Cave House – why choose to live in a cave?

A shortlist of cave houses for sale

Why not a cave house?

Living in a cave house can be much more comfortable than living in a traditional house. At least from an energy point of view.

The construction characteristics of this type of home, with a buried roof and most of the perimeter wall also underground, mean that both the heat that is lost through the walls in winter and the cold that ‘escapes’ in summer in a traditional home is very little compared to the construction systems normally used. So much so that, while the vast majority of homes in the Spanish housing stock are very inefficient, with energy ratings in the vast majority of cases E, F and G, in the case of cave-homes the maximum energy certification, the letter A, is very common.

In other words, these are homes with an energy consumption close to 0, which allows energy savings of up to 90% compared to a normal home, according to estimates by Certicalia.com. In fact, according to the certifications carried out through this portal, only 0.20% of the homes analysed obtained an A or B rating, 2.11% obtained a C rating and 11.35% obtained a D rating. The majority, 49.71% obtained the letter E, 13.29% obtained the letter F and 23.14% obtained the letter G.

Caves have the advantage that the temperature inside is practically constant in both winter and summer, so they hardly need any energy to air-condition the house.