Re: A Place in the sun
 

There are two types of gas, propane and butane. Butane is a bit more expensive but burns hotter.

Both of them come in containers called "bombonas". There are two types, one silver and one orange, but they are interchangeable. The silver ones are lighter and easier to lug around.

The two main distributors are Repsol and Cepsa. If you are lucky you will be in an area where they are delivered to your door.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I always thought propane burned hotter,so I googled it.
The truth is it varies between the two depending on conditions and set up.

http://www.infomania.co.uk/archives/234

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Interesting! We always use propane so I wouldn't know, just what I heard! Also heard that butane gives off more condensation if you use it in a room heater.

Of course it's a bit different using it outside for a barbecue and using it indoors for your cooking, heating and hot water.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I thought the silver was propane and orange butane?

Re: A Place in the sun
 

On these new place in the sun progs. they are saying how much cheaper than Britain the cost of living is in spain, i know the council tax is, mine is £145 a monthin Hastings, but the last time we came to look at property with the intention of buying, we stayed for a month in Pego, we love the area around oliva and the beaches there, we found that food/toiletries were much more expensive generally than in Britain. Simple things like a bar of soap, we use pure vegetable soap, around 90p for 4 bars, its hard to even buy a bar of soap in that area, they seem to have just liquid soap. Also we can only eat wholemeal bread and in spain its expensive, just 2 every day items - we went to several supermarkets so looked around. We also noticed baby products such as nappy cream, £8 a tube from chemist, and the day to things you need for a sprog plus childrens clothing cost at least twice as much unless they were from a market. I would think for families on a tight budget or pensioners, it would be a probem, but i would like to hear from others who live there full time.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I think thats the difference between visitors, and people who live there. We know where to shop for what, and I can assure you that in the Oliva Pego Gandia area of the Costa Blanca (which is where I am best able to comment on), it is still cheaper in Spain than it is in the UK. I dont say that from guesswork, I regularly go back to the UK and have just spent a month there, and I also own a property there.

By the way, your council tax is £145 a month, mine is €400 a year. My car tax is €100 a year in Spain and was £180 a half year in the UK. Grocery bill in Spain around €400 a month. Yes, certain things are more expensive in Spain, but overall Spain wins as far as our area is concerned.

I'm sure A Place in the Sun will exaggerate things, and I am also sure the South of Spain is more expensive to live than CB North btw

Re: A Place in the sun
 

These programmes always seem to push the cheaper cost of living aspect but they should not because one thing might be a lot cheaper such as the community tax but other things may be higher so many people say that the overall costs are similar. There are always differences of opinion on here as to whether Spain is cheaper than the UK because it very much depends on what you have to buy, which area you live in and the way that you live your life.

Mercadona is good for reasonable wholemeal bread. Baby things are best from the supermarkets rather than the chemist because the chemist always charge top whack.

When my husband was ill it was costing us between 100 and 200 euros every month for the additional items that he required that we could not have on prescription and some of these items were not available here in Spain so we had the additional postage costs due to ordering them from the UK. So during that time we would have been far better off living in the UK than here in Spain.

I am on an extremely tight budget at the moment due to reasons that I will not go into on here and I am coping financial whereas I do not think that I would if I was in the UK.

Rosemary

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Just an observation - council tax may be cheaper but it doesn't provide the facilities that itdoes in the UK. Now it may you don't need them (education, libraries, cabs, function halls, etc are just some that immediately spring to mind) but you don't have the choice in Spain.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

You have mentioned function halls and it has always amazed me that our town has an old cinema that has had all of the seats removed so that it is very adaptable. They put tables and chairs in one half for dinner dances, the stage is used for musical evenings with our towns orchestra, there are discos held there, meals for fiestas etc, etc. There are no charges to the various organisations and so much of the things put on are free to the people attending too. Apparently the school provision is good and the library is well used too.

My town is quite small and tends to be as self sufficient as it can be so I think that this has an effect too. We have at least three concerts during the year that are very well attended and completely free. As far as I know the only things that people pay for when attending any of the functions is the food provided.

I presume that like most things in Spain that everything depends on the area.

Rosemary

Re: A Place in the sun
 

well in our little place in the sun we have a library, only open evenings, the function hall appears to be an outside auditorium on the side of the commemoration park, (much used during summer months with 2 films a week and social functions including the Saturday "Grab-a-Granny". Our schools are full of kids being bused in from outlying villages who also come to us for dentist and 24hr doctor service. Although the buses to/from the big city are only once an hour there are at least 2 cabs waiting for those who wish to go on to outlying/campo.

mind you thats in Spain, whilst I keep reading that in the UK if they havent already done so then most of that will be outsourced. in our old UK home they outsourced a couple of years ago but now they are laying off the outsourced staff. The roads don't get swept more than fortnightly, lights take weeks to replace, libraries have been closed or had their hours seriously restricted. The mobile library to the outlying village has been put in the garage on bricks.

at least we still get the road sweeper come round on a regular basis, the local unemployed clean the park and other community areas each morning

`

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Rosemary, that seems to be the operative - Self Sufficient !!
Everyone seems to take part, from small children thru to adults, most contributing in some way.

