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.... you are talking Italia here...?

We saw ruin in February 2007, completed purchase end March.  Agreed contract with builder who started work July 2007 and we moved in April 17th 2008.  We were delayed approx. 1 month due to the location/access road in the winter weather but this was a complete knock down and rebuild using original materials.  We also had to have 12 piles into the ground the deepest 18m.   Our builder and his team turned up religiusly every morning (road permitting) and managed a superb project with electrician, plumber, tilers, door/window supplier etc. We would have been in sooner but front-door manufacturer delayed us another month.   It can be done!!!!!!!

The frustrating thing is that the whole process is out of our control- or the builders' control. We are waiting for the beams from a supplier in the north, and as for the electricity and water connections, we are dealing with bureaucracies here, and as Stevegw points out, this is Italy. (A UK-based �������� friend said exactly the same thing!) But reassured by my namesake Karenr that even extensive building work can finish more or less on time! Thank you both for your comments. Will post pictures when/if the house is completed.

Well, the timbers have now arrived, the new made-to-measure window is on its way, and we have a nadover date set for June 25th! We are getting seriously excited. The problem is that there is no guarantee the electricity and water connections will be in place, so we are not planning to stay in our new house, we will just set up the humidifier and come back in September. Only three weeks!

"The problem is that there is no guarantee the electricity ..... will be in place, so we are not planning to stay in our new house, we will just set up the humidifier and come back in September"   Humidifier? How, with no electricity?  [or will you run a lead from your neighbours?

She'll just plug in to the street light - that's only sensible and saves money!!  LOL

Whoops - yes, I see the problem! What would we plug the dehumidifier thing into? We've only met our next door neighbour once, so I don't think we can really pop round and ask to borrow her electricity for a few months. However, we can still buy a dehumidifier, and hopefully we can get the property management company we are going to use to plug it in as and when the connections are in place. We have been told that we need a self-draining - autodrenante - model so there is no need to keep emptying the reservoir. It will have to be an industrial strength model as, although the property is a single space and only 55 m2, the ceilings are very high- about 3.6 metres at the sides and 4 metres at the highest point of the vault, so that makes ... er, a lot of cubic metres (my maths is hopeless). So many things to think about.

Dehumidifier - do you need one? If the place is empty for a few months - can you not 'let it air' and dry out naturally?  The property management company could 'manage' the airing [Opening/closing windows when the weather changes] Or - you could go to a yacht chandlers and get some solar powered air vents to keep the air circulating Example on Amazon 

Thanks for that, Alan, I will look into it. Obviously solar power would be preferable- free energy! but I'm not sure if a dehimidifier like this would be powerful enough for this large vaulted space.

The air vent isn't a dehumidifier, but what it will do is help the air in the building to let it dry out naturally - after all - it should get pretty warm over the next few weeks/months.  You would probably need a few of them to have a proper effect

Our handover date is 25th June - we are very excited! Unfortunately there will not be any water. Apparently the water board has new software which isn't working so are unable to process requests. Or maybe it's the wrong kind of water... Anyway, the upshot is that we won't have any water of any kind, but we were sort of expecting that. Everything else, including furniture, should be in place. Will post photos of renovated wine vault when we get back.