An interesting price comparison for those considering cave life here in Andalucia, the figures are approximate!!!!
Figures are "per month" and based on the bills that I pay on my cave compared to a 3 bed semi in the UK - so opinions may differ!
Cave vs UK
Electricity £30 £25
Gas £2 (two) £26
equivilent council tax £0.55 pence £89
Internet broadband £30 £17
TV lisence £0 £9? - cant rememeber!
insurances (life, contents etc) £12 £45
Car insurance £189 £265
Petrol (60ltr full tank)* £40 £62
Some other prices you may find interesting...
Premium lager (case x 24 500ml cans) £9 £22
200 Ciggies (lambert + Butler) £19 £42
XL leg of lamb (very fresh!) £6 £14
Bottle of red wine (rioja) £1.30 £3.50
32" sony widescreen TV £530 £480 (for same model)
bosch grinder £40 £36 (same model)
Cheapest floortiles to be found (per 4m2) £3 £6+???
Dimmer switches £29 £7
Shopping bill (2 adults, 1 child) £250 £400+
As you can see most items are cheaper with the odd exception, internet is very expensive compared to the UK and the service that you get - if you have no landline then you have to go satellite. Reliability and performance vary on who you talk to.
For those who enjoy the odd beer and bottle of wine this part of Spain will make your wallet smile without doubt! Simple maths suggests that if you buy 1 crate of beer per week and 1 bottle of wine then you will save £3650 over 5 years thats 5500 euros, of course everything is relative which we must not forget.
Next week...How not to mix "yeso" (plaster), the differences and for those already in Spain - how to get yeso rapido to last longer than contralado and aquire a glass sheen finish. Not possible? Yes it is!
10/29/05
10/28/05
Tools, what do you need?
I can only give limited advice here as everyones "casa cueva" will be different. The one thing I will say is though is that I was "Screwfix directs" favourite customer up until the last month before we left. I purchased a whole range of tools wanting to be safe in the knowledge that I had everything! Most of the cars and the caravan were weighed down with tools which as you will know are not light.
considering our cave was completely unreformed I have not used the following....most of which cost me considerable expense.
Plaine (still unwrapped)
Bolster chisels
Stanley knife (still in wrapping)
Assorted screws (most unused)
Hawk (unused)
Wood chisels
Sand paper/wirewool
Assorted sds drill bits (most unused)
5x wood chisels (still in box)
light hammer
And many other odd bits and peices...
Here is a list of some tools/equipment I found absolutley essential, some of which you may find surprising.
SDS Hammer drill - essential
Cold chisel (for channelling electrics)
Srewdrivers of all shapes and sizes
Hammer (used only occasionaly)
Club hammer (2.5lb) - essential
Band saw
Blowtorch
Battery charger
maglite (6 cell - allways handy)
Tile cutter (bring one with you)
Spanner set (essential)
Candles/matches/lighter
Petrol cans x2 (1 deisel, 1 petrol)
Gerry can 25ltrs
Pick
shovel
Generator (supplied by a good friend - you know who you are! cheers mate)
Once we were here and visited the local hardware shops I came to realise that the money I had spent in the UK for both essential and non-essential tools had been a complete waste of money - but not everything...
Forget hand tools in the UK (hammers etc) as these can be purchased at a fraction of the cost. There is a whole selection of tools in Spain which you may not even recognise but each has its purpose and is designed for the job better than any UK equivilent. Electrical tools are different, large items such as grinders/saws/generators etc may be worth buying in the UK depending on your renovation requirments. Of course all this depends on basic economy, price and is it worth transporing them? It all depends on your situation, there are no rules.
Last thought: If I knew then what I know now maybe our pine table and 6 chairs would not have been sold for pennies and come with us to Spain instead.
considering our cave was completely unreformed I have not used the following....most of which cost me considerable expense.
Plaine (still unwrapped)
Bolster chisels
Stanley knife (still in wrapping)
Assorted screws (most unused)
Hawk (unused)
Wood chisels
Sand paper/wirewool
Assorted sds drill bits (most unused)
5x wood chisels (still in box)
light hammer
And many other odd bits and peices...
Here is a list of some tools/equipment I found absolutley essential, some of which you may find surprising.
