9976 It's all going wrong

I am very sorry to hear that, if its any help our project was delayed by a year as well due to unforseen circumstances, and we were what amounted to a year late in letting, I know its no help to you now, but a year more down the line, the memory is fading, and we can relax alittle after all the stresses. However well you plan ,and we did, there is sometimes nothing you can do, hope you can salvage something and progress to completion,asap
A

Have you a penalty clause in the contract for if the work is not completed in time? I know it's an obvious question but, even though we had no building work to do, we were always told that this sort of clause was essential.

Don’t despair, sometimes things seem insurmountable.. then all of a sudden they get done very quickly.

Good luck I hope it works out in the end.

I am also sorry to hear about the delay you are experiencing and whilst it is cold comfort, we have experienced the same problem, having started in April 2006! We are on our second lot of builders, 3rd plumber and it was touch and go as to whether we sacked the electrician last week. It is my last day here after 2 weeks, which was supposed to be my summer holiday, enjoying the new pool, cooking on the barbie and relaxing after 2 plus years of stress. Well, I have had 2 weeks on a semi building site, but at the end of the day, it was better than being at work. Some lazy days in the warm climate, eating good food, drinking good wine and trying not to got too up tight, has left me not wanting to leave in spite of the fact that I am guessing that it will be October before everything is done and even then I am not holding my breath!

I know how frustrating your situation is, believe me, but over time I guess that I have had to become more Italian and accept that sometimes things are just the way they are and to drive myself crackers thinking that things should be done the British way (which isnt always great btw), only makes matters worse.

In spite of everything, try and enjoy your trip and look at what has been achieved so far, rather than what has not.

Good luck!

[quote=jepsonclough;92955]Well, after more than a year and not many ups and downs, our renovation is now falling apart (metaphorically not physically!). Despite stressing since before the works began that mid July was a drop dead date and if it was missed it would potentially cause us a delay of a year before we could rent the property out, we still have no windows, doors, electricity etc etc. The nature of my job means that I can get time off June-August or Christmas or Easter but that is it. So the next time I can go to the house will be Christmas. We are arriving on Thursday next week and instead of adding the finishing touches and having a holiday, we will be arriving at a building site - because we have no windows or doors yet (despite them being in the plan for end May and a more recent promise that they would be in end of last week) we can't have the kitchen installed, nor the furniture delivered, nor can we even empty the car when we arrive.

We have been told that if the electricity isn't on we can keep the generator (anyone know whether you can run a fridge/freezer and an oven or washing machine and lights on a generator?) but if we have no windows or doors then it doesn't mater as there is no way I am staying there.

I guess the lesson is don't trust anyone and lie about your final date! If we had said May (which was in the project plan & which I believed) was the crucial date then we'd have had a couple of months slippage. Even at Easter (6 weeks before the scheduled completion date) no-one told us there was more than a week or so slippage.

Right now I feel like going to a travel agent and booking a package to somewhere a long way from Italy.[/quote]

Hi Guys
I have PMd you..........good luck

A sorry, but not altogether untypical, story! I agree that you should always have a penalty clause in the contract. I worked/work with a geometra in Puglia and he always insisted in putting penalty clauses in for the various workers (electricians, plumbers etc.). He also always built in a bit of `slack` into the dates to allow for the unforseen - unexpected things always crop up. Another thing which nearly always causes problems is when people can only come to Italy infrequently - it is a bit of a fact of life that workers put a bit of a move on when the owner is just about to appear. And, if the owner only shows up a couple of times a year, other jobs, where the client is on their backs all the time, take precedence. I think the best thing is to give a date way ahead of when you need to have work completed by and then keep nagging and checking as often as you can.

I hope things get sorted out soon and I agree that, given time, all the problems and headaches will fade into the mists of time! Good luck.

