adriatica's activity

i would suggest you pay said geometra and take it as hard lesson learned,  to go against the caste here is virtually an un-winnable situation .. even worse if you do not live here and have to attend the court on several occaisions it will always be a no win situation against the professional caste here unless in really extreme circumstances, and i presume that the geometra may well hold the key to allowing your house to be registered as habitable so until he is in your side you might well not be able to live there, he also has the right to keep the property closed to you until the works are signed off as finished and safe so my thoughts are that you would be inadvised to get into a padlock dispute, for a start damaging his property could see you in court well before him pay up and get the project signed off, hopefully the value of the work done is ok and you just take as a lesson learned..you for sure will not be the first nor last ..  and not many will laugh at you either.. all will have been there before and you will be fairly well welcomed by your neighbors as part of that club that has fallen to the rip offs of many of the professional caste here  i am a member, an architect refused to allow me to reduce the number of bedrooms in an apartment, i wanted two she wanted three..  in the end i said i was fed up with her and would get someone else.. cost me her fee for no work done.. trouble is until she was paid could not get the house paperwork released from the comune... paid up.. its pretty well what happens here.. all Italians know they will either loose in court or loose too much in the fight.. 

first roof work there are new thermal value legislation laws which have come in and if you have to re roof a house now all work that is carried out has to add in the requirements of today to allow the work to get permmision.. to me it makes good long term sense to have a roof insulated to a degree that will permit you to reduce long term costs re heating and or cooling, each year the fence is moved and each year values that are required become more stringent so often old forum advice can be misleading and or out of date its one of the major problems for people buying here because every year the rules and legislation move on and restoration or interventions become more expensive and its a good idea to consider if you can afford to pay more at the start to find a habitable property that does not require intervention and that each phase of the changes you might like to make can be spaced and afforded over a longer period, for example with building interventions as the rules change if you buy a property which is habitable you are pretty well exempt from any of the stricter regulations until you feel you can afford to do work or even want to.. downside is you might well be living there when the builders are in..  upside .. you might well find that you can accept the property as it is and save yourselves a fortune the other question about how to get back to stone is much more complicated than in my mind has been gone into here, should you start this sort of work or have a mind to investigate further there are several important factors to consider,  without a survey the immediate problem is that a building might not be considered  stable enough or in an area of high risk re either water or earth movement that should you start work the result will be that the building is required to have by law a steel cage fitted and cased in concrete before it is allowed to be inhabited and you might well find that you have no choice on avoiding that solution unless you are prepared to drop the building to the ground and rebuild from new foundations up.. thats the worst scenario.. other interventions might include new ring beams around top and intermediate floors, to hold the house together or even deep under wall foundations and security measures to maintain the buildings integrity, so sand blasting is only to me a solution if the plaster on the property is not a cement based render that is very fixed to the wall, and that as someone said before the first option is to remove the bulk of the material by hand , the sandblasting is basically to remove last remnants and to clean stone    each year here rules and regulations are added to under the rules of not only building safety regulations but building efficiency as regards energy use, work that could have been carried out as remedial  work in the past is not quite as easy now although before you buy no one will tell you that, but new legislation regarding the level of insulation are now almost fully in place and work that was at one time simple is now covered by a myriad of new legislation and standards..   you will find that most of this is with-held information when talking with house selling people and generally rarely available in English, so quite hard to keep up with, even less forthcoming if the property you are buying is via a geometra or an agency that is offering to restore a building for you as regards real costs and new laws, obvious i suppose,  my sympathy as regards conflicting views, your success is i believe more to do with finding an honest and helpful local building company with a geomtra of the same ilk and start getting a few ideas and quote .. hopefully the property you bought requires no immediate intervention and you can take your time, although if it does not have the necessary permission to allow it to be lived in i guess you are pretty well stuck on having to do work before you can move in , and in that case you have my sympathy and wishes of good luck with it all 