We have an annual marching band concert/competition each year and there is great pride in their later advertising to say if they have won. They march round the village then meet up in the park and we all traipse in to the auditorium for a (rather discordant) music time.
Then there are the Christmas and Easter religious parades up to the church and at least 2 if not 3 fairs - we had the annual horse fair a week ago, just before the rains started.

Many of the smaller villages and hamlets around us seem to have a building (in many cases without a roof) marked as Cine de Verano

This is community living - something the UK seems to a greater extent to have forgotten, regrettably.
:(

Re: A Place in the sun
 

And of course with education, parents have to pay a considerable amount for books, equipment etc which run into hundreds of pounds per child. As someone said, they were paying hundreds extra a month for medicines, JLFS used to tell us his parents were paying a huge amount for medicines. Throw in dental care for the kids, I've said before friends of ours were well into four figures to get their son's teeth sorted. People in urbanisations can pay some large figures in charges every month, second hand cars are crazy prices, high broadband prices, but these things rarely get a mention. But I have learnt here that €3 menu del dia's are great value.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

True, but with the £1400 possible saving on council tax alone, the £260 on car tax and thats before I start on anything else ..... you could buy more books than you would ever borrow from a library in a year :D

It kind of highlights what Rosemary said .... everyone has different circumstances, and we'll never be able to tie it down ;):)

Not having children I'm not fully up to scratch on Education in Spain, but afaik the schools are provided of course ..... its down to the fact that a lot of the books have to be purchased. In the UK in many areas that's also the case. Even when my daughter was at school we paid for a number of books

When I moved here the r/ex was 1.50 / 1.60. It went down to almost parity, and now its up to around 1.20ish. Within in year or so of moving here our income was cut because of this by around a third. Even then, it was still cheaper for us to live here in Spain. Where your income comes from also makes a huge difference, because if you a working in Spain then your salary is relatively less. If you are a pensioner or someone with a UK income, then you are likely to be better off

Re: A Place in the sun
 

OK, I'll mention them :D
I pay just over €30 a month for unlimited internet, my phone system, and unlimited free calls to Spanish and UK Landlines. With that I can also make calls at 1 p a minute from my mobile whenever I am in a wifi area. In the UK I will get a bigger connection for sure, and £20 a month. I'm sure there is cheaper, but thats just for internet

Urbanisations, I cant say as we aren't urbanised in Spain. In the UK I am on a private estate and pay £1500 a year maintenance fees plus £850 a year council tax, as opposed to my €400 a year in Spain. Second hand cars ... yes, I know what you mean. But when I eventually sell mine to change it I will also get a higher price for it. It's the initial hit I guess.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

We have lots of publicly funded schools in the town I live in, a library with 3 floors (general library, with free internet access for members, children's library floor and a study floor for students. Also a public theatre which puts on free or heavily subsidised productions and concerts (I saw the Cologne Symphony Orchestra perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons there for 10€). The town has a public sports complex with indoor swimming pool, tennis and padel courts. One very large park with more tennis and padel courts, lake with ducks, jogging/walking track, outdoor gym equipment and children's play area. Plus lots of smaller parks with children's play areas. School transport buses are provided for students (I don't know if parents have to pay towards this or not) and also transport for disabled children and adults to attend special schools and day centres. The Social Services department provides carers to some elderly residents who need help at home. There is a day centre for pensioners with a cafeteria serving very low cost meals (also open to the public) and lots of social activities like keep fit classes and dancing. Our rubbish bins are emptied every night of the year, including public holidays, although we do need to take the rubbish to the bins ourselves. We have a streetsweeper who comes every morning Monday to Friday, and in the town centre they work Saturdays and Sundays as well.

All in all, I think it's quite good value for the €319 I paid in IBI this year (oh, that's with the €200 discount the Ayuntamiento gives me just for being on the empadronamiento, living in the house full time, paying by direct debit and not having any outstanding debts to them). I don't live on an urbanisation so have no extra fees to pay.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

My propane comes in orange bottles! I would have to sign a contract with CEPSA to get the silver ones delivered (which are much nicer) because Repsol don't do them round here. I'll get round to it one day ...

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Maybe a local thing then?
The Repsol man delivers silver light weight aluminium and orange heavy steel cylinders every Tuesday afternoon. :thumbsup:

Re: A Place in the sun
 

For me the issue is exactly what some have already said on here.

