Ive been taken to task for being a pessimist when looking at the problems facing Amanda and Alan in their doing up a pad in Salemi. Having now binge watched it all, the following will show the difference between reality and TV reality.
TV world reality. Alan and Amanda decide to knock through a wall between two apartments to create a living space. In August. Chris, their project manager, notices that its a supporting wall and it’s a bigger job than they thought. Notwithstanding this, in the blink of an eye Amanda’s got a jack hammer going at the wall and is swiftly replaced by some builders who put in an RSJ and in a couple of days its all lovely.
Real Reality: Alan and Amanda decide to knock through said wall. Chris, their project manager and a lovely bloke, but not a registered professional according to his website, says its a more complicated job.
At this point you get a geometra who draws up some plans, and which as Chris rightly said must leave a metre at each side of the wall intact, with a maximum height. But you need a geometra to tell you that so the geometra then sends his plans to a calcolista who works out the structural loadings and so on, and tells you how big your RSJ’s need to be.
Once the geometra has all the calcoli, he can define the plans which are then sent to the comune with a SCIA which includes the name of the builders who will do the work and which must, by law, have tax certification to be allowed to do the job. The SCIA is a nulla osta, so you have to wait for 30 days for the comune to object. If they remain silent you can do the work. But its August, so you have to wait for the calcolista to come back from his holidays, so realistically you’re looking at October.
In a seismic area, such as Salemi, you must have an ‘incamiciatura’ – steel put in like a picture frame all around the hole you’re creating, including the floor.
If Amanda then picks up a jack hammer and, heaven forfend, hurts herself, you are in an incident at work which requires police and ‘denunce’. Obviously she wouldnt have been on the list of approved workers, is therefore working illegally, and the commissioner of the works is then penally liable. Ms Holden will have an insurance policy which would make the production company weep, but to get a cent from the insurers you need to formally denounce the event to the carabinieri which opens a particularly nasty Pandora’s box of Finance police, carabinieri, state police, comune and provincia. Fortunately she remained unscathed, and the work could go ahead smoothly.
Once done, you have changed the structural state of the building, which requires a reaccatastamento of the property, new plans and in the case of Alan and Amanda, a fusion of 2 properties with new APE and further paperwork at the comune. Cost of opening up a wall in 2022 about 1200 for geometra and tax stamps and bollettini, 700 for the calcolista, 5000 for the steel and work, and another 1300 or so for the resulting new accatastamento, plus the permission from the comune to do a fusione of two properties. So for Alan and Amanda’s open space, you’re looking at around 9000 euros.