without suggesting that the original lower quote was truthful or the higher one a rip off there are extenuating circumstances that might actually effect how the price has changed, i know everyone has heard about L'Aquila and the quake but what seems to be still entirely hidden when people are buying property in Abruzzo that much of Chieti is zoned as class 1 seismic so involving far more stringent building regulations therefore costs... in the past much as the province of L'Aquila refused to accept its national seismic rating and implement the correct national planning regulations Chieti also followed the same path, since the earthquake however things have changed and maybe your roof under old regulations may well have been one price maybe just maybe with the fears now of technicians being held responsible for not implementing national building regs the quote has changed to a more realistic and true more importantly safe re construction the easiest way to check is to use this link and check how your comune is listed by the civil protection group.. obviously you should have been told about the risks associated with an area before buying but as far as i am aware there are very few estate agents that inform anyone even when asked..   http://www.protezionecivile.it/cms/attach/editor/Classificazione2006_perRegione.pdf hopefully you will find you are not in one of the zone 1 seismic areas... for definitions of seismic zones its easy to go on wiki and look up what the classification means in real terms re new roof works.. to dismantle a roof put in a ring put in wood beams air gapped and with insulation,re roof with at least original tiles used for the last layer should according to book list price cost around the 1700 euro per sq m..        

pretty much as stated above http://www.lavorincasa.it/spendincasa/prezzi/494_pavimento_di_cotto.php http://www.lavorincasa.it/spendincasa/prezzi/495_pavimento_di_cotto.php http://www.lavorincasa.it/spendincasa/prezzi/496_pavimento_di_cotto.php anyway i posted as this is one of the best sites i think if you have a reasonable Italian knowledge for getting good ideas on prices also regulations and pretty well everything else to do with building work here in Italy its a starting point to gain knowledge before dealing with real people so that when the quotes come in you know straight away if they are within norms here or not..always handy in my opinion to be prepped.. it also may well dispel a lot of the thought that many people have re the rip offs..  some of which are really not as many people having never approached work of this sort have little to no idea of costs and have listened to selling agents give total under estimates either on costs or possibilities.. hasten to add not directed at the poster who seems more sensible than many

  a perfect world it is not.. ten years ago parents sent their children to school in the Molise..  a brand new building .. a small earthquake dropped the roof and killed them all..  how do the parents check that one out.. how could they imagine that in a small town the mayor and the comune technicians, the building company ...etc etc...whose own children went to the school would not actually follow regulations and build an unsafe building for their own children.. sentenced i believe if i remember correctly when found guilty to 2.5 years  or in the quake in L'Aquila the students that were told that the building they died in was safe..even our sons school in Teramo ..one we checked ... and asked lots of friends about ... a school of many years excellence.. was closed like all schools and public buildings after the quake.. until it was checked.. we began to wonder what was wrong when many of the other public buildings were opened and this school was still not.. apparently it had never received a certificate of safety and in fact when it was checked this missing certificate was noted ...then it was found that with the number of children on a three story building that it was unsafe as regards evacuation.. meaning should there have ever been a fire most of the children on the first and second floor would never have got out of the building alive... so yes i agree we have a duty to ensure our children's safety but we rely on the honesty of the state and their duty to us as a first line my argument here is not against Italian people it has been and usually is the corrupt  institutions... i worry so little about Mr B..and his actions because they will not effect us... what to me is the biggest criminality here is the local / provincial/ regional representatives.. they are the ones that will ruin your lives for a few pennies...reports today on the original piece i posted have the defence lawyer withdrawing because he says he cannot defend one of the women involved .. the mayor of the comune saying the school was an exemplary place of child care..  the general consensus that this happens a lot and that the children are fortunate that one was the child of a police officer... otherwise it would never have come to light...one parent saying it had gone on for five years...  and was common knowledge others saying the place was wonderful.. and calls lots of them for the all powerful teachers unions here to stop defending bad teachers and allow them to be removed from the system.. a thought so radical here that it will most probably have another strike called for ... 

 Sky Italia that is has the sentence as right 76-24 % although rolling across the top of the screen is the american opinion and indeed several clips from cnn and fox...where they rip the Italian justice system to bits...rather than be negative about it i think what would help in Italy would be the stopping of people like Bruno Vespa holding televison trials during criminal or civil court trials often with people involved in the cae giving opinions on TV... the worst of all i find is some jumped up psycho guy..with a sort of criminal profile background who instead of doing fictional/factional series instead goes on TV and then we have clips of eye expressions and lack of smiles or too many smiles and people are convicted in public before the actual trial even completes...Italian justice would be better served if PMs did not go on TV to bolster up their side..  and television had much less to do with manipulating public opinion... when you think the Jury within these trials has the same sort of continual unproven opinions pushed in their faces too..Italian justice seems no better or worse than anywhere else although given a chance to work without Mr Vespa i think it would be fairer.. the verdict most probably would have been the same...

