9565 bills again

Hi Vervain
If you are restoring then you will have to pay change of useage tax on any parts of the house that were stables/ garages etc.

thanks for that. Can you think of any regular bills we'll face? we are in fact restoring, but the building's actually a run down house already.
We do have rather alot of land though..... and wondered if we'll be facing bills each year for this based on some kind of bill to do with the land etc

The property tax - 'ICI' - that you pay to your comune (or at least you will until Berlo lives up to his promise to scrap ICI altogether) will include tax on your land.

Your rates will not be the same as ours since we're in different comune but, as a rough guide, we have 7 hectares of agricultural land, a farmhouse with a pretty conventional layout - four rooms for accommodation upstairs, four cellars below - and a recently-built extension. Our ICI is in the mid three-figures range.

In other words, not much compared to UK property taxes.

The only other tax you'll have to pay is refuse tax, which again is an almost token amount compared to the UK.

Other than that, your bills will be largely determined by what you decide to do.

Al

Oh thanks so much! thats put our minds at rest such alot. We looked into all the buying stuff and kind of let the after purchase bits slip....:reallyembarrassed:
We have three and half hectares and a two up two down albeit larger than uk sized house. However, the big old barn we have is also classified as a house, rather strangley, so I don't know if we'll end up paying for that too. Possibly.
This forum is great! I belong to 2 others and both are terribly sketchy with replies and info.
I am so grateful to have the knowledge from this one and in particular, thanks to you.

I don't know if you consider water to be 'like electricity', but any water you use which is provided by the communal acquedotto (mains water) is charged on a metered basis - the more you use the more you pay. Similarly, if you discharge your sewage (either via a septic tank or directly) into the mains drainage system you will face an annual charge. If you have your own well, and discharge your septic tank onto your own land then you won't be faced with these costs (which are not high).

Hi, just coming back to electricity, gas etc, the normal things that you get in the yUK, its a lot different here.....if your already on the grid for electricity, you will most likely only have 3/4 KW supply, thats a lot lower then the yUK, most people bump that up to 6 plus, this can cost 600/800 euros .If your not on the grid it can cost a hell of a lot just to get the supply to your house , gas ( if you not on mains) is supplied by tanker, this can vary a lot from company to company,shop around for it.
Telephone line , much the same as electricity, can run into 100's if not 1000s to get a line and poles installed

This is all absolutely great, thanks so much. ANY advice is very gratefully heeded!
We will be on mains water, so I guess its going to be metered, and as yet we haven't decided about exact type of heating. I am told that electricity is expensive in Italy, so given that we've an ongoing supply of decent burning wood, we thought about woodburners.
Now, we're used to the english Rayburn, so the chopping of it and dust aren't a surprise, but we just can't seem to find out if you can run an upstairs heater or two from a stonky woodburner downstairs....
Had a look a few in a posh showroom near Barga, and they seemed to vary at this particualr place from about 400 euro to just under 1000 for an automatically fed pellet one (which of course we wouldn't need anyway)
Trying to limit ongoing bills and strike a balance with the variable climate in this region, especially as we've seen snow during winter up there. Also, don't want to be stuck with a furnace during summer!!!

Apologies for the last rambling bit about woodburners as I just found your threads on them. Brilliant

[quote=deborahandricky;89646]...if your already on the grid for electricity, you will most likely only have 3/4 KW supply, thats a lot lower then the yUK, most people bump that up to 6 plus, this can cost 600/800 euros. If your not on the grid it can cost a hell of a lot just to get the supply to your house , gas ( if you not on mains) is supplied by tanker, this can vary a lot from company to company...[/quote]
There [I]can[/I] be a bill for upgrading the capacity of your electrical supply, but it can also be very simple and cost nothing. Because the wires serving our house had some spare capacity, the total cost of increasing our supply from 3kW to 6kW was me spending about five minutes on ENEL's website.

It is definitely true that getting a remote rural house connected to ENEL's network when no wires at all exist will probably be a significant expense.

Water is metred, but it won't cost a lot so long as you don't do daft things like use a sprinkler to keep a lawn lush and green through the hot and dry months. A cubic metre of water goes a very long way if you're just using it for domestic uses and watering a couple of window boxes.

Non-mains gas (delivered by tanker and stored in a [I]bombola[/I]) is much more convenient and clean than a wood-burner, but you pay for those qualities. As an example: early last February, our gas tank was down to about 20% so we had it filled. That cost around €500. We left the house in mid-February to go to Holland for a couple of months, leaving the thermostat set on 10° so the house didn't get too damp in our absence. When we returned in mid-April, the tank was almost empty. I'll leave it to you to do the math and speculate on how much it would have cost to keep the house at a more comfortable temperature over that period.

