Insulation damp course

I am not familiar with the construction on La Marina but judging by my own experience with Spanish builds it will have little or no insulation and  will feel very cold.
A previous poster pointed out that being in an earthquake zone no dpc is used. This means rising damp problems are widespread and exacerbated if used as a holiday home and closed up for periods plus a lack of decent heating. Walls are usually single skin and noise travels if it's an attached property.
We have added false ceilings packed with insulation and a layer of insulation sheets then plasterboard on all external walls, installed bottled gas central heating and changed the windows for double glazed ones.

 Our villa is in the countryside and very exposed to the South, East and West. As a guide, right now it is 12 degrees on our covered terrace which has awnings around it, 12 degrees in a completed room that last had the heating on Tuesday morning and 10 degrees in an incomplete room that last had heating on at 9 am this morning.

Cheryl, I see what you mean, that is cold by any standards. I am thinking that the best road to take is to do a self build with damp course and fully insulated throughout.

With all the modern technology available today you would expect that all the mediteranien countries would take advantage with all their new builds, it wouldn't cost much more to the overall price.

I've never found the earthquake risk a convincing reason for not using a DPC. OK, the normal DPC is plastic, and therefore slippy, but there's so much weight on it that slippage is unlikely. Using slate as a DPC would seem to be the answer.

For existing properties, using a core drill to create apertures where rising damp could escape would also seem to be the answer.

Hi

Yes they can be cold in the winter as just breeze block dnt think any insulation think that is to keep them cool in summer but not realy sure

Cath359

As Jim said ....nonsense that DPC is left out for earthquake reasons! No reason not to incorporate it in any build! Also insulation should be incorporated in all new builds as think along the lines of a thermal flask....hot water in it keeps it warm and when you put cold water in it it keeps it cool...so in theory when you put your nice cold AC on in the height of summer it will remain cooler longer and using less energy to achieve that and vice versa in the wi tee months!

Why most Europeans in and around the Med do not include DPC and guttering systems as standard practice is beyond me! I’ve seen it in Italy,France ,Portugal and spain in new builds all without the above....crazy! Having been fortunate to live and work in all these places and seen it first hand , while some euro methods are better then ours back in Uk and vice versa these particular ones need addressing as they lead to long term problems ! Also soundproofing definitely needs looking at in attached houses and apartments as sometimes it sounds like your neighbours are sitting in your front room with you!😂

Basil I agree fully with your observations. Adding all the plus features to a new build will be no much more effort or cost to the overall build when all is said and done. I just wondered if anyone out there has upgraded their house with internal insulation and retro installed some damp course membrane, the fitting of guttering is simple in most cases.

As with my previous post, we have done everything apart from a dpc. I didn't mention before that we scraped out all the crumbling grout at the joint of the external walls and the tiled surround and refilled with swimming pool grout. I don't know if it makes any difference but it had to be done anyway so why not belt and brace it?
The new central heating solved the damp almost overnight but one room still had it in one area so we hacked the plaster off and found that there was one red brick (the ones with holes) just above the foundation, it was obviously easier than cutting down a block! The problem was made worse because they had put it in with the holes running from outside to inside with the holes stuffed with soil. I have noticed many older houses where the render is falling off have walls made up of all sorts of things, blocks, "emmental" bricks, rock, carrier bags, etc, etc, all covered up with rendering.
We will also add full guttering which we will channel to a soak-away rather than just emptying at the foot of the walls as the little bits of existing guttering did and in the meantime we have bodged it by adding an elbow and an extra length of pipe to direct it away from the house..
We added the insulation sheets under plasterboard on external walls only once we were sure the damp problem had gone. 
I should also mention we are 150 metres above sea level so maybe that could be a factor that helps in our situation.

Cheryl you have done the right things the the house to improve the quality of comfort. The one thing that does seem to be lacking in Spanish houses which can make the internal damp worse is the lack of good ventilation.

Cheryl what is the internal insulation and thickness used on your walls and how is it mounted etc.

It was all done according to instructions from the building section of Leroy Merlin. The adhesive (Traditerm) was applied all over the insulation sheet (Danopren) with a notched trowel and then the sheet pressed onto the wall. When fully dried, the same adhesive was dot and dabbed onto the insulation sheet and the plasterboard offered up.  We used plasterboard with tapered edges so when filled and sanded down we just painted over it, using bathroom paint where applicable. We can't remember if the insulation is 30 or 40 mm thick.
We are doing a total refurb so it didn't matter to us that we had to remove the existing skirting tiles as we are re-tiling throughout having dug up a lot of it for the central heating and water and waste pipes for new bathrooms.
For ventilation if its a decent day we'll just throw open all the windows and doors to give it a good airing throughout.