SDS Hammer drill - essential
Cold chisel (for channelling electrics)
Srewdrivers of all shapes and sizes
Hammer (used only occasionaly)
Club hammer (2.5lb) - essential
Band saw
Blowtorch
Battery charger
maglite (6 cell - allways handy)
Tile cutter (bring one with you)
Spanner set (essential)
Candles/matches/lighter
Petrol cans x2 (1 deisel, 1 petrol)
Gerry can 25ltrs
Pick
shovel
Generator (supplied by a good friend - you know who you are! cheers mate)
Once we were here and visited the local hardware shops I came to realise that the money I had spent in the UK for both essential and non-essential tools had been a complete waste of money - but not everything...
Forget hand tools in the UK (hammers etc) as these can be purchased at a fraction of the cost. There is a whole selection of tools in Spain which you may not even recognise but each has its purpose and is designed for the job better than any UK equivilent. Electrical tools are different, large items such as grinders/saws/generators etc may be worth buying in the UK depending on your renovation requirments. Of course all this depends on basic economy, price and is it worth transporing them? It all depends on your situation, there are no rules.
Last thought: If I knew then what I know now maybe our pine table and 6 chairs would not have been sold for pennies and come with us to Spain instead.
Renovating a cave - what comes first?
Being stung by the same wasp twice in my mouth was not a nice experience to say the least, in the campo you learn very quickly to buy bottled beer with a screwcap top -wasps love beer! Having no water to the cave our neighbours kindly agreed to let us use theres, this involved numerous trips per day to next doors hose pipe to fill up drums of water for the caravan. Showers were quite pleasant having left a 20 gallon drum of water out in the sun all day the water becomes quite warm.
The main priority in any unreformed cave is the bathroom. Bedrooms and living rooms come last - it is essential to have a fully functional bathroom as soon as possible. This however does require a Spanish plumber and more importantly WATER! Application to the town hall was made for our water connection 30 days before we got it (and even then it was only an outside tap) In between then trenches had to be dug for waste pipes and gradients calculated for a sufficient slope to the pozo negro (cesspit)The rule of gravity dictates that poo does not roll uphill so the pipe system had to be carefully planned. In a lot of caves the bathroom is generaly built onto the front with the kitchen near the front also, in our cave though the bathroom is near the middle of the cave which is to some extent unusual, however all that was involved was 10 metres of extra waste pipe and much more digging.
We had employed local Spanish builders to construct our cesspit and also make safe the ceilings in 3 rooms - one of which was the bathroom. The floor in the bathroom had to dropped by 18 inches to allow for headroom (allways dig down never up!)which meant the waste pipe had to be 46 inches at the front door to meet the pipe to the cesspit - getting the two to match on a gradient was not easy.
Electrical channelling is advisable as one of your first jobs, the fact that it creates so much dust is reason in itself to get it out the way with asap. I went through two bosch grinders making channnels for "conduit" throughout the whole cave. Another tip is to plan your electrics carefully, really sit down and think about where you want your switches and sockets, do they need to be double? ceiling lights or wall lights? and make your switches all the same height from the floor.
*A note on dimmer switches: Do buy dimmers from the UK if you really want them, dimmer switches retail for 35 euros+ in rural Spain the equivilent from B&Q or Homebase is 10 euros
By the time September came around the builders had nearly finished and we were being warned about how cold it gets in the winter. Building the chimney was relativly easy. I had never laid a brick in my life but had mixed cement so off I went up onto the roof, the hole through the roof was already there it just needed a chimney on top. The lightning in Spain can be quite spectacular at 900m above sea level except I was a little higher, a fork came down probably about 1/4 of a mile away - it was at this point I decided that the chimney would wait until the next day.
Note: Electricity - apply for it immediatly if you do not allready have it. In some cases it can can take up to 5 months to be connected sometimes longer. A 3.3kw supply will be sufficient for a normal family home but you can pay a little extra and get 4.4/5.5/6.6 or even more should you require it
Water heaters/boilers: We have a 1200 watt electric boiler and boy does it make that meter spin! I would advise a gas boiler although due to new safety regulations these have to fitted externaly to the property ie, an outhouse or gargage etc
Next up...Renovating on a budget? What you should bring from the UK and what to leave behind.