Wood is definitely a good idea if you're content coping with its drawbacks, particularly so if you have a supply on your land and you're able to put on a plaid flannel shirt and play lumberjack now and then.

Al

[quote]There can be a bill for upgrading the capacity of your electrical supply, but it can also be very simple and cost nothing. Because the wires serving our house had some spare capacity, the total cost of increasing our supply from 3kW to 6kW was me spending about five minutes on ENEL's website[/quote]
I upgraded our rating to 6kW- no changes were made to the meter or the wires leading to the house. The cost for the change was 700,000 lire.

[quote=Noma;89660]I upgraded our rating to 6kW- no changes were made to the meter or the wires leading to the house. The cost for the change was 700,000 lire.[/quote]
Since you say you were charged in Lire, I take it your upgrade took place some time before 1 January 1999 when the Lire was replaced with the Euro? Perhaps ENEL has changed its policy on some things over the last 9 years?

In any case, 700,000 lire works out as about €360 (which is about £290 now). Not a trivial amount of money, but nor does it seem to me a ridiculously expensive charge either.

Al

Thanks. I don't know if we'll cope with low kw, but I will take advice from the chap who's going to project manage the house being made habitable. There's a modern looking Enel box inside the house, we're told its only been empty a few years, but the house has clearly been totally stripped of anything whatsoever of value! including doors and fireplaces.
I want to reduce the number of regular bills we get, and keep it simple, but then I know this could prove a false economy if we aren't careful to use the money we have now sensibly. If in a few years we realise we've made too many cost cuttings we may not have the money to re do our cheapskate ideas!
Maybe its just us, but we haven't seen too many 'green' houses around this bit of Italy; no solar panels, windmills or such. Where we are is windy and we have running water in the river below..... but now I'm getting ahead of myself :)

We upgraded from 3Kw to a 3 phase 15Kw supply. Enel charged us around Euro 1500.00. Saying that though, they put in new pylons, new cabling, so not that bad. Have heard it costs around Euro 800.00 per new pylon, if they do not already exist. Couple of recent actual reports from contracts I am working on. No electricity supply for virtually 1 KM Euro 4000.00, 12 Kw 3 phase supply.Abruzzo, existing power lines to change to a 15Kw 3 phase supply Euro 650.00. Best to get a quote from Enel first, depending on what you think you need

Thats really concise and helpful, thanks. There ARE pylons/poles, right to the house, and in fact one is so close I would rather it wasn't. They look in good nick, and are obviously wired to the house, but the electricity has been disconnected for some time so we're not sure how much work may be needed to make it all safe and its obvious the house needs rewiring too, which we'll have done as part of the making it habitable. From looking at the other threads here, it seems its not always immediately clear what you need until you've actually called Enel out to do it. The other big one we need to find our about is the phones. When we looked at houses in Garfagnana we had the ability to pick up decent mobile signal on our list of must-haves. It never works that way when you fall in love with a place though, does it?! so I predict its going to be some time before we are able to get through to the outside world, either by getting a landline put in, or relying on mobile phones up there. We can see the neighbours house and they have phone lines in so we are in optimistic mode or else I think we'd just be bogged down with all, especially from being here in th Uk until the house can be lived in.
This is probably a totally different thread: how you cope with it all from the Uk!

I must say again, how grateful I am to be able to get such alot of info from this great forum. Another day, with a little experience under my belt, I hope to be able to do the same for other people on their 'journey'
Brilliant.

[quote=vervain;89692]The other big one we need to find our about is the phones.[/quote]
In my experience - and I'm sure I'm not alone - the house purchase itself and then sorting out ENEL, the water company and a gas supplier was all a picnic compared with trying to get Telecom Italia to deal with a request for a phoneline.

I don't want to go into the tedious details, but please believe me: unless you [I]desperately[/I] need a landline because none of the mobile providers have a good signal at your house, you're better off carefully avoiding any contact with TI. Maybe you're old enough to recall how it was trying to get a phone in the UK back in the pre-BT days when the Post Office was in charge? If so, then imagine an organisation that's a quarter that efficient with a structure twice as convoluted and an average level of interest in helping customers one tenth that of the old UK PO telephone division: that approaches a description of Telecom Italia. It really is a scandalously bad, employee-centric organisation.

Talk to your neighbours about mobile phone network coverage at your new place. Unless you really are behind a hill in the back of beyond, odds are that one of the mobile networks will work for you.

Oh, and by the way, while I have nothing whatsoever positive to say about the landline side of Telecom Italia, my experience is that their mobile wing (TIM) is really no better or worse than the alternatives. I believe it actually has the widest coverage of any of the networks, so don't be too put-off if it seems the best choice for a mobile that works at your house.

