If you are pondering the safety of house prices in Italy this article in The Money Spy might give you some encouragement....
sagraiasolar's activity
Questions Asked
Has anyone had any experience with the Lycee in Florence to relate please? The dilemma with further education for an 11 year old boy looms. Already fluent in Italian it would certainly be a great asset for him to go to a French school.
Mon, 05/20/2013 - 09:49
I have a domestic emergency which can only be solved by going to the Marmite shop in Rome. Can anyone kindly direct me there please.Thanks
Sun, 01/27/2013 - 07:10
Just out of interest are there any Scottish reeling clubs operating out there? I'm starting one in Umbertide where there seem to be a few enthusiasts and others willing to have a go.
Wed, 11/21/2012 - 07:50
The Beeb site has an article on exceptional glacial melting going on right now making the 2012 records show that something really different is under way.
Sun, 09/09/2012 - 07:42
The Perseids appear to come from the direction of the Persius constellation so if you look generally North or better still point your i-Pad you'll get there. There are also a few from Delta Aquarid which come across from the South I think.
Thu, 08/09/2012 - 08:46
The local comune recently started a purge on stranieri who had not got an 'agibilita' for their property. Large fines were being dished out so we started to get organised.
Sun, 02/26/2012 - 10:01
Comments posted
....yes I think that would be good but you still need to get the wi-fi router to do the VPN trick so that UK or US TV content can be viewed. I am pretty confident that a media streamer would be more satisfactory though because they do so much more than access i-player... eg dedicated you-tube, web surfing, video juke-box, data storage, radio....
I haven't seen a price on the new PCH A-300 yet but bet it'll be £400 The Xtreamer job is about £130 Yes it's all a bit pricey but compared with big dishes and set top boxes etc it's cheap and free UK TV from then on without even a license fee can't be bad. I know some folks round here have paid some €4,000 for big dishes to get Freesat TV so this is a much better solution. How much is a SKY contract? - must be in the same ball park and that's an annual cost.
I may be shifting my longing gaze from the Xtreamer to the latest Popcorn hour A-300 which has the most advanced chipset. With the wi-fi aerial plugged in the back this will stream HD content without the use of a computer. With a huge hard drive on board transfer rates become less of an issue. I am currently doing this with an Apple TV which can stream brilliant HD pictures but lacks the full audio transfer... very limited use but an amazing You-tube surfing machine with no buffering... I watched a whole movie recently with no stops. You can rent movies on this but a bit pricey.
It may be quiet but you just wait. The northern European and American baby boomers are just starting a wave of retirements that will go on for 2 decades and their parents have one foot in the grave and another on a bananna skin. There is a shed load of money heading this way. Where will they go .. Spain? get your house nicked by the authorities. France? they don't like foreigners, Italy - yes they love us and we love them and the sun comes out a lot... the last few wrecks are nearly gone now so the property market is becoming a scarce resource. My prediction - house prices will double in just a few years and this forum will hum again.
Thank you for the links - fascinating and useful.
Hi Maria, I've just looked at your profile and co-ordinates and see that you are quite near our patch - preggio/Umbertide. We've got a 9 year old son and via the kids at school network know loads of folks round here including a couple a families actually next to Bruna. You'll usually find us and a few others at the market in Umbertide on Wednesday mornings so that might be a good start for you... take a coffee at bar centrale and look out for a couple with a 9 year old son called Spike.... sorry might not make it next week but otherwise nearly always there.
sorry ...... mm diameter is what I meant
120 cm is the norm for ventilation of a room with a gas appliance - and presumably oil too. When in a wall Its just a standard bit of plastic drain pipe at floor level with a clip in mesh guard.. copper one preferably. I hope you are not buying a new oil boiler though. These days boilers of any sort are not really needed if you have a balanced wood and solar input along with an immersion heater in (or on) your tank (preferably a heat bank) Alternatively you might consider comparing the difference in costs - including running costs - between an air source heat pump and an oil fired boiler. Plenty of data to see on Badger's posts here. Paying huge energy bills in Italy is entirely optional - you do have a choice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dIz4R-1d2k the man in the blue shirt here is very convincing about running a pool pump on 200 Watts. It sounds too good to be true but there are now quite a few of these pumps humming away round here. There is a cheaper and simpler manually switched version which is a better bet than the programmable one shown here. Payback is about 3 years.
In case you get stung by one of those oversize wasps you'll need to substitute vespa with calabrone. English people refer to them as hornets and as a rule everyone checks in to hospital when stung. We nearly had someone killed by one a while ago but luckily a neighbour restored life with an epi-pen.