The main priority in any unreformed cave is the bathroom. Bedrooms and living rooms come last - it is essential to have a fully functional bathroom as soon as possible. This however does require a Spanish plumber and more importantly WATER! Application to the town hall was made for our water connection 30 days before we got it (and even then it was only an outside tap) In between then trenches had to be dug for waste pipes and gradients calculated for a sufficient slope to the pozo negro (cesspit)The rule of gravity dictates that poo does not roll uphill so the pipe system had to be carefully planned. In a lot of caves the bathroom is generaly built onto the front with the kitchen near the front also, in our cave though the bathroom is near the middle of the cave which is to some extent unusual, however all that was involved was 10 metres of extra waste pipe and much more digging.
We had employed local Spanish builders to construct our cesspit and also make safe the ceilings in 3 rooms - one of which was the bathroom. The floor in the bathroom had to dropped by 18 inches to allow for headroom (allways dig down never up!)which meant the waste pipe had to be 46 inches at the front door to meet the pipe to the cesspit - getting the two to match on a gradient was not easy.
Electrical channelling is advisable as one of your first jobs, the fact that it creates so much dust is reason in itself to get it out the way with asap. I went through two bosch grinders making channnels for "conduit" throughout the whole cave. Another tip is to plan your electrics carefully, really sit down and think about where you want your switches and sockets, do they need to be double? ceiling lights or wall lights? and make your switches all the same height from the floor.
*A note on dimmer switches: Do buy dimmers from the UK if you really want them, dimmer switches retail for 35 euros+ in rural Spain the equivilent from B&Q or Homebase is 10 euros
By the time September came around the builders had nearly finished and we were being warned about how cold it gets in the winter. Building the chimney was relativly easy. I had never laid a brick in my life but had mixed cement so off I went up onto the roof, the hole through the roof was already there it just needed a chimney on top. The lightning in Spain can be quite spectacular at 900m above sea level except I was a little higher, a fork came down probably about 1/4 of a mile away - it was at this point I decided that the chimney would wait until the next day.
Note: Electricity - apply for it immediatly if you do not allready have it. In some cases it can can take up to 5 months to be connected sometimes longer. A 3.3kw supply will be sufficient for a normal family home but you can pay a little extra and get 4.4/5.5/6.6 or even more should you require it
Water heaters/boilers: We have a 1200 watt electric boiler and boy does it make that meter spin! I would advise a gas boiler although due to new safety regulations these have to fitted externaly to the property ie, an outhouse or gargage etc
Next up...Renovating on a budget? What you should bring from the UK and what to leave behind.
10/25/05
Buying a cave in Spain....
Four days earlier we were in the UK ready to leave and now we were in Spain camped up outside our wreck of a cave. The reality hits you like a sledgehammer, you are as far out of your comfort zone as you can possibly get. However, you also realise at the same time why you made the decision to move. Our agent met us that day and went through the details of paying the final balance and how the process would be carried out.
My bewildered mum however was floundered with the 40 degree heat and simply could not believe what we had bought - the reality had not sunk in (yet) Now from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about caves, thier history etc it is easy to understand how this situation would horrify - particularly as she was leaving her grandson within 24 hours. Our neighbours (the few that we have) kindly showed my mum around there cave which was tastefully reformed and this made her see what was possible.
Wednesday arrives and we are off to the notary,s to sign the contract and pay the remaining balance at the bank - quite a simple process. (www.spanish-inland-property.com) (for more info)The cave was ours! 16000 euros worth of holes in a rock! My mum left the day before and it was just us - here - starting to live the dream. But before dreams come nightmares...
My bewildered mum however was floundered with the 40 degree heat and simply could not believe what we had bought - the reality had not sunk in (yet) Now from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about caves, thier history etc it is easy to understand how this situation would horrify - particularly as she was leaving her grandson within 24 hours. Our neighbours (the few that we have) kindly showed my mum around there cave which was tastefully reformed and this made her see what was possible.
Wednesday arrives and we are off to the notary,s to sign the contract and pay the remaining balance at the bank - quite a simple process. (www.spanish-inland-property.com) (for more info)The cave was ours! 16000 euros worth of holes in a rock! My mum left the day before and it was just us - here - starting to live the dream. But before dreams come nightmares...
