Services - or Lack of Them


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You may be lucky and have full services attached to your piece of the campo, but then you might not.

Water

Probably the most import of all - we all need water, every day.
If you do not have access to mains water, you may be able to sink a bore hole for your own private supply.
Permission needs to be sought before having the bore hole made (this appears straight forward as long as you have plenty of space and not too near a rambla or an existing bore hole) and it then needs to be licenced - not surprisingly, there are controls on such things.
There also needs to be water down there. But all those we know in our dry area of Andalucia who have had a bore hole drilled have found water though some have had to go as far down as 130m. Most have been around 100m.

If you do not have the option of a bore hole or do not want to go down that road just yet, then buying in tanker loads of water is an option. There are still plenty of people who need to buy water in this way and the infrastructure for delivery exists, using either small tankers holding perhaps 2-3,000 litres, upto 20,000 litres.
You will of course need storage for this water which may be a covered concrete balsa or an above ground glass fibre tank. Ideally your storage would be above the level of your house or wherever the water is required, to give sufficient pressure without using a pump.

Electricity

Electricity may appear for some to be potentially the biggest problem. However, with a reasonably sophisticated solar power system and a generator backup you shouldn't have a problem.

For an explanation in laymans terms of what is required for a solar power system, take a look at the Solar Facts web site.

Solar power systems don't come cheap, and unfortunately you can't say that is free or cheap electricity. What makes these systems an economic option is if your situation means that it would be expensive to have mains electricity laid on.
We know people who have been quoted 60,000 Euros or more to be connected to the mains (needing new poles to bring the power over a kilometer and to have their own transformer.
A solar power system to give you a reasonable supply may cost you 10 15,000 Euros, although it is possible to pay a lot more. In some areas there may be grants available.

Telephone

This may be the biggest problem. Even in situations where you are near to a house that has telephone connected, it may take a long long time for you to get a connection, whatever the estate agent told you.
Spain has made use of radio phones in the past which appear to anyone else to be a land line, but use radio signals to connect with the network.
After a few years not supplying radio phones, they are available once again, using modern digital technology giving improved performance, including the possibility of Internet access, at speeds comparable to a normal landline connection.
Mobile phone signals can be very patchy in rural areas amongst the hills so check this out. In some situations you will find that one Mobile phone company achieves better coverage than another.

Internet Access

This may not be important to your life in the campo, but if you are reading this, I expect you would find it useful.

If you do not have a landline or radio phone facility, there are other ways to obtain Internet access.
If you are lucky, you may have access to a microwave link. This requires line of sight with the antenna over a relatively short distance (a few miles). This is capable of providing broadband connection speeds.
Another option capable of giving a speed connection but with a high setup and monthly cost is satellite. It is possible for a small community to share a satellite system through microwave links.
Yet another option is through your mobile phone company using either GPRS or 3G technology. The latter is capable of giving broadband speeds but it may only be the former that is available in rural areas. Either way the running costs tend to be expensive and if you are in an area with poor mobile signal, then the results are likely to be poor.