I know, all the sympathy in the world will not make it better, but I do feel for you. I know how you feel when you want to be a million miles away..............
Our work was 18 months late, I spent hours and hours when we did finally move in , waiting for plumbers, electricians, builders etc etc all made on the same production line. None of them able to make a phone call to say " do not wait in all day, we are not coming".
One of the things they do is to leave some work unfinished, this means you have to get someone else in ( and pay them ) to finish it.
Unfortunately, this is the way it is in Italy. I used to think it was because I was a "foreigner" not true, the Italians wait, and wait, for work to be done, for workmen to turn up and also get charged at inflated prices ( not quite as high as we do ).
Good luck, I hope it will all soon be finished, but I think you will just have to accept that this is the way the Italians do things.............:no:

Along with everyone else here I just hope it all comes good for you in the end.
Reading all the similar experiences from other members it set me thinking of the early years we lived in Lanzarote in The Canary Islands during the boom time of expansion when newly arrived Brits were experiencing the same problems with the local builders. Very soon enterprising ex- pats were offering to carry out the renovation works, with all the subsequent benefits..not least that of speaking the same language. Even to this day, twenty odd years later, there are thriving ex- pat run building companies.
Surely there must be some enterprising ex- pat builders living here? If I were not about to up sticks and return to the UK I think I would give it some thought! Seems like there is a market waiting to be exploited.
Alanj

it's not all gone wrong, it's just not gone according to plan, (life rarely does)
Try to be positive and remember how you felt when you first saw the house, also think about this time next year when you will be sat outside in the sunshine with a glass of wine, with all the stress behind you.
Look at your house and see what you have achieved so far, rather than whats still to do
It does get better, and you will eventually get there.

Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement. I was on a real downer (but then I am a pessimist unlike my husband who is an optimist). The builders we have are great and the work they have done is really good and we now hope to have windows next week and I am sure that when we are in Italy it will all seem better. My husband has been able to go over to Italy more than I have and he speaks some Italian whereas I can't get over to visit and don't speak Italian; he also has extensive experience of doing business in the med and is generally more laid back.

We've also had the offer of storage from the forum (Thanks Adrian) so if we arrive with no windows we will check into an hotel for a few days while the kitchen is fitted and furniture delivered.

So it doesn't feel as bad as it did and certainly compared to some people we seem to have had a better time than some.

Thanks everyone for cheering me up

Chris

In answer to your question about running appliances off a generator: lights are almost certain to be OK, fridge and television nearly as probable. Oven and hob probably not!

It's all about the power rating of the generator. Only if it's reasonably large will it be able to give you 3kW, which is the minimum you'll find in a domestic supply in Italy (and is fairly inadequate at that).

In any case, it makes little sense to burn fuel to drive a generator to make electricity to heat your oven. Simply burning fuel (gas) to heat your oven is a better bet.

Thanks for the advice - am more concerned about a fridge than the oven or even tv - we can go out to eat etc but I'd like to be able to have some cold drinks and fresh milk in the fridge. Hob is gas so we can boil water for tea/coffee (and the gas was delivered today as we got a call on my husband's Italian mobile from the delivery saying "we are near you - can you give us directions" - we gave directions but as we are still in Uk they weren't near us!)

Chris

Hello there,
Well, if it is of any consolation, we bought a property off plan 3 years ago and you'd think that by now, we'd be well on the way of enjoying relaxing beach holidays in Italy. But oh no.... we took over the property in July 2006, and only just now, we've got to the point where we've had the back garden landscaped and more or less ready for plants (this is after having kitchen installed, convertin garage space to living space, shipping furniture from Ikea and putting it together...) We manage to visit every couple of months or so, and everytime there's something to do, if it's not building work then it's certainly cleaning after the building work!!! But there we are; what they do not tell you on the property programs it that any project you take on will take you twice as long to complete and cost you (almost) twice as much as your original budget was.... '...if only we just got that and that bit done...' It'll all be worth it once it's finished!

[quote=jepsonclough;93052]Thanks for the advice - am more concerned about a fridge than the oven or even tv - .............................Chris[/quote]

What about a gas fridge?

[url=http://www.obrienscamping.co.uk/FridgeRange.htm]Gas Refrigerator Fridges by Dometic Electrolux for caravan and camping gas mains and 12v fridge powered. Supplied by OBriens Camping[/url]

.

I can't see any real snags with an electric fridge on a generator. Check the rating of the frig, and if it is within the max capacity of the genny then (given that it isn't going to be running 24/24) you can just chill it out overnight - maybe fiddle with the thermotat so it gets really cold when you don't need to use the lights - it should be manageable for a holiday period - though keep the lettuce away from the very cold bits.

Candles are good! Even better the candles which kill mosquitoes.

We have chatted to many, many foreigners in Le Marche and It is extremely rare for a project to run on schedule and in budget- unless of course you are paying top dollar for a turn key solution. There are too many people claiming to be project managers, without the prerequisite skills, and many who are juggling too many balls. The ones that stay airborne are normally paying for the privelage.

