Advice on Cave Life

Theres some very good advice coming out here. When we bought our cave nearly six years ago after renting a holiday cave in Galera. There was less 'experienced' online advice available but we used some common sense (some people leave this at the UK airports) We spoke to various cave dwellers, we made up a short list from what the estate agent had shown us. We then went back to look on our own at different times of the day and night. We decidided on the one we liked. we then went back to the estate agent and asked to have the keys for an evening. We went on our own and had a BBQ and stayed until the early hours of the morning.
We put an offer in, it was accepted straight away. So we asked for the keys again and moved some stuff in. Sort of marked our territory
Dont forget when buying a property, YOU are the customer THEY only make money by selling you a property.
Use your head and do plentyof research. Dont feel afraid to ask any questions especialy ones you feel are daft.

Never, Never, Never, arrange or pay anybody to carry out any work for you (sadly especially Brits) without referrals.

Allthough all this sounds a ballache, youll look back and say "Should have done it years ago"

Whilst it is true that a South facing cave will not 100% guarantee no-damp problems the pro's far outweigh a North facing one.

With regards to water, there's normally a farmer close by who will deliver a water tanker to you with around 8000 litres, for somewhere in the region of 40-50Euros which you can then store in easy to buy 1000L cubos.

All good advice above regarding getting building works done.

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Hopefully Bantams56 will give some good info about before and after and solar. He has a fabulous cave that has just been reformed from a ruin. He's also just had a solar system installed.

Surprising when giving advice how it is to give bad advice when trying to genuinely trying to help someone.

Have a look this web site and it could lose you a sale by frighten someone off your place because it has a septic tank.

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To be on main drainage could cost you thousands or millions of pounds.

I DON'T THINK I MENTIONED ANYTHING ABOUT HEATING OR COOLING, SHOUTY BLOKE.

"This info. is very dangerous you have to know what you are doing storing water. I have specialized in water treatment as some of you will know. We had some people very ill from storing water when we lived in Denia."

Well I must be a water genius then, as this is what I've been doing for 3 years, and apparently I'm getting younger and younger.

Try not to be such a scare monger Peter.

Sorry you take it as a personal attack I only intend to give good advice. As for SHOUTY BLOKE I did not intend it to be just tried to make it stand out from your posting please accept my apology.

I have always thought prevention it better than quire.

Can I please ask is your agricultural water and is it chlorinated to start with and do you chlorinate your water? Is the PH high ours is it is 8.2 we use our water for domestic and the swimming pool only off cores I treat it.
We buy bottled water for consumption.

Can I please ask is your agricultural water and is it chlorinated to start with and do you chlorinate your water? Is the PH high ours is it is 8.2 we use our water for domestic and the swimming pool only off cores I treat it.
We buy bottled water for consumption.

No problem, I think I'm being a bit touchy today, sorry for shouting back.

Will get back to you on the water later on.

Peter, and others offer sound advice. But don't buy until you have rented for st least six months. I worked for someone who l regard as an ethical Estate Agent, and believe me there are hardly any in the area.
You will be given all sorts of promises, but once your money has changed hands, Brit or Spanish it ain't gonna happen.
There are so many things that can go wrong, much to the delight of those who earn a living from others misfortunes. If you get it right, it is a great place and way of living. If you get it wrong"...............
Sorry if l sound so negative, but things go wrong with regularity.
Good luck enjoy the process but, rent first.

I am very Happy in my cave house, been here 8 years now with no major problems. It is fairly high maintenance, mainly paint wise, sweeping/hoovering the dropped paint, then re-painting. Just areas here and there, not the whole cave. There are several different layers in my cave, some soft , some hard. No problems with damp, fully ventilated with extractors in all the "back rooms" and bathrooms. Very quiet as on a dead end street. Plus no adjacent nieghbours, sound does carry in a cave, so noisy nieghbours and traffic could be a problem. I would definately try before you buy. In all my time here I have never paid anyone up front. It has always been as and when the work was done, and I have had a fair bit done, all by Spanish builders. If you want to come and have a look you are welcome, might give you some ideas.

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Maybe this will help.

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I think the vast majority of us bought using estate agents and a number have been unhappy with the service provided.
The eternal theme on here seems to be come and rent for at least 6 months.
Come and sit in a few bars frequented by ex-pats and listen to the stories.
They are not allowed on here.

We bought our cave house using an estate agent, but they are no different from estate agents anywhere in the world, even the UK. There are good and bad ones, as is all places, including the UK, buyer beware. Estate Agents work for those selling property not buyers.
All the advice above is good, don't be put off, there are many excellent homes for sale at good prices, just make sure cave living is for you, if you are used to a conventional uk home.

Blatantadvertising.com wrote:
They are not allowed on here.

