217 transfer of funds

Don't know about the gas - but would be intrested to see the installation costs

Transfer of funds - the only thing I can say is do not use the Halifax and be very careful to make sure that you know the intrest rate you will be offered and costs. - To put it simply the caring sharing Halifax stung us big style when we transfered our money across and it took 6 months of arguing to get any kind of satisfaction

I think HSBC do some speacial offers for large sum transfers

ciao a tutti, have to say that we bank with hsbc and they dont offer a transfer service to italy they instead use thomas cook who are on the whole very expensive and not very informative, i would recommend using one of the larger currency exchange specialist, such as caxton fx, currencies direct, money corp, alot of these advertise in italy mag or just google them i have to say that there is very little to choose between them, just who is giving the best rate on the day, you can set up accounts with any of them with no obligation and when you are ready to ex your money ring and find who is offering the best rate on the day, gas well cant help you there. ciao marco

I used hifx, which is good for larger amounts - I hear [url]www.xe.com[/url] allow smaller amounts

Tank gas is marginally more expensive than the UK, but probably the best option if living out side a mains gas area. An open wood fire helps keep costs down. This year was horrendous due to the exceptionally long cold winter that Italy suffered.

Hi
We transfered funds straight through from a business account with Barclays to our bank in Italy. Banca della Marche in Gualdo Le Marche, has done this efficiently for many Brits for the last few years BUT I have heard horror stories about other Italian banks who seem to temporarily 'lose' the money for weeks, seems it gets 'held up' in Rome! Perhaps check out a few banks in the area that you are moving to, ask other stranieri.
Good Luck Sally

Afraid I can't help you on transferring money but the gas will probably be quite expensive. My parents' house is supplied by Butan Gas and it works out to be about 3-4 times the cost of mains gas (which we have in our flat here in Italy). They had some people staying in their house for a couple of months over the winter and the gas bill alone was about 350-400 euro per month (that was only to heat one bedroom, kitchen, lounge and bathroom and they were quite frugal having suspected that the bill would be high). A wood burning stove or fire would definitely save some money.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings!

Would recommend you look in mag for currency transfer companies eg TTT moneycorps or HIFX

Re propane gas (used for filling bomboloni) it costs around 78cents a litre and you need up to 800 litres to fill a tank plus iva at 20 percent. To give you an eg our last fill up was 580 litres and cost us 542 euros (452 + 90 iva). We have central heating and gas for hot water and it is big house, during the winter we got through up to 150 litres a week (sometimes more), so were filling the tank about once a month-ish.

Look into those pellet stoves on an earlier thread as they seem to be a good alternative. If you can mix a pellet ot wood stove with bottled gas c.h and water it would seem a good mix.

The installation cost will probably be covered by the gas supplier, but, that will lock you into an agreement, you will have room for negotiation at this time only, until the contract expires. Fiona is spot on, combine any gas you use with wood burners, the pellet stoves can be VERY good in small spaces, but, check the cost of pellets, compared to wood, they can also be very expensive.
I transferred my funds from Cooperative Bank at a very low cost straight into Banca Delle Marche in beautiful downtown Francavilla :rolleyes:

It is possible to run central heating and domestic hot water from a central heating boiler that uses pellets or indeed other biomass waste. These are very common in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and Italy. Particularly inexpensive to run if you have olives and can run it on olive waste. They can of course be combined with solar panels - we were advised that this would not be economical for our usage. We are having such a system installed at the moment with an Italian boiler produced by Lavia website [url]www.lavia.it[/url]. Solid fuel boilers do not seem to attract the bureaucratic attention given to gas ones - nor are there the permissions required for bombole with their attendent fire checks and valve changes. We believe it will be considerably less expensive to run than using a combination of electricity and a wood burning stove or gpl.

