Sale of Cave House in Galera

Cueva Eco 55,000 euros
***NOW REDUCED BY OVER 50,000 EUROS IN TOTAL***

Located in the hamlet of Cortijo Del Cura, close to the village of Galera and not far from Castillejar, this is a 'green home' with a difference. Cave houses now go full circle with this eco cave house.

Caves were man's first habitat and now their modern equivalent is making a comeback.

The basic principles used to construct the ecological cave house were that it should be both practical and affordable, utilising local eco materials and skills wherever possible.

Three bedrooms, two with ensuite, a good sized living area and a separate kitchen area makes this an ideal family home. When completed this will be very attractive and, unlike many eco properties, competitively priced.

To reduce its ecological impact the house has been built from an existing ruin with high usage of recycled materials.

Setting this apart from other cave houses is its method of construction. Exterior walls are constructed from locally made hemp bricks. These bricks offer very high thermal insulation properties and their manufacture minimise their carbon footprint.

The roofs are supported by recycled, treated wooden beams over which is laid an insulating layer of hemp fibre/cement mixture capped by recycled roof tiles.

Windows and doors are made from natural fast growing pine and external windows are double glazed. When finished the cave house will almost be airtight and to maintain good air quality levels a high efficiency ventilation system will be used as found in passive houses. The ventilation system will extract air from the kitchen and bathrooms and bring fresh air into all other rooms.

The unit contains an efficient heat exchanger, thus, in winter, the outgoing warmer air will heat the incoming fresh air reducing the house's heating requirements to the minimum possible. In summer the outgoing cool air will reduce the temperature of the incoming air making air conditioning unnecessary. If required, the unit has a built in 1kw heater to heat incoming air.

If further heating is required a double sided, glass fronted log burning fire is installed between the kitchen and living area, guaranteeing that this will be a comfortable home no matter how cold the weather.

The ventilation system can be set to maintain a minimum airflow and temperature when the owners are absent from the property thus ensuring the property remains 'aired' at all times.

Instead of the usual ceramic tiles, the floors will be surfaced with clay tiles fired at low temperature to reduce their carbon impact. These too are manufactured locally in Granada.

The constructor Cuevas y Cortijos Andaluces SL offers a range of ecological cave houses built to customer specifications. If this property is not your ideal then the perfect situation can be found and the property built to your ideal. Depending on their situation cave houses can be completely off the electrical grid and able to recycle water.

Please go to our home page to see more about our eco homes.

Please note that the ventilation system is not included in this new price but can be bought at an extra cost.