Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

Back in 2021, before we made an offer on the house, the Geometra spent a few days inspecting and evaluating, prior to doing research on documentation at the comune. While his findings determined that the house has strong bones and in solid condition, the roof has ‘outlived its natural life’. This means that it was more than 60 years old and needed to be replaced. Since there were no indications of leaks, it was not my first priority, although I knew it needed to be in the top of the priority list.

In the U.S., getting a new roof takes a few days and somewhere between $20-$30k dollars, depending on the size. Let’s just say, that was not my experience in Italy. I had a team of two men, very knowledgable and skilled, but still, only 2 men to remove and rebuild the entire roof. Also keep in mind, that according to the comune, in order to bring it up to code, we needed to raise the roof almost 2 ft. Not a small task.

We had planned on starting the roof in the late Fall, but due to a number of factors, that didn’t happen. They came & installed the scaffolding (ponteggio) near the end of January. We had budgeted for 2 months and it remained up through early September…start doing the math! As with any renovation project, you run into issues that were unforeseen that add to the cost. However, we did not build in a contingency budget…lesson learned.

Starting a roof removal in February is questionable but Marco & Stefano were committed. Fortunately, we had some pretty decent weather until late March. Here are some early demolition pictures.

As they removed the roof, the two chimney stacks became very unstable and had to be removed. Another expense we were not expecting.

Given that we were replacing the roof through the last of winter and early spring, it needed to be covered to keep the weather out. Below you see what it looked like when covered…a giant blue tarp. I repeatedly apologized to my Italian neighbors that lived there year round. They had to look at the scaffolding and tarp for so many months, not to mention all of the noise when the work was being done.

At some point in March, a portion of the tarp came loose during a storm. The Umbrian wind is a serious force to be reckoned with!!!

The result…water came in through the open chimneys, carrying all of the nasty dirt and soot into the kitchen through the open fireplace. Moisture also filled the house, enabling mold to cover the walls throughout. It was a hot mess.

None of this is a show stopper, just unfortunate. We just need to take the time necessary to clean it all up, clean the mold and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Time to start elevating and rebuilding the roof. The wood panels are structural forms to poor the concrete to raise the height of the walls to bring it up to code.

In the spring, I had signed up for 3 hours of language lessons per day for two weeks in Orvieto to hopefully advance my Italian skills at a faster pace. However, one morning as I was getting ready, there was a very loud commotion outside at the back gate. There was a giant truck with a crane backing up my drive, trying to squeeze through my gate. SERIOUSLY! There was no way that thing was fitting through the gate, but with a lot of maneuvering and shifting, they made it work. WHAT?! I was very impressed. I was definitely going to be late for muy lesson but I had to stay and see what was going to happen.

Now that the structural beams are in place, the cedar planks were installed, we could begin to install the new terracotta tiles. We were definitely on the home stretch! It is SO beautiful!!!

In my shed, I found a box that had some strange items, including a turquoise blue straw hat. I have no idea where these came from and was very curious why they were there. One afternoon, dopo pranzo (after lunch), I was outside sitting at the upper terrace reading and saw Marco & Stefano on the roof. Stefano was wearing the blue hat…BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I love this man! I totally get it…it’s HOT! I can’t imagine how hot it must be up on that roof working!!!

Now that the roof is on, they are starting to open the walls to enlarge the windows. The original window openings were VERY small, and with the roof elevation, we got permesso to increase the windows to 100 x 110. What a huge difference this will make!

One morning, after mowing the lawn, I had an itch to climb the scaffolding and take a look at the new roof for myself. Marco, being a contractor and Geometra, devised a brilliant solution to rebuilding the chimney stacks. We didn’t want them to take up space in the new rooms, but we also knew it would look strange to build them on the outside of the house. What he came up with was a plan to place large copper tubes to direct the chimney flow from the inside to outside. They are not only functional but exceptionally beautiful. I love this solution!!!

Now that the roof tiles are in place, it’s time to install the solar panels. YES! If I am going through all of this, why would I not make the house more energy efficient and eco-friendly! Interestingly enough through this work, I noticed that the guy on the ground, strapping the solar panels into the hoist, was chain smoking while wearing a hard hat, and yet, none of the men on the roof wore hard hats. Hmmmmm.

So here are the pics from once the roof was done. NOTE: I had asked / requested that we needed to install wire mesh netting around the solar panels so that the pigeons would not nest under them. I think I might have noted this in more than five email exchanges, as well as numerous verbal conversations. Unfortunately, like many other times, my concerns were dismissed and the work was never done. For another post, but this resulted in an additional 1,100 euros in expense to rent equipment and pay someone to clean out the nests and install metal mesh around the base of all the solar panels. ARGH!