[QUOTE=Cassini]It is possible to run central heating and domestic hot water from a central heating boiler that uses pellets or indeed other biomass waste. [snip]
Particularly inexpensive to run if you have olives and can run it on olive waste. They can of course be combined with solar panels - we were advised that this would not be economical for our usage.
[snip]
[/QUOTE]

Somethng to consider, which is not very common in Italy is the use of a thermal store or thermal bank. This is a large, heavily insulated tank which holds hot water, rather like a giant version of the domestic hot water cylinder. It has multiple connections for sources of heat and it is possible to heat it simultaneously with solar, geothermal, wind power and biomass or indeed LPG.

You then use this heat indirectly. the hot liquid is pumped from the thermal store into a special heat exchanger where it gives up its heat to the incoming mains water. This provides the hot water for washing, showers etc.

The heat store itself can be plumbed directly into underfloor heating systems. It doesn't need the complicated manifolds normally used because the water in the heat store is maintained at exactly the right temperature.

It's an elegant solution and allows one to balance all the available sources of heat for best use.

[url]http://www.gasapplianceguide.co.uk/torrent_indirect.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.greenshop.co.uk/index.htm?http%3A//www.greenshop.co.uk/solar/Consolar.htm&CatalogBody[/url]
[url]http://www.greenshop.co.uk/solar/documents/Conus-Cubus-info.pdf[/url]
[url]http://www.gledhill.net/water-storage/pdfs/thermal-storage-system.pdf[/url]

Many more links when you search around.

[QUOTE=lotaresco]Somethng to consider, which is not very common in Italy is the use of a thermal store or thermal bank. This is a large, heavily insulated tank which holds hot water, rather like a giant version of the domestic hot water cylinder. It has multiple connections for sources of heat and it is possible to heat it simultaneously with solar, geothermal, wind power and biomass or indeed LPG........
It's an elegant solution and allows one to balance all the available sources of heat for best use.[/QUOTE]

I found this really interesting.
It's also the sort of thing that would have been really useful to have had here in Cumbria as it would have saved us a fortune in Calor Gas bills.
Since we are most likely moving from here it is something we might be able to make use of in Italy. (We are hoping to spend the winter in Calabria so will need some heating).
At the moment the house we are hoping to buy just has the pipework for radiators (no radiators just the pipes which just come out of the wall and stop dead!) and it has no boiler installed (suspect you only need fit this if you are looking to heat the invisible radiators :D ).
We noticed this situation was very common when we were looking around for something to buy and I suppose it's to give maximum flexibility to fit radiators and boilers at a later date.
I assume lotaresco posted the links from English websites so non-Italian speakers (like me) would be able to understand the info/drawings?
Is this something we would be able to source in Italy?
Or do you think they would look at us like madmen if we tried to install something like this?
Cheers, lesley

We are using |Moneycorp to transfer monies - expensive for one off deals but regular transfers are cheaper. Thought of HSBC but you need to keep
£30 000 with them for free transfers.

[QUOTE=iwanttobeinitaly]
I assume lotaresco posted the links from English websites so non-Italian speakers (like me) would be able to understand the info/drawings?
Is this something we would be able to source in Italy?
Or do you think they would look at us like madmen if we tried to install something like this?[/QUOTE]

I think all Italian plumbers look at their customers as if they were madmen, it's part of the creed along with sucking the teeth and muttering about how *we* do things in Italy. However being firm works, eventually.

Yes, I posted the info from English websites to aid understanding but an Italian plumber should be able to understand the concepts and be able to source the thermal stores locally. We have a factory that makes them just down the road from the house near Roseto degli Abruzzi.

[QUOTE=brendon collins]Iam moving to italy this year and would like to know the best and most cost effective way of transferring funds from GB to italy and also the house i am buying has'nt mains gas,but a tank underground, and i have heard this is very expensive,is this true[/QUOTE]
hi, be careful in specifying that all the expenses are paid from your UK account. We did it with Barclays and were charged 211 pounds for the transfer because the Italian bank charges a percentage on each bonifico!!!

I use XE.com and Travelex agencies to transfer money. I find XEtrade company cheaper than Travelex.

Good Luck