I expect I could have this debate with the people I work with here in the UK. My idea of expensive is anothers idea of cheap, and vice versa. I dont have young children so have little interest or knowledge of costs of education, books, uniforms etc so yes those who have will have an opinion on that.
We eat home cooked food - what we eat for dinner in the evening we have the following day at work for lunch - so we eat cheap - I have freinds who buy costa coffee every morning, sandwiches on the way to work etc, that suits them so they would probably say its expensive to eat here (uk). If you drive a 4 wheel drive thats going to be more expensive that a little runaround Everyones idea of cheap/expensive/haves have nots is different. My daughter can easily spend £100 on a pair of shoes, not me, however she feels that I spend to much money on my hobbies and should treat my self to an expensive pari of shoes, she's not right but neither is she wrong, she is just has a different outlook to me.

You get my drift.... its about what you think/know you can live with or without and acceptance of what you cannot have its about compromise.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

food for thought, thank you folks, thats very interesting all round, my wife and i live in a 4 bed semi and grow a lot of our own food, for our council tax we get dirty rubbish emptied once a fortnight and recycle rubish every other week, we do enjoy walking in the park and along the prom we can see the sea from our balcony, hastings is a great place to live, but we dont use the library and the kids are grown up, so feel our council tax is very high, i love spain, the weather, the people, just about everything, we have looked several times into moving and in fact did once, for 3 weeks, i have a reasonable private income and pension which would allow us to downsize and get a small place here and a cheap place in spain but i kinda like the idea of a big spanish house, so would have to sell my english property- to be able to sit out at night and listen to the cicadas etc.is wonderful, i love the countryside but not too remote. Im just scared if we want to come back to England we wont be able to sell, like so many others.........we were able to rent a new 2 bed, 2 bath flat with huge balcony, use of pool, garage and lovely mountain views in pego for 400 euros for a whole month, 2 yrs ago, they couldnt let nor sell the properties around. As im now over 60, pretty fit and active, seldom at the docs, but i get free medication for my high blood pressure and what ever i might need, but as has been mentioned, some medicaments have to be paid for in spain............. swings and roundabouts from what i read. We are off to Laos on wednesday for a month, lovely weather there, beautiful country but takes us almost 3 days to get to the village where my son and his family live - spains so easily accessible:thumbsup:

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I think you're dead right to be cautious about making the leap. Why not rent a place in the countryside here for a couple of months just off-season, say May-June or September-October? You should still be able to get something nice for €400 a month, not sure about a pool but you'd certainly be able to enjoy the outdoor life.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

We paid app. 1200€ IBI in Marbella...plus Urbanisation fees of app. 850€pa. (two years ago) Here we now pay around £2400 council tax. We also pay maintainence of £60pa for a private road. Not much difference but a lot of difference in services.eg. Have a disabled child, one with learning difficulties, a partner with Alzheimers in Spain and you would realise what scant sevices there are. Most of the Ayuntamientos seem to be broke now so what there is will deteriorate further.

Some people pay very little IBI but they are in a minority now...just because a couple of posters pay around 10€:flypig: it does not mean it is the norm. Another thing to consider is that if your income is below about £300 pw in the UK you will get a rebate and in some cases pay none at all.

As for the other stuff...long as a piece of string. I would say if you really need to ask you can't afford to live in Spain unless you want to spend your life watching the euros and buying crap in Lidl.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I think my Ayuntamiento is just as broke as any other, and yet a new centre for up to 200 children with problems stemming from premature birth, cerebral damage and growth disorders has just been opened here:-

http://www.velezmalaga.es/index.php?...ticias&id=1882

Try as I might, I can't find anyone in this thread who has said they pay IBI of €10. And you can cut out the flying pigs stuff, you might as well come straight out and accuse people of telling lies. Why should forum members be expected to take any figures you post as genuine, when you don't extend the same courtesy to others?

Your Council Tax in the UK seems very reasonable. in 2006, I was paying £900 (for a house in the lowest band). That would now be £1047:-


http://www.rossendale.gov.uk/info/20...il_tax_charges

I too lived on an unadopted road, but we didn't have the option to pay a small annual amount for the maintenance of it - any repairs had to be organised and paid for by the residents themselves. Even then refuse collection had been cut down to fortnightly, and now residents in the more remote parts of the borough have to take their own waste to collection points - but they still pay full Council Tax.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Watched a Spanish TV programme, Algeciras or La Línea, somewhere down there, the council workers haven't been paid for 8 months, and they are just one of many areas that have not been paid. The workers said they daren't not work, or they'll be sacked! So they just keep turning up, do their job, but don't get paid. They should pop over the verja to Gib and get a job there, no problems getting paid there.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