The drive to Spain....
The entire journey including the ferry crossing from Dover to Calais took just over three and a half days, bearing in mind we were pulling a heavily laden caravan with everything we owned inside it (except several boxes which got lost in Barcelona - more later). Getting used to driving on "the wrong side of the road" as soon as you come off the ferry is a bit strange too and this also means that the passenger has to hand over the money at the toll roads - (which will cost you a minimum of 80 euros to get to Andalucia)
We spent 2 nights in France in caravan sites and this is when the dog escaped....my mum opened the caravan door at 3am and the dog did a runner, looking around a French campsite in the pitch black in nothing but my underwear shouting for a dog is not the best situation to be in! Anyway he was found next to the shower block and suitably restrained. We crossed the French/Spanish border with passports and documentation all prepared but found ourselves in Spain quite suddenly after driving through what looked like it had been a checkpoint long ago. Further into Spain we go and its getting dark and time for petrol. Service stations in Spain are not the most desireable places, especialy at night. The whole establishment at first glance appears to be a huge meeting place for travellers of all kinds and the religions that they follow, people are asleep on the verges, congregations smoking openly, and everyone seems to be praying in all different ways. Petrol however can be purchased and the quicker the better.
We did well not to get lost on our 2000 mile one way trip although we did get separated once or twice, the first time was in France when my friend driving the other car with my mum decided to head off to dunkirk for reasons known only to himself, the second time was near the border - get lost and add 2 hours onto your journey time! All in all though we didnt do to bad at all, the AA route finder was superb - planned from Newcastle to our village in Andalucia with only one glitch which was partialy our fault anyway. I would recommend the AA route finder to anyone driving to southern Spain (www.aa.co.uk)
The long drive through Spain was, well long - very long about 18 hours in total but eventualy we arrived in front of our cave at 05.30am on a Monday morning. We had made it.
We spent 2 nights in France in caravan sites and this is when the dog escaped....my mum opened the caravan door at 3am and the dog did a runner, looking around a French campsite in the pitch black in nothing but my underwear shouting for a dog is not the best situation to be in! Anyway he was found next to the shower block and suitably restrained. We crossed the French/Spanish border with passports and documentation all prepared but found ourselves in Spain quite suddenly after driving through what looked like it had been a checkpoint long ago. Further into Spain we go and its getting dark and time for petrol. Service stations in Spain are not the most desireable places, especialy at night. The whole establishment at first glance appears to be a huge meeting place for travellers of all kinds and the religions that they follow, people are asleep on the verges, congregations smoking openly, and everyone seems to be praying in all different ways. Petrol however can be purchased and the quicker the better.
We did well not to get lost on our 2000 mile one way trip although we did get separated once or twice, the first time was in France when my friend driving the other car with my mum decided to head off to dunkirk for reasons known only to himself, the second time was near the border - get lost and add 2 hours onto your journey time! All in all though we didnt do to bad at all, the AA route finder was superb - planned from Newcastle to our village in Andalucia with only one glitch which was partialy our fault anyway. I would recommend the AA route finder to anyone driving to southern Spain (www.aa.co.uk)
The long drive through Spain was, well long - very long about 18 hours in total but eventualy we arrived in front of our cave at 05.30am on a Monday morning. We had made it.
10/23/05
what next?
we both agreed to put our house in England on the market before we even got back to Newcastle airport - the decision had been made. All I could say for the following few weeks was "big project mind!" my way of trying to contemplate what we were about to do. The deposit was placed in May 2004 to secure the cave (we used Moneycorp - which were excellent) and after that it was all systems go..
House sale.... what an absolute nightmare, everything depended on the house sale, fortunatly for us we caught the property market just at its peak as it approached the north. The house was sold for alot more than we bought it for even after one year, but the process and the agents we dealt with....the whole thing was a shambles - agents will remain nameless!
