177 Renovating Trulli in Puglia

Hello, I would be grateful for any tips on renovation of trulli. Especially suppliers of windows and doors and other suppliers, builders merchants in the trulli regions. Is there any problem with doing work yourselves? Is it necessary to have an architect, or have the work inspected if you are not expanding the footprint of the building? The house is presently regarded as uninhabitable, although the walls are OK the interior has nothing, it has been used as an agricultural store for years. We plan to renovate over a longish period of time. Does the connection of electricity and other services (septic tank) require planning permission first, and at what stage does the unrenovated trulli become a taxable dwelling by the commune? Any help very appreciated :rolleyes:

Category
Building/Renovation

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 04/06/2005 - 03:36

it would seem to me from a distance that everything not only requires planning permission but plans to be drawn up and submitted....if you are changing from a barn to a habitable dwelling that is the first hurdle....and as soon as you change from barn to habitable i think you will start paying the ici...

as regards services they also require plannining permission if they happen to involve crossing any communal road ... apart from connection chargs and laying in the new services before they will connect you they need to see all the work ...either gas or electric has been carried out to normal standards....this means your registered fitter will fill out a declaration to that effect

also when changing to habitable ...there are various norms on light levels.... where bathrooms can be situated as regards kitchen....sizes allowed for bedrooms ...etc etc.... i think you will need good local advise from the agent that sold you this and then get a geometra or architect to direct the works for you....they will do the plans...submit for permission and control the work....they will also insure the place whilst the work is being carrried out and all the workers involved... as for trullis...they must have some sort of historic value and obviously may well be controlled much more rigourously.....

i would suggest that if you have not bought the place yet you get a couple of independant estimates on costs..... because if you paln on doing the work over a long period it will cost you more.... as builders etc will keep having to come and go ...this always costs more than doing a one off project...start to finish

sorry if my views sound a bit off putting.... but these are the rules in general... and there will be more there always are... and some might not apply....

i would for once agree with mr joseph.... the ideal is an independant estimate on whats possable or not in these cases and a provisional estimate of the costs... before you buy anything if you are working on a limited budget

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 04/07/2005 - 08:15

Thanks very much John, for all your advice. The project seems a little daunting from here. :o I think we will have to find out more next time we go there. I don't think it would be a good idea to do anything until we know more. The purchase is finalised and we will seek advice from the estate agents. The place has stood as it is for probably 40 years or more, a little longer should not make much difference!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 04/11/2005 - 06:32

Kathy, we are in the process of renovating a Trullo at present in Ceglie Messapico, the way is long, so be patient, builders in Italy are in no hurry to do anything & the planning permissions are around every corner.

We have had to delay work by another 30 days to get permission to add water & electricity to the property.

We also had to pay our neighbour a substantial sum of money to have a pylon put on his land to bring us mains electricity. on top of another Euro 1000 for ENEL to carry out the work, which can take upto 120 days.

Make sure you get the planning in for the utilities straight away & contact ENEL for a quote & date for completion of the electricity or it will hold up everything.

As for the rest of the work, I don't know, as we haven't got that far yet & our property is only having an internal makeover with windows being replaced. We are not touching the sturcture at all, just cosmetic work & new bathroom & kitchen,

Good Luck & drop me a line to say where you have bought your little work in progress.

Dean & Kirsty

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 04/11/2005 - 09:51

Always rather suprised to see some of the comments here.I happen to know that our builders are fully booked up to over half of 2006 (as opposed to not wanting to work)they also nearly lost an entire season of work ie. a whole summer due to a Brit who had an enormous contract to place Euro 1.000.000,00 but changed mind..If ENEL ask to run a pylon line across people's land,especially if it's agricultural,they pay quite large sums,so if one asks to run a line across someones land i would think it normal to be charged a good sum (considering they are not even obliged to allow it)It took us 1 year to have a high power line put in,which required a brand new line (last generation)of over 3 kilometres and were charged around Euro 3.000/4.000 which was cheap ,we consider, in Scotland the same thing even shorter cost my aquaintance sterling 15.000.!So you can see that despite a lot of the ironic comments one may find a lot of things here do work,do function and suprise laws are on the whole complied with........................................

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/31/2006 - 18:42

With regard to the builders being 'booked up' for the forseeable future I just wondered if there was any opportunities for an English/Italian apprentice stone mason to learn the craft of the local artisans ? Surely, with the trullis being part of Italy's protected heritage there should be courses available for people to learn the skills of building domes and arches etc.The information I am getting seems to suggest that there are few masons left with such skills and they are in great demand.Is this the case ? I must also reiterate the question posed at the beginning of this thread and ask, 'are there any building merchants/ stone yards in Puglia ?' thanks and saluti Gerard

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 04/01/2006 - 05:36

Hi Kathy,
I think you will definitely need to speak to a geometra. For one thing he will see to all the planning permission & bureaucracy. For another thing you will probably find it very hard trying to direct operations from the UK - it`s hard enough when you`re resident here!! Try [url]www.studiotroiano.com[/url] for a good geometra. I`ve sent you a PM.

Hazel