We have a weekly refuse collection and a recycling collection fortnightly also a garden rubbish fortnightly.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I pay £1400 p.a. for a band "D" house in Argyll&Bute which is well in excess of my place in Spain. I have no mains gas so use a calor tank which costs over £800 to fill every 5 months. Plus electricity and coal for an open fire. All this for a three bed house. The costs in the UK are far in excess of those in Andalucia, and I for one can't wait until I get to live there next year!
Pete

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Help needed again with our place in the sun
With the house there is a small pool about 3.5m x 3.5m
Which the water has gone a bit green will I have to pump out
All the water and give the pool a good scrub or can I use
Chemicals to clean up the water. We are still waiting for a moving date
Thanks all

Re: A Place in the sun
 

We had two street lights go out just opposite our house on Saturday evening. Some kind neighbour must have reported it this morning - they are back on tonight.

Our Council has a free telephone number to report any kind of defect to, they report it to the appropriate department, or you can now report them by email if you prefer. If you have any old household items you need to dispose of, they will also come and remove them free of charge (unlike our old local authority who did charge for that, and the only time I did it I had to wait 2 weeks for them to come and take it away).

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Ours is still weekly as well, for everything, but we only put out glass every two or three weeks, I don't drink enough wine to do it every week! ;) Anything like dead fridges, washing machines etc, just phone the council and they collect for free. Funny that!

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Some of the Basura collection points in the mainly Spanish areas are little short of shocking and a major health hazard.

Many in rural areas are just once a week collections, so if some idiot comes along and fills the bins up with a pile of garden trash then everyone else simply dumps their rubbish bags close by.

What with stray dogs tearing them to bits and tramps raking about in them, it's no time at all before the whole area is infested with rats, and lots of other stuff is left to blow freely all over the campo and never ever gets cleaned up at all.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Agree, very often punto limpio is a bit of a misnomer! Few settees, couple of fridges etc, and if that's full, just throw it down some barranco.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

thanks, we intend doing just that next year........:thumbup:

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Brought this to the top for you as they are too busy with another pissing contest:lol:

I am not a pool expert but it is unlikely that you will need to empty it. A few on here know all about them if they see this. Good luck...hows it going?

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Thanks for that, still waiting on the solicitor very frustrating
As we can't book our flights yet

Re: A Place in the sun
 

JLFS did not say that his parents paid a lot for prescriptions, it was another family member, his parents have always said that they would never return to Spain to live.


They remembered the bad times and although they missed certain things from Galicia, had made the UK their permanent home.

BTW another family member who is self employed has got a very bad dose of shingles, and has just been told that their entitlement to sick pay has finished even though the pain of the shingles still exists.

Apparently the maximum that a self employed person get sick pay from the government for shingles is 34 days, of course if you are not fit to go back to work you don't have to, but the money stops. So for some they have to return to work fit or not.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Weve holidayed in Oliva a few times and over the other side of Spain in Ayamonte and we find Spain far far cheaper than the UK - im not sure what types of things you are buying - if for example you are buying English stuff then yes it does work out expensive - but if you buy Spanish stuff its so much cheaper - the fruit, veg and meat are much cheaper in Spain and the fruit and veg taste how they should taste xxxxx

Re: A Place in the sun
 

I'm just catching today's edition of the Place in the Sun Home and Away show - the Spanish part is featuring Lake Vinuela, a 15 minute drive from where I live. I bet they don't say anything about the illegal homes issue which affects a lot of properties in that area. There are legal ones as well, of course, but prospective purchasers would need to be wary.

The first part featured Cornwall. It still looks lovely (we always went there for holidays when I was a kid, my Dad's family was originally from there) but you don't get much house for your money!

Re: A Place in the sun
 

Yeh, but think of all that lovely wind and rain that comes entirely free and keeps the countryside nice and fresh all year round

Re: A Place in the sun
 

......you forgot 'and attractive'.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

When you can see it.

Must admit I normally enjoy a typical UK Summer, but this last one has been a bit extreme and I only hope its not a sign of things to come as some Met. experts are predicting.

Apart from all the rain I can't ever recall one with so little sunshine.
The lack of sunshine has caused all sorts of problems from apple crops down by 80% in some areas, Honey down by 75% and much of the Wheat grown especially for breadmaking being of very poor quality and unsuitable for purpose etc.etc.
I have noticed it myself with a huge drop in the amount of ripe wild fruit available for picking.
Just goes to show how important a reasonable amount of sunlight is not only to plants, but also to people.
Many up in the Arctic regions of Scandinavia suffer depression through lack of vitamin D which as I understand it can only be absorbed given a reasonable amount of sunlight.

Re: A Place in the sun
 

What should I expect from my 1st winter in Spain
In the Tarragona area will it be cold during the day
I am thinking its going to be quite cold at night will we need coats
During the day ?