Barry, you're off again, not just in this thread but another today aswell. If you pay full attention to the forum, a lot of sensative topics are allowed on here but unsubstantiated witch hunts aren't. You continuously have some sort of chip on your shoulder and keep wanting people to name and shame without any evidence. If you want to name and shame and can provide evidence and are willing to be fully responsible for posting your info on a public forum then bring it on. Be warned though, its not uncommon to find yourself in court these days, as you may have heard. You haven't been prepared to do this before and this is why some of your threads have been deleted. Lets keep this thread on track without ruining it.
Im sure we've been through this not once, but several times and to be honest its getting very tiring now.

gtclubman wrote: but they are no different from estate agents anywhere in the world, even the UK. There are good and bad ones, as is all places, including the UK, buyer beware. Estate Agents work for those selling property not buyers.
All the advice above is good, don't be put off, there are many excellent homes for sale at good prices, just make sure cave living is for you, if you are used to a conventional uk home.

Spot on. Ive heard the other side of the story from a couple of estate agents. What ive heard is ridiculous, and again seems to be due to Brits leaving their common sense at the airport. It seems to be quite common for them to be thought of as social workers. Previous customers calling in with medical problems, for directions, cooking advice, the list goes on.....Imagine the response of a UK estate agent when asked how to make a paella?

We have owned our cave in Galera for nearly 7 years and have lived in it permanently for four years and we absolutely love it. It is east facing and we get the sun from when it rises in the morning to about 5.30 in the afternoon in summer and 3 to 3.30 in the winter. We do not have any damp or dark issues and fortunately don't have the flaky paint issue which some caves have, the only minor problem we have is in one very small area the salt in the rock comes through and knocks off the plaster, very easily dealt with, however in general I think caves do need maintenance and they need airing and heating. I would agree with what everyone else says about renting first, we came and stayed in the middle of winter before buying so that we could try it at it's worst (for want of a better expression) and we experienced the snow and cold, it didn't put us off and even in winter the days can be sunny and with a sheltered terrace you can still sit out. In the summer it gets very hot and the size of the out build on your cave does seem to affect how cool it stays, but good insulation will help with that. Personally I can't imagine how it would be if you can't drive but that is just a personal thing because I like to get out and about and see the surrounding area and further afield but I know that some people don't drive and they are fine. We did a far bit of research before buying and yes we did use an estate agent and were more than happy with the service provided.Good luck with your search, take your time, look around and talk to people, for us it is the best thing we ever did .

An estate agent can at least take you round lots of different places for nothing. Just don't believe a word regarding facilities or anything else. They just want the sale. Also they're desperate, so offer them at least half the ridiculous percentage figure they make up. Some charge half what others do! quiz local Brits definitely!

Buying a house in Spain is a very similar process as in Britain Firstly you decide what type of house, which area and how much you want to spend. Do you want a finnished house or a project.
Yes it would be better to rent once you have decided on an area. Don't believe all the horror stories, all it requires on your part is lots of common sense and never believe anything you hear from bar sprouting brits, most have only been here a short while .
always use professional registered tradesmen get referrals, qualifications and a quote always in writing , most so called builders over her were diyers in Britain. so do check.
you will at some stage require professional help with checking the paper work, check that the property has an excritura (deeds) as lots of old properties don't. It is much easier to buy a property with water and electricity connected as this can be quite expensive to install and in very rare cases not possible,
Use a reputable estate agent and also an independant lawyer, check, check and check is the fool proof way.
Lastly check out the neighbours, maks sure their are no boundry dissputes, to the Spanish neighbours are very important people and will be very helpful, especially if you speak Spanish.
The weather in Granada is very extreme very long cold wet winters and very hot dry summers.
Good luck with your search.

Collado, he speak with the common sense

But without full knowledge.



I have said before an escriture is not worth the paper it is written on. Once again if a person can prove they own the land all that is on the land belongs to them. Once again I will say when we retired we worked without pay in Denia with our own solicitor from Alicante to help people who got into problems 90% their own doing. We can tell you of actual cases but it will take me to long to type them out. The name of the company in Denia was ADPED.



Check that the property has an excritura (deeds)

Just wanted to give my input on the idea of solar, as Dave mentioned we recently had a basic solar system installed in our main cave house.

We moved over full-time to our place near Galera in April this year and having waited for mains electricity for nearly six years decided that we would investigate getting a basic solar system. We still believe that we will eventually get mains electric so decided against an all singing all dancing solar system.

We worked with Bruce the electrician from Castril who provided sensible, practical advice. His view was if there was a chance of mains electric then don't go down the route of an all singing all dancing solar system a) because the cost would be prohibitive @ 15k euros + and b) it won't help the resale value of the property having only solar if mains is available.

I had costed some complete systems from Commercial Moreno near Caniles. Bruce advised that although these systems are OK most of the component parts are Chinese and may not have the shelf life of other systems. He sourced a similar system to the one we had looked at but with predominantly German components.

