Digging it !

Hi there we are looking for your advice please,not sure if we should consider a cave which needs to be reformed or safer to go for one that is finished, looking online the caves that need tons of work are in some cases more expensive than caves that just need to be refurburished, therefore some questions which we need some guidance on:

Are to here any sites or publications on how to renovation of a cave house? We haven't been able to find anything on the nitty gritty if it just lots a photos of before and after.
If we were to buy a cave to reform, what should we look for, we have been told that different rock is dryer, stronger, better to live in, how do you know what sort of rock the cave you are looking at is? If you want to increase the room size,can you? Are you allowed to? Is it always better to lower the floor rather than raise the celing height? We know you need a minimum of 3 meters of rock/earth above your head,How do you find a good builder used to working on caves ?
Sorry if our questions are a bit daft it's all new to us and we want to come with as much info as possible, thanks in advance.

Mac's old blog used to be a good source for DIY restoration but not sure if you can still access it, maybe someone else will know. My blog below shows the various steps but was done by professional restorers not DIY.

I would definitely say go down not up, do as little as possible to disrupt an existing roof. Due to several deaths in cave restoration over the last few years the regulations of what you can and can't do are much more demanding than they were even five years ago.

You've already uncovered the biggest drawback to reforming a cave - the cost. There are people here who have done that (I'm sure they'll be along soon) butt the prices of finished caves has dropped so markedly in the past 6-7 years I'd say the whole buy/reform question needs a hard looking into. When I was investigating this back in 2005 I was told to price a reform-job at about €1000 per square metre.
The other question is about plans and permissions. You can't just buy a cave and start digging, anymore. It might be worthwhile going to see the Architechno Technico at your local town hall, to see what the local policy is, but even *that* can be overriden (and the reformed property declared illegal) by other bodies further up, such as the Junta de Andalucia, after it's been built/reformed.

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This should give you a link to the blog Pete is referring to, it gives a lot of great info about reform. The views of the Spanish perspective of cave living, written by Emilio, is by the son of who we bought our cave from. Just use Blog archive to search through the posts,
Best of luck,
Barry.

Thanks Barry, yes that is Mac's old blog. I'll bookmark it for future reference.

This is great, thank you all so much, we have a bit of reading to do now.
This is such a great site, everybody is so helpful and up-beat we can't wait to start looking at houses this June, thank you.

La Mancha wrote:Mac's old blog used to be a good source for DIY restoration but not sure if you can still access it, maybe someone else will know. My blog below shows the various steps but was done by professional restorers not DIY.

I would definitely say go down not up, do as little as possible to disrupt an existing roof. Due to several deaths in cave restoration over the last few years the regulations of what you can and can't do are much more demanding than they were even five years ago.

Thank you great reading we really appreciate it

pete_l wrote:You've already uncovered the biggest drawback to reforming a cave - the cost. There are people here who have done that (I'm sure they'll be along soon) butt the prices of finished caves has dropped so markedly in the past 6-7 years I'd say the whole buy/reform question needs a hard looking into. When I was investigating this back in 2005 I was told to price a reform-job at about €1000 per square metre.
The other question is about plans and permissions. You can't just buy a cave and start digging, anymore. It might be worthwhile going to see the Architechno Technico at your local town hall, to see what the local policy is, but even *that* can be overriden (and the reformed property declared illegal) by other bodies further up, such as the Junta de Andalucia, after it's been built/reformed.

Hi Pete, do you know if I can access part one which has been archived but I would love to read it. Many thanks for you help