We bought a house in the Bagni di Lucca

Chris, it is obvious that there is something very wrong with this story. We have a house in Bagni di Lucca and we are connected to mains gas. In seven years we have not spent those amounts and we come at least twice a year for a month or two each time. Try to investigate as far as you can go. And advise them that you will prosecute them. If you were paying the agent to look after the house it is obvious that he/she should have noticed the leak if they were doing a proper job. Who is in charge of calling the gas supplier? Do you have neighbours who can tell you whether anything was wrong?Get a specialist to check on all gas connections. And, if there has being any wrong doing, please denounce them, as you will be doing a great service to the community. Good luck with your investigations!

Chris, let me check some of our bills for gas (it is mains gas, but it could give some idea regarding consumption ) and I will talk to an Italian neighbour who is a great source of information. Fortunately, I am in Bagni di Lucca at the moment, so it is easier for me to check those things. Have you thought about organising direct debit with your bank for all your bills?In any case, I do not think that your gas tank needed to be refilled so many times unless the leak was not a small one, but a HUGE one and I guess that something like that would have been noticed. I will let you know what I find out.  

Chris, I have now checked with some Italian people who live permanently in Bagni. Granted that they are connected to mains gas and the tank is generally more expensive, but then, you are only here for afew weeks. They spend some 2000 to 2200€ A YEAR for mains gas covering hot water, cooking and most of their heating. They spend some 500 € extra on firewood. They have a large house which is on the river and their insulation is not very good. In our case, we seem to spend some 50€ a month when we are here also covering heating, hot water and cooking. We are also on the river, but our home is made of stone, walls are 60-80 cm thickand our windows are double-glazed PVC, so our insulation is much more efficient. It is definitely very hard to find out what happened in your case and possibly it would not be easy to prove anything. Perhaps, it may be time for you to revise your current situation. In any case, I wish you the best.  

We rented a house outside of Lucca that used gas/gas-oil a couple of years ago and when we received our first gas bill it was 600 eu. on top of our rent.  We couldn't believe it.  It was an older heating system in the house so we immediately put in a pellet stove to heat the house.  We thought there had to be a mistake as well or a leak but then my husband went out to look at the meter and it just kept running and running.  Once we turned the heaters off and started using the pellet stove to heat the house we had a very low bill for just the hot water.  Europeans naturally keep their homes cooler and they are less insulated.  The homes are harder to heat.  I had to try and explain this to visitors all the time because they always complained it was too cold even in hotel rooms.

Hi Chris, a very annoying situation indeed but after 18 years in italy, not one that surprises me. We live full time in Umbria and initially our gas contract was with Liquigas (very expensive). With annual bills of around 5,800 € we decided to change contractors when there was competition available. Heating our 400sq mtr home in the winter months was expensive and we could have used 2,200 € worth of gas in 6 weeks had we not been using a log fire as well. With a new contractor and a newer combi boiler we are now spending about 4,000€ a year on gas. With our local contractor, I am now paying around 1€ a ltr whereas with Liquigas I had been paying around 1.25€ a ltr.  Bottom line is that I would advise caution before getting legal folks involved as we have experienced legal action over a dispute, we won the case and were awarded costs (11,000€), that was in January 2011 and now we are still trying to recover our costs !!!! Not too helpful I am afraid but food for thought.

I have a question about your gas consumption...while visiting do you have the heat running for 24 hours during the full duration of your stay?  I lived in Italy for 10 years and it was regular practice for locals to shut off the heat at night when one goes to bed in order to cut down on gas costs and consumption.  As a result the approximate annual cost of gas consumption was €1,100.

We've owned and rented in Emilia Romagna , just north of Tuscany. Those gas costs are outrages. My opinion is that you are being taken advantage of by your agent. No one in the region I 'm living could afford those prices....

Thank you all.  

Your tank is leaking - basically your gas is disappearing into the atmosphere. At the rate you describe, just go down to the tank and you'll hear it hissing. You could get the tank checked but for the short time you're there, I really recommend that you simply change everything to electricity and buy plenty of firewood. Also, dump the agent. He's not working in your interest. Hire a gardener to come round from time to time to check the place out. BUT if you have the heating going full blast in the middle fo winter, you can go through 2000 euros in three weeks. Turn down the heating during the day and off at night. Keep fires burning all day long. Wood is cheap.

Please be careful, we had a very bad time and our money just ran away. I wonder who your agent is? We've switched and are much happier.  Please message me if you need somebody really good to look for you, it may cost you for an hour's work but you would have a reputable English speaking builder helping.  Could someone be staying in the house when your not there and how often is your house checked? I know some people had to switch houses when the snow was bad last year and roofs were damaged.  Luckily there are some wonderful people in that village, so were sticking there but last year was such a different story.  

Thanks Toscanaman and Babs.  The leak was sorted last year, and the gas was at 30% when we last left the house so it'd better be there or thereabouts. We've got access to lots of wood - we already use it in the wood burner we have, and we're planning to get a few more of them.  The woods free.  I cant say too much about the agent on a public forum, bit we inherited the agent from the previous owners.  I've heard about some of the prices that the previous owners paid for work to the house.  I can't quite make up my mind whether the agent did not advise them 'with integrity' or whether they just liked to splash the cash - probably a combination of both.  I think what will happen is that we wil take over the bill paying process which is currently handled for us by the agent, then we'll see what the future holds for the agent.  Its an evolutionary process I suspect, one which a lot of overseas home owners have had to go through in Italy, and to be fair in other countries too.  Babs I take your point entirely in relation to whether someone could be staying at the house.  I don't know wether this goes on but we always tell our agent when we are coming over.  If a house is in a remote part of Italy and there's no one around I suppose a house could be rented out without the owners knowing.

Wise decision, Chris! Unfortunately, we all make mistakes. The important thing is to learn through them. Best wishes! 

I wish you well, we have to trust people and when you get over again all may sorted.