½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

Ìýthanks Ronald...had looked at the new stories and yes you are right... meant to write back to you after my constructive i hope criticism ... to say that things had changed to my mind for the better... Ìýobviously have seen that some people have not agreed ... and there is some lively debate over where the reporting should head... Ìýanyway i like it...i like this forum... i do have page load difficulties but they seem sporadic and without logic...navigation is just something different to get used to...Ìýi have no wish to see anything of the old forum back... not because i hated it but it was getting boring in its predictability and life needs to move on... Ìýlooking back on the past or visiting old places and or friends is generally Ìýa habit to avoid... Ìýthis place goes through phases.. autumn is often like that i believe... you sort of fall into a bit of a autumn mood.. Ìýand its more a life thing than this forums problem... Ìý Ìýi only speak for myself but i cannot say i miss anything much... i like the place well enough and it pretty obvious the only ones that can make the effort to add life are those of us who are members ... Ìýa lot of the members have put a deal of effort into writing and responding and helping...

as long as if it works for you... Ìýam happy

Ìýmust be catching this non italian/italian thing... Ìýmany olive producers here have seen very low yields mainly due to freak weather storms when the flowers were setting... we Ìýseem to have been lucky...juts started our first day have about 250 kgs of olives.. off twenty or so trees.. Ìýits something i try to avoid doing...counting what we have picked and how many to go.... thankfully for me anyway and my back nowhere near the 200 plus mark... just enough for us and family...Ìýi doubt nationality comes into any farm production at all...its skill and luck...because all outside crops are at the whim of the weather... Ìýalso olives being cyclic in basically a two year pattern give one good year and one not so good in general... although this has been a pretty disastrous second year after last years exceptional crop...Ìýhowever am happy for you in Tuscany.. and long may it continue... i also agree that knowledge and some practices of old help...but really see no correlation between being ½ûÂþÌìÌà or any other nationality to what you have achieved...Ìý

Ìýany full roofing work here might well be subject to new rules regarding efficiency of insulation .. there are heaps of new legislative conditions on how and what can be done... i would think it might even be likely that even a DIA on this sort of work would be subject to any work being carried out to fulfil new norms regarding thermal efficiency.. for sure windows.. and would have thought a roof refit would fall within the same category of workregarding safety... Ìýthere are laws in many regions now that also insist on not only the scaffolding...(national) but also a number of fixed points in the roof where safety ropes can be attached so that workers on a roof Ìýcan wear safety harnesses and lines whilst working.. these are safety rules that are for sure current here now in Abruzzo and this was not the first region to apply them..so agree with Badger... even without the laws a roof here with no insulation or waterproofing makes so little sense i can hardly believe its contemplated.. how do you sleep under a roof that bakes to plus 50c in the summer or drops to minus temps in the winter...holiday home??? sounds more like hell

Ìýthat's where the new plant is supposed to be built... Ìýin the province of Teramo Abruzzo... ÌýTeramo has a massive waste disposal problem... a couple of land fill sites have been closed and most of its rubbish is taken off to Chieti or Pescara...obviously Ìýneither of these two provinces very happy with extra input because it means they will have to arrive at solutions beyond landfill too earlier than planned...also Teramo is finding the costs of disposal in other provinces too high...Ìýnot sure where the heavy metal bit comes in... these places are supposed to burn sorted waste... Ìýthey are also supposed to burn clean...ie no pollutants exiting...have Ìýsympathy with the thoughts of a supposed cleaner more ecological alternative to land fill being set up in Italy when you realise that these systems in at lest Campania and Naples were are the cause of the rubbish problem there ...so called co bales are now stockpiled throughout Ìýthe fringes of naples because they developed a new solution to waste sorting ... the waste entered the separation plants... got separated Ìýso that they could claim the grant and then got mixed together again to form the eco bale... which then provided another grant obviously higher because there were more being produced...Bisenti will i guess have to be a bit careful about where the waste comes from if it does go ahead... but if run properly there is no more pollutant say than an old diesel engine spewing its fumes ... and there are plenty of those...i guess my thoughts are if they want it let them have it... Ìýpresume there is some sort of mayor and elected officials that voted it all in... Ìýfor the benefit of their community.. trying to get to Bisenti Ìýany time is a nightmare of broken roads and landslides...so maybe it will improve the info structure...maybe Teramo city will actually finish the superstrada so that waste can get there easier...have heard they are in competition with Silvi over the location and that comune has a lot more sway.. so they will most probably get it anyway..would have thought that with the flood plain in Bisenti they would have had serious planning problems siteing it in any caseÌýÌýÌý

Ìýthings are slow...well very slow... but you are right time will eventually lead to a buyer.. Ìýits basically how ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs set their property prices.. ÌýÌýÌýwe recently had a couple of phone calls re the Dolce Vita show in London... Ìýits at a new venue this year .. despite being offered a pretty good deal we have turned it down... because it doesn't seem to us at least as if there will be a serious recovered market by then... Ìýand it really doesn't seem like it will be worth the hassle ... its hard work for all setting up a stand ... and transporting the stuff up there.. you however might well be able to do a bit of private marketing in such a place.. handouts and local knowledge of your property for sale... not suggesting you do it inside the building... anyway its in Islington next year... and if Ìýyou have not sold by then and are looking to kick start your sale and do a bit of innovative marketing could be well worth a trip

Ìýnormally if i join this sort of debate it back fires... so just to say that angie has pretty well put it as i would have wanted to without adding fuel to fire... Ìýeveryone that helped for L'Aquila helped... and thats itÌýi also concur both with some of relaxeds comments..not all but i miss charles or relaxed... and nigel is just finding himself the victim of the usual stuff... have sympathy for you but many of us have been through this mill of deliberate flaming so its good to see attention focused on another... basically for no fault of yours... i did like your name and tel number post.. but you will never have the patience to win ..and never get the last word... which most probably is good in my opinion ..menas yopu are both sane and have a real life to get on withÌýoh no... done it again...