I would recommend managing what you can yourselves, where you can source and direct good contractors personally, do so and make sure that you are not paying your geometra a percentage of the work that you direct. Having managed projects for a living in a previous life, we managed our own restoration, did all the ordering, obtained most of the quotes, directed contractors came in on schedule and inside our strict budget, it took less than 18 months to rebuild our 400m2 ruin that hadn't been lived in for 15 years.
We are not far from you and If you want any recommendations or help just PM me.Oh and make sure that you keep some of the geometras fee back as leverage for the all important project signoff or agibilità, we found this more problematic that any of the physical work.

Hi there

First of all sorry to hear your news but these things happen, however frustrating they can be you must be objective. Do not know wher you are in La Marche but have you thought of the following: Get someone to project manage it for you with regular upadates on the work progress, there must be an English spoeaking agent out there that you can find to take this sort of work on, obviously it will cost you but it would be worth it for peaces of mind.

also how about thinking of giving a productivity bonus to the builders to get the work in on time (you will obviously have to reschedule the date) This seems to work in the area where I live (Liguria). Sometimes we have to trust and hope that it works, but no matter how many promises are given really there has to be someone there to manage the job otherwise it kind of gets overlooked.

Best of luck but it will all work out in the end

Productivity bonuses??!!
We project manage here in Sicily for foreign clients and would never dream of incentives to do the work people are already paid to do. We are fortunate in that we have clients who pay - a rarity in Sicily, and builders who want to work for foreigners - and to that end we now have standard penalty clauses if the work isnt done on time - You have to bear in mind that an architect is bound by law only to site visit 3 times every 2 weeks - which isnt nearly enough. You need someone to be there virtually every day to check that things are moving along. It seems expensive to pay a project manager, but it is really the only way to get things done in a reasonable time frame. The project manager is the client on site - someting a geometra or architect can never be.

Another interesting story from the telegraph of how things can all go wrong, or take so much longer than expected.
[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/07/07/noindex/ptessa105.xml]Property in Italy: The Italian idyll that drove us to the brink - Telegraph[/url]

Just as a second (I hope amusing) side to this story... we have here a contract between a London high end domestic developer and an Italian kitchen manufacturer/supplier/fitter. The development was not small, so the delivery of the fifty or so kitchens was phased.
Lots of lawyers involved, and the UK developer was stuffing in all sorts of penalty clauses (yeah, well, they're untrustworthy Italians, aren't they!) So, the Italian lawyers drafted in a clause which compelled the UK developer to pay for all fifty kitchens by a certain date, whether the developer had accepted delivery or not. In the heady days of a couple of years ago, the UK lawyers let this through.....
Who's laughing now! You guessed right.

I noted your comment jepsonclough...Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement. I was on a real downer (but then I am a pessimist unlike my husband who is an optimist).
So a word of warning..stealing generators is a favourite pastime in our part of Umbria, so make yours as secure as poosible..yes even the heaviest generators have been stolen...incredible but true!!

Its a common story ....builders ..problems ! fortunately i have been in abruzzo for 4 years and have met some very important people ..one in particular an ENGINEER !...who is an absolute diamond ...i have put him in contact with many people who have suffered the same situation ...and his help has been second to none ! I have been in the building trade all my life ...bricklaying,stone work,electrical,plumbing..you name it ive done it ....lol im not looking for work ! phew ...too much on as it is ... but if you need help and you are in south abruzzo ...email me ...and i will try my very best ... [email]liveabruzzo@live.co.uk[/email]

Never mind generators noble we still haven't gotten over the theft of about one half of a fiat 500 firmly 'planted' in our garden walll for at least 30 years!!

It was one of a pair used to shore up a slope (theres a novel idea) but unluckily for us the theives didnt take the other so we'll need to hire a jcb for that job.

That must be a one off story myabbruzzohome. Usually it's something far more obvious like...all the old tiles on someones roof!!!

Didn't get to stay in the house - electricity kept being promised & enel turned up to do lay cable (but not connect it) so we never ordered a generator - to be honest the house was a building site anyway. Our lawyer has turned out to be a complete star though and as well as letting us stay at a house he is selling he went through the house with us and made a list of all the snags (spotting lots we hadn't) and is going to "negotiate" with the geometra on payment. Some people turn out to be stars and others .... and I am taking comfort from the fact that there are some stars around.

Chris

Glad to hear that things are being sorted out for you. Now you can almost change the title of the thread.
Best wishes,