AND THE WORK GOES ON....
Happy Labor Day! I hope everyone has the day off and you are all relaxing and you teachers out there are not having back-to-school bad dreams. It does not seem possible that I have been retired for three full years for it seems like only yesterday, and yet, at other times, I feel like it was in another lifetime. Everyone asks the questions, so no, I have still never been bored and I still dont miss it!
We have had another round of trying to solve the Great Leak Problem, or the nightmare that never ends, as I like to think about it. It has been over a year and over a thousand euros and we THINK by hiring a good plumber this time and by bypassing the pipes on the common wall between our house and our neighbors, that we will not have to pay for their wall repairs anymore. The kitchen hot and cold water pipes now come directly off of the hot water heater in the utility room (see pictures below).
The neighbors would like us to sink another thousand plus into a ditch on the side of the house. We have decided do a few things around our house first and then later talk about more leak-proofing stuff. We want a Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, some repairs to the window curtain systems, and an outside concrete storage area. In the last few days we have talked to so many workmen about these projects that it is time for me to talk about the differences between home repair work in Italy (or at least Sicily) and the same kind of work in the U.S.
The plumber that we have now employed for the leak repair and the bathroom job, Signore Falco, is a jazz enthusiast and has been preceded by warnings from friends and foes alike that he is expensive. He even warned us of this, saying he only uses the best materials (he is so proud that he only uses that grand new invention, PVC pipes). But the biggest difference is that he does not employ people under the table, or lavoro nero, which is a way to get out of paying the super high taxes to the Italian government. Of course, his sons work for him and do all of the manual labor, while he schmoozes and supervises and does all the thinking. But he WOULD give us a certificate in writing that guarantees the work. In the long run for a job like this, it may be worth every centesimo.
We talked to our driver Micheles brother about constructing the outdoor storage area and the curtain job. He is definitely lavoro nero and he wants to do the bathroom job, but thinks he cant work with our plumber. That is a good sign! Anyway, he had been around and worked on our resort when it was built 18 or so years ago. We were struck by how he was going to start researching where the original brick in our backyard came from so he could match it up. There is an attention to detail here that is typical of so many workers on home repair projects. Since there are so few jobs and labor is so cheap, no one minds contracting for these types of home repairs and there is a plenitude of people you can call to do the work. So we get to pick and choose the workers, more or less.
I talked to Mario, Micheles brother, about the construction of this resort and if there was one master plumber or if there were several, and why werent there any plans of where the plumbing was. I had been appalled that all the pipes were under our tile floors and imagined that no one had an idea how to reach the leaks that might develop. He laughed and said that was not important, only a knowledge of how the plumbing worked. He said that it was easy to repair around leaky pipes, it was just a matter of finding another way around, and that they would never really have to dig up the under-the-floor plumbing in our house. He laughed at the idea of all pipes being accessible and a floor plan of the plumbing. That is just not the way in concrete houses.
Sicilian house repair has that inventive can-do feel to it that is built out of necessity. But the other part of the work ethic of Sicilians is that if they can get away with something they will. They do this as a matter of course or as a matter of pride and it is worse because we are Americans (of course they think we are all rich). And so we have to be careful, and we have to have a translator sometimes to explain to us why so many people are trooping through our house, speaking in rapid Sicilian that we do not understand.
We did understand the guys fixing the tennis court this AM. In any language, that is called goofing off!!
We have had another round of trying to solve the Great Leak Problem, or the nightmare that never ends, as I like to think about it. It has been over a year and over a thousand euros and we THINK by hiring a good plumber this time and by bypassing the pipes on the common wall between our house and our neighbors, that we will not have to pay for their wall repairs anymore. The kitchen hot and cold water pipes now come directly off of the hot water heater in the utility room (see pictures below).
The neighbors would like us to sink another thousand plus into a ditch on the side of the house. We have decided do a few things around our house first and then later talk about more leak-proofing stuff. We want a Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, some repairs to the window curtain systems, and an outside concrete storage area. In the last few days we have talked to so many workmen about these projects that it is time for me to talk about the differences between home repair work in Italy (or at least Sicily) and the same kind of work in the U.S.
The plumber that we have now employed for the leak repair and the bathroom job, Signore Falco, is a jazz enthusiast and has been preceded by warnings from friends and foes alike that he is expensive. He even warned us of this, saying he only uses the best materials (he is so proud that he only uses that grand new invention, PVC pipes). But the biggest difference is that he does not employ people under the table, or lavoro nero, which is a way to get out of paying the super high taxes to the Italian government. Of course, his sons work for him and do all of the manual labor, while he schmoozes and supervises and does all the thinking. But he WOULD give us a certificate in writing that guarantees the work. In the long run for a job like this, it may be worth every centesimo.
We talked to our driver Micheles brother about constructing the outdoor storage area and the curtain job. He is definitely lavoro nero and he wants to do the bathroom job, but thinks he cant work with our plumber. That is a good sign! Anyway, he had been around and worked on our resort when it was built 18 or so years ago. We were struck by how he was going to start researching where the original brick in our backyard came from so he could match it up. There is an attention to detail here that is typical of so many workers on home repair projects. Since there are so few jobs and labor is so cheap, no one minds contracting for these types of home repairs and there is a plenitude of people you can call to do the work. So we get to pick and choose the workers, more or less.
I talked to Mario, Micheles brother, about the construction of this resort and if there was one master plumber or if there were several, and why werent there any plans of where the plumbing was. I had been appalled that all the pipes were under our tile floors and imagined that no one had an idea how to reach the leaks that might develop. He laughed and said that was not important, only a knowledge of how the plumbing worked. He said that it was easy to repair around leaky pipes, it was just a matter of finding another way around, and that they would never really have to dig up the under-the-floor plumbing in our house. He laughed at the idea of all pipes being accessible and a floor plan of the plumbing. That is just not the way in concrete houses.
Sicilian house repair has that inventive can-do feel to it that is built out of necessity. But the other part of the work ethic of Sicilians is that if they can get away with something they will. They do this as a matter of course or as a matter of pride and it is worse because we are Americans (of course they think we are all rich). And so we have to be careful, and we have to have a translator sometimes to explain to us why so many people are trooping through our house, speaking in rapid Sicilian that we do not understand.
We did understand the guys fixing the tennis court this AM. In any language, that is called goofing off!!
posted by Sicilian Mama at 9:52 AM
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