 i know i get under your skin..but i also know you always think things through more than most and i always enjoy...well most of the time... your thoughts..   i didnt watch the video either on you tube or the news... cannot watch that sort of thing...Jinty however is right about privacy laws here..  in most cases video surveillance would be almost impossible to arrive at and this case is an exception..   connections.. that this video has been released to the press and therefore on to you tube...  is another thing i find pretty scandalous and is something that panders to voyeurism the world over.. this time though with very young children being seen to suffer it makes it all the more sad..thanks anyway for your thoughts once again..   although as regards EU rules i really think the only country in the whole of Europe that follows them to the letter is the UK... sad really wish they were more Italian in that sense

 maybe if you look at the vatican banks investments you might well find they do....

 my post states without any doubt that these incidents happen all over the world and Italy is no worse or better ... the main difference with Italy is that you are unlikely to get punished unless you have gone against someone who has more power than you...in this case all the parents were fortunate that the child of a police officer that managed to convince a judge to allow the  filming of the incidents.. the general acceptance by Italians of misbehaviour in institutions is based on their knowledge that going against   anyone within these systems is at best useless and at worse renders serious repercussions against them..  i dont live in the Uk.. dont know UK news so cannot comment on that.. but before i left there several years ago if several parents had brought a problem to light then it would be a case of suspension,investigation and prosecution..the teacher would then loose their salary,their pension, and their right to teach.. i didn't realise the Uk didn't follow this line of reasoning any longer .. as an example of how the system works here.. which to my mind shows in a much less dramatic way what goes on.. the teachers have a strike day.. for your child not to go to school they have to have a note in their diary which the parent signs to say they are aware.. now instead of the teachers giving the note they have the caretakers go around the classes making the announcement..  so you sign as a parent to say you have been made aware.. then the child has to take an official absence form into the school that the parents sign giving the reason why the child was away from school..  this becomes a record of the child's attendance and forms part of their school assessment report.. now you might think that you write teachers strike on the form...but no.. that's not allowed.. .. it will be torn up and you will be told to fill the form properly.. ie your child was sick or some such excuse.. its then accepted..  and is counted as a day of absence against the child's attendance record so that the teachers teaching record remains secure.. ..  this is just a basic example of how children learn that the way of things is not to go against the institutions and is carried on all through life...  i don't make these rules ..i don't even bother fighting them.. but i am aware.. and i am also not that aware that all my last posts have been negative in terms of Italian life and culture.. will however review them .. and see   Giovanni i just looked back at two pages of posts and really cannot see any that are the way you describe.. didn't read them though.. so maybe some might contain a negative comment or two...but then i hardly ever re-read the rubbish i post...generally have no need to ..it gets repeated so many times its almost best selling.. maybe i should start charging for copyright infringements...  anyway they were my recent posts and am not sure exactly what i said in them that you are referring to...  however you know me well enough i should think to know i always exagerate when making points.. and that am always prepared to have a good debate with you...     

 i first started working with lime back when i lived in france... they were very purist about it all.. i have no ability apart from what we do on our own places so an expert opinion is to me a valued one... someone that has to do it for other people and make a profit and get a perfect finish.. in France it was much the same...working with neighbours who used to bring in one artisan who whipped us all into shape.. and whilst helping we all learnt..however over time with living in both countries i have seen some disastrous work carried out..what always impresses me most are the amount of modern buildings that Italians live in where it seems quite normal to have massive damp patches... not only homes many modern office buildings.. strange..he is right about Marborite too.. but for me it works.. because it has a grainy sort of finish which if you are not a proffesional allows you to hide mistakes.. again i would never attempt to plaster someone else's wall but i can live with my work and crooked edges just add character..well that's what i tell myself..i agree about the range of stuff here.. working with builders you learn so much.. and you pick up all the codes that for them are easy but when you come from the UK the amount of different bags all labelled with strange numbers is a nightmare.. even asking for a plaster or base mix here involves a conversation of extreme complexity as to exactly what its going on...how thick the coat..what finish ...is it damp is it this or that... even down to are you going to paint it... its a whole different  world which i enjoy learning about...  and also make many mistakes with..  but am always happy to learn more of.....