Meanwhile, buying and selling was the top priority for us, £18k was to be cleared off the house -not a lot you might say but enough for us... daft? maybe! and thats all we had after the deposit was paid so every £ counted. First to go was my pride and joy, my audi 80 turbo se, sacrificed for a old tired estate to transport boxes tools and the german sheperd! Then it was furniture, cd,s, dvd,s etc all sold on Ebay - which I do recommend we made £700+ just selling daft stuff and when every penny counts its a good way of making some money. Everything went apart from the the table and six chairs which went to charity (my better half has never forgiven me but they wouldnt fit in the boot!)
Buying wise, well, if you saw the cave as it was in 2004 "un-inhabitable" seemed somewhat appropriate to say the least and with us not having the funds to rent or even b&b or hostel a caravan seemed the best option...this way we could be on site to oversee any building work and be on the doorstep to carry out any works ourselves. Buying a caravan in the UK though is not as simple as it may seem. Firstly we needed a caravan with a shower- this was essential as the cave had no water or electric but all the vans we saw had everything but, and all around the £1600 mark - too expensive!!!! Eventualy after 2 days viewing every caravan retailer between Stockton and Berwick we stumbled across a caravan retailer selling statics and motorhomes...nothing under £30k so we just about left immediatly until a lowly old caravan caught my eye in the background. It had no price in the window, was obviously old and then the sales feller came over....... the conversation went like this:
interested in this van then?
yes mate, how much?
£400 take it away NOW -p/ex we dont want.
(at this point me and my friend jumped in the caravan and nearly tipped it because the stablisers wernt down only to find 3 beds, fridge,2 ring hob, gas heater,radio, and shower...)
£350 you said?
If your going to be silly its £450...
So £380 was flashed in front of him and the caravan was ours.
Around the 16th (ish) of July we finaly had a completion date on the house so we began to provisionaly cancel utilities like gas/elec/phone etc (if your with british gas tape the call!!!!) All was set both the cars were taxed, MOT,D, full of petrol and had had the mother of all services (my other pride and joy was coming too, a classic ford) so we were ready to go. I wont bore you with things like how the electrics went 12 hrs before setting off or how the ford needed new rear springs because of the weight- we all got to deal with things like that!
Thursday came and we set off at 18.30pm in the evening waving our fantastic neighbours goodbye (we loved em honest!). Now the way the uk system works house sale completion is normally on Fridays which meant we were 30km south of Paris before we got conformation that the money was in the bank (daft? yeah probably- but judge it for yourself at the time)
next........2 cars, escaped dogs in France, bewildered mothers, religious petrol stations and much more ( and thats before we get to were we are going)
House sale.... what an absolute nightmare, everything depended on the house sale, fortunatly for us we caught the property market just at its peak as it approached the north. The house was sold for alot more than we bought it for even after one year, but the process and the agents we dealt with....the whole thing was a shambles - agents will remain nameless!
Meanwhile, buying and selling was the top priority for us, £18k was to be cleared off the house -not a lot you might say but enough for us... daft? maybe! and thats all we had after the deposit was paid so every £ counted. First to go was my pride and joy, my audi 80 turbo se, sacrificed for a old tired estate to transport boxes tools and the german sheperd! Then it was furniture, cd,s, dvd,s etc all sold on Ebay - which I do recommend we made £700+ just selling daft stuff and when every penny counts its a good way of making some money. Everything went apart from the the table and six chairs which went to charity (my better half has never forgiven me but they wouldnt fit in the boot!)
Buying wise, well, if you saw the cave as it was in 2004 "un-inhabitable" seemed somewhat appropriate to say the least and with us not having the funds to rent or even b&b or hostel a caravan seemed the best option...this way we could be on site to oversee any building work and be on the doorstep to carry out any works ourselves. Buying a caravan in the UK though is not as simple as it may seem. Firstly we needed a caravan with a shower- this was essential as the cave had no water or electric but all the vans we saw had everything but, and all around the £1600 mark - too expensive!!!! Eventualy after 2 days viewing every caravan retailer between Stockton and Berwick we stumbled across a caravan retailer selling statics and motorhomes...nothing under £30k so we just about left immediatly until a lowly old caravan caught my eye in the background. It had no price in the window, was obviously old and then the sales feller came over....... the conversation went like this:
interested in this van then?
yes mate, how much?
£400 take it away NOW -p/ex we dont want.