Ìýthe abruzzo/italian papers are reporting it that way...have no idea of where they got that info from... cause the times article seems to be a stand alone type thing... presume there must be something going on in London... but no idea where to start.. could be wwf associated as its i think more about sustainable tourism

Ìýwe have a pellet boiler as our main hot water and heating system for the house all year round... anual running cost 900 euro plus the electricity consumption i guess ...but that is just to drive pumps and motor for feeding pellets ...all very low consumption..Ìýwe heat around 175 m sq of the house... so about 375 m cu we but roughly 300 x 15 kg of pellets a year.. we have storage so we order them all at one time and maintain the house at roughly 21 c during the winter ...ÌýÌýours is very much a functional type boiler with a hopper beside in which you load around 6 bags of pellets at a time..however have looked at the type you mention and in reality they are quite common and offer good alternatives to either town gas or bottled or wood.check max consumption figures..ie i think around 3-4 kgs an hour and think that this means loading in Ìýat least two bags a day.. so make sure the pellet capacity is high as poss..some take around 30 kgs ..so only 1 day..at highest settingswe paid this year euro 3.10 per bag.. 40 cents a bag cheaper than last year..but figures quoted suggesting 4 euro would be a fairly accurate guestimate of what you should be basing costs on... there is no reason at all that they should increase more than any other fuel source as wood is a common building material worldwide and have seen no mention of it being replaced as a source.. Ìýforestry and the sustainable management of is a growing business and is one of the few renewable energy sources grown on ground that is little use for anything else...our boiler can also burn wood ... maize and any other material suitable for these things .. pellets are just the most efficient to use it in terms of waste produced... it can run a month with residue of about half a bucket of ash i guess..as regards bulk loads of pellets i think they are rare.. Ìýbags in 15kg sizes are all that i have seen... and there would be marked difficulties in any other form as water and or damp makes them swell straight away and you are left with a mound of damp sawdust...we ran our gas boiler ...we have tank gas... for a weekend...we are trying to empty it as we have a new in ground tank... for 5 days keeping the same temp as our pellet boiler and we used Ìý75 lts of gas .. the pellet boiler would have used 5 bags.. last time we bought gas...2 years ago now it cost almost a euro a litre.our last house had mains gas... and i can happily look back on those bills and have them as a thing of the past... yearly runing costs of around euro 2000 and being careful with temps and as a backup 30 quintale of wood for the fire.. about 400 euro worth...Ìýso i am happy with pellets.. a bit of work carrying, storage for 50 bags or so would be ideal as a minimum...... and also if this is to be your main heating supply a local reliable supplier with storage where you can arrange ...paying in advance to have maybe 2 or 3 pallets kept for you.. buying in summer or late spring can reduce pellet per bag cost down to euro 2.50 but these people sell to make space so you have to take them away quickly... however as an idea our footprint of storage for one years heating/ hot water.... being around Ìý10 m sq .. we stack them highÌýfinally when estimating all the costs of your boiler ... make sure the pumps are included.. and the flue costs..we have a stainless steel liner all the way to the top of the house.. they need efficient outlets Ìýanyway my thoughts and our costs... hope it helpsÌýÌýanother thought... just to maybe make costs more comparative we live in Abruzzo, coastal side of the mountains...so weather is a bit different as we are further south... a bit like comparing maybe Manchester to London... so you might need to factor in plus 10 % or so as regards costs

Ìýrealised afterwards that my posts could have appeared to be a dig based on the original question and meant to say so...but have only just got back home... Ìýyour friends to my mind are pretty well outside of what i am talking about... Ìýand i thought they were given reasonable advice re what to do in their situation ...i was answering or giving my thoughts on the debate raised after... as you say an interesting one..Ìýto add further comment on the following arguments we also had a trailer made before we left the UK which was built basically to trail behind a big 4 x 4... a standard chassis with an aluminium covered body almost like a horse box .. anyway we also tried to get this registered here...oh no... not standard... despite having the plate with all the required details from the UK... it seems that you also need a log book for a trailer... Ìýalso because it could carry more weight than normal trailers.. a normal licence was not enough... and it had twin axles as well.. so we gave that away to a family from Romania who are friends and they have taken it there where laws are not so strict...Ìýso we have also bought a trailer here which requires separate insurance, a log book and its own licence plate...well two actually .. al at a cost of 200 euro or so on top of the trailer cost... and i even had to fir the plates myself.. the trailer arrived in two days the paperwork to legalise it took two weeks...now i am fine with it...am also fine with my yearly mots, road tax on two cars, insurance and whatever else they decide is needed.. i live here and thats the way the ½ûÂþÌìÌà state has decided.. not so happy with the five yearly or ten yearly licence renewal...but again its what we all that live here and want to be part of here have to put up with and its always nice to have a reciprocal story of how stupid the ASL medical examine/examiners are/were regarding your renewal visit...what makes me angry are the prolific whingers about all the problems here that still drive around in their BRIT cars with their BRIT driving licences Ìýcomplaining about lack of services or this official not understanding why they need medical cover or god forbid residency with no money or no visible means of supporting themselves or even indeed having any or much clue about the language... Ìýwhilst holding down several jobs ... all paid in cash... Ìýand then wondering why they do not fit in to the local community... let everyone take their own course in life... but give up if your choice is to totally ignore your host countries legal/taxation Ìýsystem going on about what is so wrong here... Ìýthe worst crime to my mind being those that suggest all ½ûÂþÌìÌà workers or professionals are liars and cheats in order to drive business within a small clique of ... etc etc... will say no more