paintermujer

Having been here for only 4 months we havent really had the opportunity to get "soft" with the weather yet.

All I know is that when it rains it rains, when its windy the wind really does blow.

We have had temps of -1,cold but not compared to the UK.

I think the main problem is that a lot of houses are just not geared up for winter.Like our house,no central heating. Yesterday our daughters bedroom during the day with no heat read 5 degrees and we are lucky to have cavity insulation.

We just cannot get warm and very often it is warmer outside.

Harry Bohun

As long as it doesnt drop below 2-3 degrees at night I can live with it I reckon.

Its funny you mention the sensation of being warmer outside than in and the inhability to get the internal spaces warm - its the same here for us right now. The 50's detached house has sod all insulation and has two chimneys running up one side that literally hoover any warm air straight out the house.

The gas boiler gave up the ghost months ago and we just about get hot water, coupled with a leaky window seal on the front double glazing means we are totally dependant on the Morso wood burner in the front room.

Without that we/my folks who are just about to pay off their mortgage next year (plus 15k endowment short fall!) would be seriously in trouble.

As it is we have half the house here thats never heated during winter and damp/mould has become a real issue upstairs.

Frankly, given the amount of money invested in the property over the years and the amount of council tax we are now paying in conjunction with the quarterly gas bill nudging £400 for the first time ever, I'm disinclined to accept any protestations of suffering from anyone in a drafty Spanish town house/villa! :OP

I'm only sorry that when I leave, the bills will be divided 2 ways not three and they can barely afford to remain there after 25 years hard graft. In fact it was only the repayment of a very old and long forgotten loan I trumped up as an excuse to give them 2k in the summer that financed their wood burner - I really don't know how two 70 year olds would fare rattling around without central heating and worry about them next year!

The UK. Living the dream. Not!

Whatever nonsense Spain throws at you, bar losing your home, dying of hypothermia as we see daily on the news now and worry about happening in our own families is simply not on in 2010 Mr. Brown!

Spain all the way! Ho hum.

cricketman

All very well, but at least half of Spain is at least as cold as the UK in the winter, if not colder... Anywhere from inland Andalucia and upwards

Harry Bohun

I grant you gets cold in Spain in winter. Even in the north. But its not as bad. Even 5 degrees makes a noticeable difference when its the wrong side of 0.

Oddly the worst part of the UK, for me anyway, is not the cold or the wet its the complete lack of any consistent sunshine for six months of the year!

No surprise Ireland has the highest instances of seasonal effect disorder in the world!

Also in the UK we have a real issue with natural gas dependancy for our heating - very few houses have any other source of heating. Thanks to the utter incompetence of successive governments the north sea oil and gas has been totally squandered and we are importing most of our oil and gas now while Norway has the highest quality of life index in the world and has centuries of reserves left! Only in the last couple of years have we seen wood burners and coal fires make a real comeback. People are held to ransom, literally with their lives in the case of the elderly, as to whether they get heat or they get repossessed during protracted cold winters here.

I hope its not that way in Spain!

cricketman

You obviously do not watch the weather on Spanish TV!

Spain has extreme weather compared to the UK's mild weather e.g. near Madrid it can be 45c in summer and -20c in winter. In the CDS yes the weather is mild, it will usually be between 35 and 5c.

It has been reaching -17c in parts of Spain recently. In Guadalaja, Leon, Teruel...anywhere inland or mountanous temperatures are normally colder than the UK in the winter.

You have to realise Spain has a very diverse landscape, full of mountains and plateus and micro-climates. The Spain British people know is that with the mild climate i.e. the Mediterranean Coast. yes here it is warmer than the UK in the winter. In the rest of Spain it is not.

I should add that Spain does not have a piped gas network in much of the country, so it is more reliant on extra blankets!

agoreira

Well, hard luck, matey! I have to say we have a very modest house, all paid for, with double glazing, cavity wall insulation, added loft insulation, CH, and I have not once felt cold during this winter, you're doing something badly wrong. I must admit to a wry smile when I read here of all the expats that moved to Spain for the better weather, and at this time of the year they are always moaning how cold they feel. There are questions in another forum about whether some 400watt wall heaters will help warm the place!!! Still, give it a few months and the posts about A/C will start! Hope you end up living your dream in Spain.