We now have 2 solar panels, a 24v system with 2 batteries and a 1KW inverter which effectively means we can use up to about 900w at any one time but NOT for the whole of the day. So this means we can't use a washing machine/electric oven/hair dryer etc.

We have converted water heating to Calor, use a gas hob, no oven at the moment as the price of a Spanish integral gas oven is about 600 Euros and also we have gas fridge/freezer.

So at the moment we run the laptop for about 4/5 hours per day and TV/Freesat box for up to about 3 hours per day along with lighting using low watt bulbs.

The cost so far to us was about 2500 Euros for the solar system, this included having a metal cradle built to house the panels on, along with heavy duty cabling and a nominal labour charge.

We need to add a generator in the next couple of months, Bruce suggested a 2.2KW unit, preferably with a Honda engine cos you can struggle to source spare parts for some of the cheaper units if and when they go wrong.

One of the issues of solar is the shelf life of the batteries which need to be maintained properly. Apparently you should fully charge the batteries at least once a month which the generator will do but the solar panels won't. Shelf life for properly maintained batteries should be up to 7/8 years and at 250 Euros each it's an incentive to look after them.

If we do get mains then we will build a capability into the system so we can switch between solar and mains using mainly solar in the summer which won't be expensive to include.

So my overall view:-

Glad we now have some power, didn't want to spend the money but had to, will go for mains when it arrives.

Hope this helps.

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An escritura is very important. The problems in Denia are to do with the Valencian goverment and are not applicable in this area. I have also worked in the property business very closley with the Notarios and the registro and the most important document is the escritura.
The problem in Denia is that people bought from crooks and didn't check the paperwork.

Arntydi wrote:Thanks for telling me about your solar system. So it looks like mains electricity is the way to go, if possible.

That would depend on whether or not you want regular electricity bills. Depending on how you plan to use your power will depend on what you would need to buy, but I stand by my statement that you can get a system up and ready for around a grand, that's about the cost of ours. We have three laptops charging, four mobiles charging, ipod, torches and camera all comfortably charging throughout the day, then more than 3 hours of tv should we want it. I designed two different mountings for our three panels, one I can adjust for the seasons and one which is a fixed angle. I had them made at a local metalworks for no more than 40 Euros. We have 320W of panels a 600W inverter and 550Ah worth of batteries, by 13.00 we're throwing electricity away, so to speak.

The 12v panels currently being sold at Moreno's are made in Spain, NOT China and are extremely good value and very efficient. Granted though, not all panels are made equally, but our two 80W BP solar panels are almost identical in output to the one 160W Moreno panel and they were DOUBLE the price!!!

Here's that water product I mentioned earlier Peter.

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To me the safest way to deal with water is to do a laboratory test on the water and see if it meets the EU water directives, what is the good of trying to filter out what is not in there in the first place or adding what is required.

Below is a small part of the write up on the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] you sent me (Thank you very much).

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The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 require every State to perform source water assessments of all public drinking water sources and make the results public by 2003. Forests and grasslands serve as sources of many public drinking
water supplies, and managers of these lands are expected to participate in preparing assessments and to work with the public to assure safe drinking water. To help managers of forests and grasslands meet this requirement, this report reviews the current scientific literature about the potential of common land-use practices to introduce contaminants that pose risks to human health into public drinking water sources. Potential audiences for this report include managers of national forests and grasslands and managers of other public and private lands with similar uses.

Operators of public drinking water utilities and citizens’ groups concerned with drinking water may also find this report useful.
Safe drinking water is essential to protect public health. Modern drinking water treatment can reduce most contaminants in source water to acceptable levels before it is delivered to consumers, but costs increase significantly when more rigorous treatment is needed to cleanse contaminated source water. Managing land to prevent source water contamination may be more cost-effective and may better protect human health than treating water after it has been contaminated.

Water from forests and grasslands is usually cleaner than water from urban and agricultural areas. Nevertheless, many common practices on forests and grasslands can contaminate drinking water sources. Soil disturbing activities such as road construction and maintenance, forest harvesting, and intermixed urban and wildland uses can introduce sediment into drinking water sources.

Disease organisms may enter source waters from: (1) recreation and other human activities that lack developed sanitary facilities, (2) malfunctioning sewage disposal facilities, and (3) wild and domestic animals concentrated near source waters. Nutrients may enter source water from fertilizer and from atmospheric deposition of nitrogen compounds. Toxic chemicals may reach source water from pest control; from extraction of minerals, oil, and gas; from accidental chemical spills along highways and utility corridors; and from leaking underground storage tanks.

"To me the safest way to deal with water is to do a laboratory test on the water"

Which is exactly what we did and then followed their recommendations on product and dosage.