Learn Italian: Faccio sempre le faccende, salvo che io sia troppo stanco. - I always do the chores, unless I am too tired.

The conjunction salvo che means "unless" or "except that" and introduces a condition or exception. In Italian, this type of exceptive conjunction always requires the subjunctive mood because it expresses a hypothetical situation rather than a guaranteed fact.

Why is the pronoun io explicitly included before sia?

In the present subjunctive, the conjugations for "I", "you" (singular), and "he/she" are identical (they are all sia for the verb essere). Including io explicitly removes any grammatical ambiguity, even though the context from the first verb (faccio) already heavily implies that you are talking about yourself.

Since the subject is "I" in both halves of the sentence, could I use an infinitive instead?

Yes! When the subject of the main clause and the dependent clause are the exact same, Italian generally prefers an infinitive construction to sound more natural. You could easily rephrase this as ...salvo essere troppo stanco. However, using salvo che with the conjugated subjunctive is still perfectly correct and useful practice.

Does le faccende specifically mean household chores?