fionamw

Well a number of points are true. It's certainly true that you can be more sure of sunshine more of the time in Spain. It's also true that a few degrees makes a difference to the 'feel' of a cold day; ie if it's 5 degC, quite cold for here, it's proportionally quite a bit warmer than 0deg. It's also absolutely fact that after a while you become sensitised due to the generally warmer weather - so I invariably go to the UK with too few layers on or in my case! Leaving aside individual properties, there is one other truth slightly sidelined. Not only does Spain have little piped gas (don't know the detail, but I imagine not every town has it and certainly no campo).... but oil fired or indeed in my experience, any central heating is not common whether in old or new properties so unless you invest in a total installation (which we as well as others are considering) the natural inclination in the winter months is to fret about, ponder (and moan about on forums) what to do about the cold. Yes you can possibly install insulation, curtains, draught proofing & double or triple glazing - if you can afford it and the house is either young enough to have modern windows or you can get around the mostly appalling appearance of new dg units. Yes you can put on more layers and ensure you have the best possible wood burner or whatever. You may see it as moaning because the natural tendency isn't to come on here weekly from March to November saying 'isn't the weather lovely'. I don't know anyone, though, in anything other than an apartment or a new and I mean new house in Spain, who isn't playing catchup because the build & installations in even slightly older properties just don't take account of the winter months.

agoreira

I agree. I'm not knocking it, it's the way Spain is, but as you say even in new builds there seems to be a reluctance to admit it gets cold and build accordingly. Cold damp houses in the winter seem to be the norm. The other poster reckons UK is reliant on gas, and for sure lots have it (and love it!) but there are many thousands not on mains gas that have LPG or oil fired installations. People here go on about the problems of installing systems, DG windows etc in old houses, we'll the UK has a few old houses as well, many hundreds of years old, and they seem to get around the problem.

cricketman

Well - builders rely on the ignorance of the people buying the properties, they save a lot of money by not putting in heating or aircon. As for the houses in the campo/villages, noone with any money lives in these Andalucian villages so they've never even thought about putting heating or air con systems in these houses!

In the North of Spain any modern house or house where people live full time will have a proper heating system.

jjh

Unless the law has changed in the last 5 years, you can´t install double glazing in houses that are hundred of years old because they´re usually listed. I know this because our home in the UK was Grade 2 listed and we weren´t allowed to do it.

fionamw

And even if they're not listed, if you've bought an old house there's a good chance it's because of the way it is, which includes the way it looks, so installing dg comes at a hefty price because it has to be purpose-made and probably not upvc. (Been there done that got the bills) ... insulation in older properties tends to be only loft insulation because they're highly unlikely to be cavity wall; you can always put in double skin plasterboard internally, but only if you've decent room sizes to begin with!

agoreira

Agree. My brother lives in Sweden, and when I speak to him on skype, he's always dressed in just a shirt, no sweater, they are geared up for it. It's mainly the southern half of Spain that seems to shiver throughout the winter. I can see why people might want to move to Spain, but I can't see the fun for the elderly or pensioners shuffling around for a few months in a freezing cold house.

Harry Bohun

Same old story here - always struggled to make ends meet, especially under the Tories and then what they had put aside in pensions was taxed to bits by Labour.

Houses are usually the last to get pennies spent on them I should imagine, certainly was the case here. We had a new set of windows put in last summer which cost about 5k but it has resulted in half the house having 10 degree warmer air than the other. But condenser gas boilers are so expensive now its been cheaper to put wood burners in..

The main problem we have is the age of the house, as I mentioned before, the chimneys and lack of any wall insulation - its bare brick beneath the plaster!

1950's init.

Re: the cold winters in Spain. I'm not a numpty, I know all about Spain's climates, history, topography, cultural variety etc. And I can tell you with absolute certainty it gets colder in the UK in winter.

Leon right now according to google weather is 8c with a low of 0, tomorrow 4c with a low of -4. That's not as cold as it is here now in Derby, which is not on a mountain range. :P

But yeah, cold is COLD. Wherever.

bil

Ah, so many points to consider.

In the UK, had government (Lab & Tory) had the wit and guts to insist on all newbuilds being to Swedish/Norwegian standards, a lot of problems would have been solved. I think that type of house uses a single can of propane for heating the whole winter long. Oh, and that's in countries that have a SERIOUS winter.

Again, costs, well, they can be eased a lot if you are sensible, maximise what you get out of your energy, and above all, in Spain don't try and live an English life.

The first summer we were out here we damn near died from the heat at night, and accepted that we would have to have A/C. Since then we have learned a bit, and 4 or 5 years on still haven't bought one.

We painted the roof white, we keep the doors and windows closed all day and open all night, and we don't allow the sun to shine into the house ever.

Winter we just use the wood burner (no central heating, tho I am thinking about a system to blow warm air into other rooms.) and by and large we get by. We reckon to burn about 150 euros worth of wood per winter.

There are all sorts of tricks you can use. We don't try and warm the whole house, just the living area and allow the heat to seep thru.

paintermujer

We pay 110 euros for a ton of wood and it has been lasting us 2-3 weeks only.