Al

Three points:
There is an Aga/Rayburn shop in Forte dei Marmi (Forteshire). The Rayburn wood burner can deliver hot water and central heating, though ours is just for cooking.
The locals use wood a lot, which probably is a good indication of what is the most economic.
3kWH is really not a lot. A kettle and a few lights can easily trip the circuit breaker. We were so bored with this we uprated to 6kW and it hardly ever trips out. If I recall, the cost is not the change over but the tariff is higher with the bigger capacity. Anyway, it is worth it, unless you have next to no electrical devices of any wattage.

[quote=AllanMason;89669] Perhaps ENEL has changed its policy on some things over the last 9 years?[/quote]
Has it, in fact?
[quote]
In any case, 700,000 lire works out as about €360 (which is about £290 now). Not a trivial amount of money, but nor does it seem to me a ridiculously expensive charge either.[/quote]
I don't recall anyone saying it was ridiculously expensive.:veryconfused:

[quote=Noma;89787]Has it {ENEL}, in fact {changed its policy on some things over the last 9 years}?[/quote]
I don't know. Perhaps we'd be able to figure that out if you'd tell us when you asked for the upgrade on your line. From the information you provide, that could have happened any time between the electrification of Italy and the demise of the Lire in January 1999.

What I do know is that last year I upgraded my supply from 3kW to 6kW and there was no additional charge made. This is contrary to the blanket statement made earlier in the thread and so I took the time to mention it. You saying you were charged 700,000 Lire at some point more than nine years ago might be of some interest to those who make a hobby of studying the history of Italian utility firms and their charges, but I suspect it's probably of limited practical help to Vervain as he or she tries to sort out her future expenses.
[quote=Noma;89787]I don't recall anyone saying it {700,000 lire} was ridiculously expensive.[/quote]
No, you didn't. And nor did I claim that you said it was.

I mentioned the true value of that sum in my post because it sounds like a very large amount to someone who might have never visited Italy back when the smallest bill in circulation was (if memory serves), the 1,000 lire note - which was worth less than 50 pence when I first started coming here on holiday.

Al

Hi
I just went through our paper work for when we upgraded, from 3 to 6kw, and there was a 364 Euro charge, this was in Nov 2007.......

[quote=TimSoane;89729]Three points:
There is an Aga/Rayburn shop in Forte dei Marmi (Forteshire). The Rayburn wood burner can deliver hot water and central heating, though ours is just for cooking.
The locals use wood a lot, which probably is a good indication of what is the most economic.
3kWH is really not a lot. A kettle and a few lights can easily trip the circuit breaker. We were so bored with this we uprated to 6kW and it hardly ever trips out. If I recall, the cost is not the change over but the tariff is higher with the bigger capacity. Anyway, it is worth it, unless you have next to no electrical devices of any wattage.[/quote]

Wouldn't it have been easier to get a stove top kettle? :bigergrin: The only time I've tripped the power is using the electric oven. But I think the thing has a short or something.

Wood is used heavily here but most also cut their own wood. So it's trading sweat for wood instead of money for gas. OTOH many also seem to have multiple setups. A wood stove. Gas boiler. Plus a small electric [or propane] heater. What gets used depends on how cold it is.

Wood fired boilers range a lot in prices. In types. Not to mention quality. Need to start out with figuring what sort do you need? Fireplace type setup? Stand alone stove? Or even a cook stove. Then you've got the butt ugly ones and the ones you wouldn't mind looking at all night long. So depending on the location even looks can matter.

[quote=deborahandricky;89822]Hi
I just went through our paper work for when we upgraded, from 3 to 6kw, and there was a 364 Euro charge, this was in Nov 2007.......[/quote]
Thank you Deborah and Ricky. Seems ENEL hasn't changed their policy after all.

[quote=Noma;89854]Seems ENEL hasn't changed their policy after all.[/quote]
Well, this [I]is[/I] just the sort of thing I would lie about, isn't it? :rollingeyes:

I've gone through [I]my[/I] ENEL paperwork and I can see no charge for €364, £700,000 or anything else after I upgraded my supply in October 2007. There were no changes to the physical connection after I requested an upgrade on ENEL's website; all that changed was the maximum potential reading on the meter - within a couple hours, as I recall - and then the cost per kWh charged on the bill.

Perhaps ENEL did alter it's charges and policies after you upgraded your supply in 1967 (or whenever). Perhaps the history and arrangements of electricity supply to our house means that, for some strange reason comprehensible only to an Italian bureaucrat, rules different to those used when Deborah and Ricky upgraded were applied here. Perhaps ENEL messed up and didn't charge me when they should have.

Perhaps Vervain should just budget to pay at least €400 for an upgrade to 6kW with a fall-back plan of spending the money on something nice for the house if the bill never arrives.

