Is it too much?

It would be very difficult for anyone to ascertain whether it is a fair price or not without having a specification of the work to be carried out and what is included in that quote. The best thing would be to ask for quotes from 3 different companies. Then you can compare and make up your mind. Beware, the cheapest quote may not always be the best one.

Thanks. I appreciate that getting 3 quotes is a sensible idea but as we ae new here it's hard to find accredited builders to get quotes from. There is a big renovation going on next door to us and the owner has recommended  the builder we got this's quote from. 

If you're not sure, you can buy the regional price lists for all building works from the big newsagent's situation on the edge of Bordighera/Ventimiglia (at the crossroads on the left if coming from Bordighera) where you can buy English newspapers. Every region publishes a list every year of the cost of every building task. To do a proper check you will need a very detailed quote from the builder listing every task and how many sqm it involves which he may not be inclined to give. This is usually produced by the geometra/architect and is called a computo metrico. You might find you need planning permission as usually anything that affects drainage (such as bulding walls, paving, concreting) is very tightly controlled due to landslip prevention. Asking the technico at the comune is the best bet.

Being a builder, and having had some experience of similar situations, it sounds like a fair price to me, if my maths doesn't fail me, it is coming in at around €100/m2, considering the work involved, that seems in the ball park to me.

Down our way a digger and driver is around 50 euro an hour, add in the cost of land drain and gravel/sand and top it off with  the paving.    I'd expect  to pay a max of around 10k plus IVA but I'm a skinflint. You can get  concrete laid and a pattern imprinted for about 25 euro per square metre. However, this is not as aesthetically pleasing as native stone but since we are relatvely skint it is probably the best we can aspire to. In the meantime gravel will have to do for our patio ambtions.

A cheap option for us was to use concrete but to band it with brick to break up the expanse, worked very well, especially as I am not a great lover of hard surfaces, used gravel on the paths and they looked good together. Used an English builder out here in Marche, and was impressed with the workmanship and his ideas re the layout.

Thanks for all your comments. We don't want to use concrete. It is a large area and will look pretty awful done in concrete. Thanks in particular to mbc. Its good to get an opinion from the horses mouth as it were. I think we'll probably try to knock hime down by a couple of k but are happy to use him as we've seen the quality of his work.

Thanks for all your comments. We don't want to use concrete. It is a large area and will look pretty awful done in concrete. Thanks in particular to mbc. Its good to get an opinion from the horses mouth as it were. I think we'll probably try to knock hime down by a couple of k but are happy to use him as we've seen the quality of his work.