhappy with the work previous owner has done, then get an electrician in to check and advise, he might be quite happy to tell you what needs doing then when you've done work do connections to board and issue a new certificate if reguired.


----------



## honeyvalley

canoeman said:


> What age is house? generally you only need a certificate if your renting, if certification was required it would have formed part of Escritura.
> If your unhappy with the work previous owner has done, then get an electrician in to check and advise, he might be quite happy to tell you what needs doing then when you've done work do connections to board and issue a new certificate if reguired.


Hallo Thank you

The house I think dates from 1937 at least that date is mentioned on the paper work

the more I hear the more I am confused, others tell me I need the certificate before we can connect to the electric supply. but at the moment the electric supplier cant even locate the house although it has in the past had a connection but because we dont currently have a meter the address wont show up on their records.

I am sure we will get to the bottom of this with every ones help.


----------



## canoeman

Ah, right you didn't say that before, so effectively it is a new connection.

How close are you to the main supply grid?
It is possible that the supply might not have been from EDP but from a local house? 
Is it obvious there has been a meter anywhere? might have been on boundary, but generally on older property on an external house wall.

First you need to get in contact with EDP, identify house and that you want a supply, * and the cost*, they will also tell you what you are required to do.

Second you need an electrician to check current installation and advice what to do.

When you say it has a habitation Licence do you mean a PEDIDO DE CERTIDÃO DE PRÉDIO
CONSTRUIDO ANTES DE 1951 from Câmra stating the house was built before 17th August 1951 or a Licença de Utilização (Habitation Licence)


----------



## omostra06

honeyvalley said:


> Hallo Thank you
> 
> The house I think dates from 1937 at least that date is mentioned on the paper work
> 
> the more I hear the more I am confused, others tell me I need the certificate before we can connect to the electric supply. but at the moment the electric supplier cant even locate the house although it has in the past had a connection but because we dont currently have a meter the address wont show up on their records.
> 
> I am sure we will get to the bottom of this with every ones help.


I have sent you some info in a pm about getting connected / reconected to electricity
hope it helps.


----------