What's certain is that this debate is getting tedious and runs the risk of leaving Vervain thinking less positively of us. I don't dispute the bill you, Deborah and Risky, Geotherm or anybody else had from ENEL after upgrading, but I'm also certain what my bills say and that seems to me not irrelevant to Vervain's questions.

Al

[quote] I just went through our paper work for when we upgraded, from 3 to 6kw, and there was a 364 Euro charge, this was in Nov 2007.......[/quote]

This is contrary to the blanket statement you made earlier in the thread and so I took the time to mention it.

[quote=Noma;89870]This is contrary to the blanket statement you made earlier in the thread and so I took the time to mention it.[/quote]

Hi Noma
Thats why I went back and checked ........but thanks for the point out :yes:

Everybody's situation is different, but I've never had a problem with the 3kw limit, and that's with electric water heating - unfortunately. If anything I'd look on it as a good discipline to keep the bills down whatever the kwH rate is - and the cost certainly won't be going down in the future. It doesn't need more than a little thought and it doesn't affect my living standards.

The big thing for many of us English types is the electric kettle for those cups of tea. It doesn't really make sense to burn gas to generate electric and then convert that high grade fuel to generate heat again. Personally I have a gas hob but if I had my own place I'd hope additionally to have a wood-burner and if flat-topped you can use a kettle (or casserole) on some of them. A variety of fuel sources is probably a good idea if you at all in the countryside.

On the gas side for cooking I get through a 15kg bombola in around 3 months, and that's including some baking (and innumerable cups of tea :-)!).

[quote=sueflauto;89890]. Personally I have a gas hob but if I had my own place I'd hope additionally to have a wood-burner and if flat-topped you can use a kettle (or casserole) on some of them. A variety of fuel sources is probably a good idea if you at all in the countryside.
.[/quote]

If my installer ever finds a spare moment that'll basically be my setup :yes: Gas fired boiler,linked to a wood burning termo cook stove. A gas cooking stove. Plus next year a couple of solar panels linked into the whole setup.

Outside of the flexbilty of burning what is cheap at the moment last winter I had two or three short power outages. The longest was about 30 minutes but if it had been real cold things wouldn't have been fun. Plus last winter wasn't exactly stormy. The open fireplace is nice to look at but the wood stove will be much warmer

If the stove that could burn almost anything wasn't 100% more money I'd go that way. Those things burn wood,pellets, and anything else you can find.

Sue hi
the top of our wood burning stove is far too hot to put anything on it, but it is vey cosy in our kitchen, especailly in the winter and an electic kettle is a thing of the past, we did buy one when we first came out here being so used to one in England, but by the time I have sorted out cats breakfast, it is ready for tea, It is with alot of things a different mind set.
A

[quote=Angie and Robert;89898]
the top of our wood burning stove is far too hot to put anything on it, [/quote]

I can't see that the top of a stove would get too hot to put a stainless steel kettle on, or am I missing something?

Could you not put a slab of soapstone on top which would absorb a lot of the heat and then give it out over a long period - a sort of thermal store in a way? What about those cast iron heat diffusers that I use on my gas hob?

When I say hot I mean very hot, dont know about soap stone diffusers, our stufa is small and is only required to heat our kitchen with our own wood, it is certainly not suitable to cook on, perhaps other members might have an answer for you?.. We did not buy it to cook on so I guess you make your own choices about the way in which yiou choose to heat and cook in your home, for us it is a cheap and cosy option in the winter, and one large log will last over an hour.
A

You can use a trivet. I forget the Italian word but I've seen small ones in the shops so the the Moka doesn't boil too fast.

The top may have a cooler spot further from the fire.

Thanks Nick, I take your point re a trivet I have two, but we only have a baby size Lincar stufa, and I think the top surface area is so small that it would be very unstable to place a bubbling pan on, though I guess quick cooking like a fried egg would be OK.
We are happy just to sit around it on a cold winters evening with the cats, cracking walnuts (us, whilst clever they are not that clever) and having a nice glass of wine.
A

Ya safety is a big issue with wood stoves. Instead of wooden kitchen cabinets I'm going to have a brick / stone counter built. Funny thing is materials are cheaper then even a low end wooden cabinet. I've also got to make sure I'm leaving enough space. All not easy in the small space that will be the new kitchen.

Would be nice to see the pictures when you have finished, our kitchen is not ideal re function, but everyone says it is "cosy" perhaps they are being kind and mean messy?
Oh well there is always the view outside which is beautiful.
A

Mine isn't even cozy during the winter. Add in the fact you need to walk down the middle to get to the stair case and it's even worse. The upstairs won't be any bigger but it'll work better.