Mystery to solve ?

H

Hillhater

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Here is one for all you wise “men/women” of the world..
Im currently on vacation in Portugal and have noticed an odd feature on many house’s with walled yards.
Rows of full 5 ltr water bottles on the top of the garden walls ??
We have asked locals etc , but have recieved no clear answer as to the purpose..
Example answers are..
To stop cats mating on the wall ?
To keep flies away..?
To scare birds. .
To store water ..?
I have my own ideas, but if anyone can expose the real reason, it will help me sleep better.. 8)
 

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If the people putting them there cant' tell you why they're putting them there, then there probably is no "real" reason for it.

Myself, I used to put bottles of water with teabags in them into upside-down aquariums on top of the dark-brown shed roof to make good suntea. (the aquarium was simply used to trap the heat and prevent convection or wind from cooling off the bottles)

Could've done the same with just water to save money on hot water if I was going to use it in the daytime for summertime, but that's a fairly inconvenient way to do that.

Could also be used to heat the water to then take inside and warm the house at night in winter, but the heat in winter here from sunlight isn't even enough to make good suntea in the bottle under the aquarium, much less provide significant warmth in the house when its' one of the handful of days each year actually cold enough to warrant it.

Cats I've known would've just laid on the bottles (watermelon-cover-fashion), especially after the evening cools off and the bottles are warmer than the air.

Dunno if birds would be deterred by such a thing; seems to require pointy objects to prevent their landing on stuff based on deterrents I see around here.

Since the plastic in most of these bottles exudes stuff that tastes like plastics into the water in them when heated, I can't imagine that storing water where it will be deliberately heated would be a good idea.

Additionally, if it gets as hot there as it does here, then on non-breezy days the water can reach the temperature required for the plastic to contract, and pressure pops the caps off. So any bottle on it's side loses all the water below the lower lip. I learned the first time I did the suntea to only use upright bottles and always leave an air gap in new bottles so shrinkage of plastic wouldn't leak tea out. ;)
 
Thanks marty, that is a common answer…..but…
……., Mythbusters tested the theory and found it was ineffective !
[youtube]S9LrhZRZvD4[/youtube]
..However, they did mention that it had proved very effective against FLIES ,!

It could still be that many folk in Portugal still believe in the cat/ fly deterent anyway ….since many other people obviously do also….and there are lots of cats around the streets here.
 
I think I can help you here Mr Hillhater:
If you want to store water and sterilise it and keep fresh for many years heres how:
1. wash out plastic bottle then let the bottle dry thoroughly ( must be no moisture left in there, completely dry) basically leave it open for a day or two.
2. fill with clean water, put the lid on.
3. put it in the sun: the sun sterilises the water........aha.........yes it does.......... a few days a few weeks even better
4. put the bottle wherever for storage, will have nice clean water for many years in plastic bottle

I do this myself. There might be an issue of plastic leaching into the water, but apart from that, water stays fresh and drinkable for years. I was skeptical myself about this method, but it works.
 
Ahh .! :bigthumb: ….Thanks whatever, that does sound interesting and possible as in the places i have seen this done , there is a lot of sun, and folk generally dont drink the tap water but buy these 5 ltr bottles at €1.0 a time. Maybe they are refilling with tap water and letting the sun sterilise it?
The only issue i see with that is,….sombody else stealing the bottles if they are left on the wall for a week or so ! :twisted:
 
Maybe that part of Portugal has fewer of the total scumbag you'd have to be to do that.

Or more "informal community justice" to act as an effective deterrent
 
I'm Portuguese, and never ever saw that. And I visited every part of my country.
Where did you saw that? In what region.
 
but it don't explain then why be soo mysterious if it's merely UV sterilization??
no, there's only one reason & two simple words why they're so anal retentive my dear despiser of the potential gradient.

carbon capture!

not only does it remove harmful ghg but also keeps plastic out of the ocean, win-win.
just don't over do it.

(wouldn't have got me thinkin' 'bout it if you hadn't been so damn mysterius)
ZeroEm said:
Have more crazy ideas but will keep to myself.
Click to expand...
 
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