Needless to say, the termotechnico did not come the next day as Gino promised. Thankfully, he did come on Friday accompanied by Andrea (Gino’s English speaking geometra colleague).
We explained to the termotechnico that we were looking for both heating and cooling and that, if possible, we would like to locate the plant in the room that currently houses the washing machine. We let him know that we’d like to be able to control the heating remotely so that we can keep the temperature above 10C during the winter and fire up the heating a few days before arrival to ensure a comfortable house when we get there. We told him we were happy to go with his recommendations, but would like him to consider alternatives to pellet burners such as heat pump. He conducted his assessment of the house and the exisitng heating / cooling. There will obviously be an element of interdependence between the heating and cooling work and the work of the electrician. This is for the geometra to coordinate as a project.
Andrea is a very chatty and enthusiastic geometra. I think he’s hoping to manage the work on our house. This would be fine as he has good English, but I’ll be happy if he has the more steady Gino overseeing what he does. We think we can get going with some work that does not need permissions. The work that does require permissions, seems to fall into two categories: simple changes where the permissions are pretty much just a formality (e.g. moving the bathroom internally) and those where the comune will take a closer interest (e.g. moving the back door).
Surprisingly, Andrea thought that building a small wall at the front of the house would be problematic as may paving the front garden. We want the wall to make it less easy for people to park directly outside the house and especially to stop them parking with their wheels on our grass (which they seem to do when we’re away). We are now considering getting large rectangular planters to erect a non-permanent barrier instead.
There was no discussion of the garden as the geologo has not yet been.
Andrea suggested we could have a meeting to kick things off as early as Monday and he would discuss with Gino when he got back to the office….