Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

We also know why some have a small bill;):D

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

it's not because I don't use much electricity for heating! 106 per 2 months is not a small bill unless you compare it with Fred's. My daughter in UK paid £350 total for the worst winter quarter-gas/electricity, central heating on 24 hours. I can't believe Fred James is in the majority with horrendous bills like that. If others had such huge bills, they couldn't afford to eat!

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

50 odd euros a month for electricity is small in fact is tiny especially when you consider that so much of that is tax.

Our friend who is as stingy as can be and always has smaller bills still had a total bill of 177 euros. We are getting the plumber up end of the week to check our pump.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

Don't blame you, much better than going around indoors wearing a fleece and all sort of extra clothing to go to bed! ;) Not sure why people would do that, they'd never do it in UK, or I know I certainly wouldn't. We are not hot house plants, but nothing worse than shuffling around in a cold house, flick the C/H on. As for the daughter in UK with C/H on 24/7, I don't know anyone that has ever done that, do they live in a barn? :p We have the top rating for insulation, even if I left mine on the thermostat would have it switched off most of the time.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

To be fair, English homes are some of the smallest in the world, it is very easy to heat them and keep a room warm

I bet that the villas that Brits like to live in, in Spain, are twice as big as their British home was, and then they get surprised by the heating costs. A 60m flat is cheap to heat in any country

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

Come on :rofl: depends what you can afford in any country. There are plenty of 2 bed boxes in Spain too. I was surprised by my heating costs in the UK...pleasantly surprised! I have about the same sized house as I did in Spain.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

Houses tend to be small in any city compared to the countryside. Spain, France, England, Germany, the US, wherever.

Our house in Spain in the countryside is more than double the size of our previous house in Germany (in the city), which was considered quite generous by city standards. We heat only a small portion of this house, though.

I'd have to agree that energy costs, whilst supposedly government-regulated to be cheaper in Spain, at the end of the day are quite a bit higher than anything we ever paid in Germany or the UK. Amongst a few other things that are far more expensive, too, such as communications, cars, and car maintenance.

Remember, though, that our local expert in everything comes from Oviedo, where the quality of life is #1 on the planet, everything is better, and everything is free.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

Who said it was cheaper in Spain? Energy certainly isn't.

It depends what you choose to spend your money on.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

Who said I was in the majority? I certainly didn't.

I have always been happy to admit that I am not a normal user. We have a reasonably large house in the Campo. The living area is about 150m2 with about the same underneath which is either not used or not heated.

We have 5 aircon units and 17kw of electric underfloor heating and 70m2 of windows which although they are double glazed leak the heat. The ceiling in the living room is 4.5m high at its highest point.

We designed the house that way and never had any illusions about how much it would cost to heat. We also spend about €500 a year on wood for the stove.

Energy efficient we are not - warm (and cool where needed) we are.

Horses for courses.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

When we lived in a mountain village in rural Andalucia we did as the Spanish did, and just heated the room we were in. Our main sitting room had a woodburner, and the other main room had a bottled gas fire. We also had one of these in the large kitchen. The other rooms had various electric heaters.

It was not cheap, especially the bottled gas, and we always used our electric blankets on the bed. I haven't used one of these since we came back to the UK where our combined gas/electric bill for the year is £75 pcm for a three-bedroomed terraced house, and for this we have the whole house warm (although the bedrooms are set at a much lower temperature than the downstairs rooms).

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

But do you still live in the mountains?
Comparisons like this are only relevant if you compare like with like.
Everything comes down to the type and quality of the build and usage.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

No, don't live in the mountains and we have gas central heating and double glazing,. :) Also the house is far more solidly built .

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

Exactly. In the UK I lived 1,000ft above sea level amongst the West Pennines moors. It was b****y freezing in winter despite loft insulation and double glazing, and the year we left we had to have our central heating on in August.

Here I am barely 100m above sea level and it never gets anywhere near as cold.

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

This is so true. Houses in Spain were built traditionally for reasons that barely change. The cost and difficulty of heating and cooling houses means that it is, always has been and always will be a good idea to have thermally efficient houses. very few of us buying or renting our place in the sun had no experience of Spanish winters and didn't take this into account. I didn't even look at the thermal efficiency in the build specs on our house. But I got lucky. Because we were self building and had a good, and expensive architect (in those days we thought we could afford it! :ohmy: ) we, more by accident than design, got a really thermally efficient building. The architect even took into account the air flow through the house in summer. There are still a good few things to do to improve this. For example our front door is still a reclaim we brought from England and keeps out neither heat nor cold! but we don't need to use air-con even in 35-39 We don't go much above that in the edge of the Sierra. And the cold is very much evened out by the design as well. (too complicated to go into) We do need heating in the winter, but last year we took our cue from the locals there as well and got the brasero under the table. We softies from Northern Europe have got so used to central heating we believe we need it always. we don't really need as high a temp when we're moving around, only when we're seated. that's why the Spanish system works so well. I know the difference because I lived in a badly built 'box' (rental) for a while. You could neither heat it nor cool it. It was never comfortable. Unfortunately the build specs on too many of the rapidly put up developments will cost their owners far more over the next 10 or 20 years than building properly would have done. But we didn't know did we? We thought Spain was the same temp all year. 'Just right, ' as it was in the hotels and bars of our holidays! And we thought that electricity would be cheap!

Re: Would you go back to the UK ?
 

So true. Many if not thousands have bought properties built to " summer rental spec " which they visited when the weather was warm not realising or having it explained that they were never intended for all year round living.
Our build has cavity walls with insulation panels in them, the roof is 3 layers, concrete, waterproof membrane and then tiles.
We do have underfloor heating which if needed we use to take the initial chill off on arrival but for 90% of the time all we need to stay comfortable is our wood burning fire and this is not an efficient modern design which we aim to change in the near future.
Your idylic stone farmhouse for sale in the campo could have been unlived in for years because the original owners have moved into something more modern and comfortable.