(at this point me and my friend jumped in the caravan and nearly tipped it because the stablisers wernt down only to find 3 beds, fridge,2 ring hob, gas heater,radio, and shower...)
£350 you said?
If your going to be silly its £450...
So £380 was flashed in front of him and the caravan was ours.
Around the 16th (ish) of July we finaly had a completion date on the house so we began to provisionaly cancel utilities like gas/elec/phone etc (if your with british gas tape the call!!!!) All was set both the cars were taxed, MOT,D, full of petrol and had had the mother of all services (my other pride and joy was coming too, a classic ford) so we were ready to go. I wont bore you with things like how the electrics went 12 hrs before setting off or how the ford needed new rear springs because of the weight- we all got to deal with things like that!
Thursday came and we set off at 18.30pm in the evening waving our fantastic neighbours goodbye (we loved em honest!). Now the way the uk system works house sale completion is normally on Fridays which meant we were 30km south of Paris before we got conformation that the money was in the bank (daft? yeah probably- but judge it for yourself at the time)
next........2 cars, escaped dogs in France, bewildered mothers, religious petrol stations and much more ( and thats before we get to were we are going)
10/22/05
Thinking of buying a cave?
Most people from the UK still think we are all bonkers doing what we did, my mum has people ask her "so where does your son live" and of course the reply is "he lives in a cave in the south of Spain" My mum however was the hardest of people to bring around to the idea. Around five years ago my partner and I "got the bug" - we had to leave the UK and live abroad for good - we remortgaged, bought a new house to try and make things better in life but that bug would just not go away. Initialy we were open to all ideas - which is the best way, we researched France/Australia/New Zealand/Spain/Croatia/Spain/Ireland/Spain! so Spain it was but which part of Spain?
The cave concept hit me one day while surfing the internet, never before had I seen such liveable in accomodation and so unique into the bargain, however the main factor for us was the price - and low they were. Interest was starting to take over big time and various phonecalls to Spain were being made, which for us was a milestone at the time because at no point previous had investigations gone any further. So after some very hard thinking and one little boy later we decided to come to Andalucia to view some caves. I had never been to Spain before but immediatly fell in love with the area, its apparent culture, the climate - everything just seemed right it was a gut feeling. We viewed four caves in total over two days - not many you may be thinking and rightly so BUT our 20,000 euro budget did restrict us to "bottom of the list" the one we went back to see three times was in a "state" to be optomistic, it required major structural renovation and had been uninhabited for at least sixty years.
The cave though (later to be named Cueva Esperanza) did have a number of deciding factors for us which far out weighed the renovation prospect. It had the most spectacular views, it had one hundred square metres of living space, a huge fireplace and not every room was in a delapidated state. The local village was a ten minute drive away with every facility we could want including a school for our two year old son when the time came. I could not help thinking about the vandalised VW Golf just outside where we lived in England or the noise on a Saturday when the last bus from Newcastle came in. The cave, its location and the culture we were about to sink ourselves in was absolute bliss compared.
The cave concept hit me one day while surfing the internet, never before had I seen such liveable in accomodation and so unique into the bargain, however the main factor for us was the price - and low they were. Interest was starting to take over big time and various phonecalls to Spain were being made, which for us was a milestone at the time because at no point previous had investigations gone any further. So after some very hard thinking and one little boy later we decided to come to Andalucia to view some caves. I had never been to Spain before but immediatly fell in love with the area, its apparent culture, the climate - everything just seemed right it was a gut feeling. We viewed four caves in total over two days - not many you may be thinking and rightly so BUT our 20,000 euro budget did restrict us to "bottom of the list" the one we went back to see three times was in a "state" to be optomistic, it required major structural renovation and had been uninhabited for at least sixty years.
The cave though (later to be named Cueva Esperanza) did have a number of deciding factors for us which far out weighed the renovation prospect. It had the most spectacular views, it had one hundred square metres of living space, a huge fireplace and not every room was in a delapidated state. The local village was a ten minute drive away with every facility we could want including a school for our two year old son when the time came. I could not help thinking about the vandalised VW Golf just outside where we lived in England or the noise on a Saturday when the last bus from Newcastle came in. The cave, its location and the culture we were about to sink ourselves in was absolute bliss compared.
10/21/05
10/20/05
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