JanJ's activity

Thanks for that Badger.  At least that gives us an idea.  I will give all the details to hubby (he thought it would be more expensive than that, so plesantly surprised!)  Keeping the unit in the bathroom would be easy to do presumably as the plumbing would alter very little. (As long as it is safe?)  If we moved it down to the cantina we would have to put pipework up through the house I would imagine. In Italy do they ever use the sort of electric boilers that heat the water as you use it? (a sort of combi boiler I suppose)  We've got one of these here in the UK that just heats water for a shower and kitchen use.  Jan

Many thanks Badger.  This looks interesting.  I think we could just replace the old one with this and keep it situated in the bathroom - would that be the norm for Italy?  If it's not too much trouble would you be able to find out the price?  Would it be relatively straight forward sourcing it Italy? Really grateful for the help Jan

Just looking through the posts re heating etc.  I wondered if you could help?  We have just bought a small house that has an old 'Heath Robinson' (or more accurately Bosch) wood / electric heater that heats the hot water.  The heater itself is placed virtually in the shower in the bathroom!!   Although it works, the proximity of the electricity and the shower is quite scary and it looks pretty grotty!  We would like to relocate a new electric water heater to the kitchen downstairs to heat both the shower and domestic hot water etc.  (Although at the moment we don't intend to put central heating in maybe it's something we should think about at this stage???) Any advice on what and where to buy a unit that would do the job?  We are near Bagni di Lucca / Barga area in Northern Tuscany.  My husband and some builder / electrician friends are making a visit in September to have a look at things but it would be good to have an idea of what's what before hand as thier time will be limited. Any ideas or advice welcome Jan

We also viewed and bought our house in the rain!  Returning to it in the sunshine however was wonderful - it was even better that we had hoped.  A tiny garden we had presumed would be shaded and damp, was infact bathed in sunshine for most of the day, a real bonus indeed.   I'm just making my 'to do list' as I'm returning for a week next Thursday, hopefully this will be a sunny visit - it is typical summer weather here in Wales, yes it's wet!

How exciting Karen!  You must be thrilled that everything is 'coming together' and that you are moving on to a new adventure.  You must keep us all posted as to how things go.  I've often looked at Basilicata properties but know nothing about the area etc.  I'd love to hear what it's like - anyone already living there, it would be good to get the low down....

We also viewed houses with Houses in Tuscany (although there are 2 agents with the same name - one is housesintuscany.com and the other is .net)  the one we used was the .net version!  Also very very helpful, excellent English - husband and wife - the wife was Scottish and the husband was Italian but spoke good English, based in Barga I think.  It just so happened that the house we chose was with the other agent - both were great. Good luck - you must be very excited, happy hunting. Jan

We have just bought / are in the process of buying a property in northern tuscany, just the final signatures to go.  We used Casatuscany - they have been fantastic (I hope they will continue to be until the bitter end!) with an agent in Bagni di Lucca and an agent in the UK - thoroughly recommend them.  Good luck, it is a beautiful area. Jan

We're near Carmarthen over in the south west - very beautiful.  A reasonable day today, sunshine / cloud but still fairly cool, about 15 -16 degrees.  Have just done some tidying in the garden, so actually grateful that it's not too warm.  Now absolutely exhausted so about to make myself a well earned G&T and get on to the Easyjet site to look at flights to Pisa - the first week of August in Italy is very appealing!  I can't believe I can just book flights, a car and just pop along to our own house!!!  (As long as I can afford it that is!)  Now for the G&T.......... Jan

Here in Wales, it is cold, very very wet and extremely windy.  It feels more like November than July.  Hot would wonderful! Jan

Our flying visit to our new little Italian home went much too quickly!  However, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and any doubts we had about buying (did we really have any - I don't think so!) have quickly been dismissed.  We got so caught up in just being there, we didn't find out much about builders merchants, suppliers etc although we passed a builders merchants on the way back to the airport on the way home - I'm thinking it was probably Diecimo?  At this point of our return journey however, I was having a bit of an altercation with the sat nav (bought new for the very purpose of getting us to and from Pisa airport without any problems!) she was telling me one thing and I didn't agree, so I didn't really know where I was!  The rest of the journey to Pisa went from bad to worse, despite finding the signs to the airport we still managed to find ourselves back on the autostrada heading north only 20 minutes before our gate closed!  By some miracle, we managed to drop off (or was it abandon?) the hire car, get to the airport and on to the plane.  Unfortunately we missed the check in for our suitcase so we did abandon that (luckily with nothing in it - it's amazing what you can stuff in  your hand luggage if you have to!) so apologies if there was a bomb scare at pisa airport last week!  (Only joking out of the corner of my eye I saw them scan the case - phew).   I will now have to work out how to put Pisa airport into the sat nav correctly.  I'm prepared to give her a second chance even if she did let me down badly.  Jan