well, septic

Homegrown Tomatoes · January 18, 2009, 12:35:38 AM

I know there are a hundred (at least) topics on these here, but when I did a search, it brought up everything but what I was looking for, which was an approximate cost? (Yes, I know I asked before but my brain has a limited storage capacity and I've since forgotten...

) And what about time frame? I'm thinking that you have to go through some legal rig-a-ma-role to get permits, etc., but am not sure. Say we buy a place and close a few weeks from now... how soon and at what cost could we get septic and well done?

glenn kangiser · January 18, 2009, 12:44:26 AM

Prices vary a lot - around here standard septic is around 5 to 6000, but the state is talking about making it around up to $45000 - hope we kill that... I have read of some back east talking $2800 or so -

Well, well , well. 16 t0 35 or so per foot? Lots of variation - that's hole and casing only- again rough guess - depends where also. Pump is extra - 2500 up.

January 18, 2009, 12:58:26 AM

We already have the pump and tank. I know there is water on the adjacent property, but not sure of the depth... guess I'll have to go knock on a door and ask.

Homegrown Tomatoes · January 18, 2009, 01:29:42 AM

Also, we're considering another property that had a house on it. The house is burned out, but I'm thinking that there had to be a well and septic there before, so if it is still useable that might be a possibility. What it really boils down to is do we want to buy the property near the child molester, or the one near the rapist??

river place · January 18, 2009, 05:07:41 AM

We found a well driller local to where we bought our land through the chamber of commerce. I reached out to him and he was very helpful in giving us the rates for putting in a new well which included cost per foot, pump, casing, wiring and tank. He estimated 140 to 250ft in our area and we got goo flow at 220ft. He also gave us the info regarding how far the county requires septic from the well and also said that the local power company won't put in temporary power until a well is in on raw land. Based on this I'd talk to the local well driller(s) first.

January 18, 2009, 10:30:19 AM

Thanks River place, that makes sense... good info. DH was up last night until 2 AM obsessing about what order to do stuff in and which property we should make an offer on. I always tell him that obsessing will do no good without all the information (ie. we are still waiting on aerial photos of the two different parcels, have to talk to lenders about what they will and will not do on vacant land and so forth...)

cabinfever · January 18, 2009, 12:50:30 PM

I just bought a piece of property in Vermont and have been looking into the same thing. I've been told that I can expect 6-7k for a conventional septic system, or 10-13k for a mound system. In my case, I had to add $1,800 in site engineering and state permit costs. (Turns out I need a mound.) The engineer was confident that I'd need to go about 250 feet for the well, and that I could expect to spend about 7.5k for it.

Okie_Bob · January 19, 2009, 07:39:14 AM

One thing not mentioned above is how good the water is, at certain depths? For example, I had a place that had a well on it when I bought it that was about 65' deep, lots of water too. What I didn't know was the water was barely drinkable due to polution.
Anything less than 100' is considered ground water in my opinion and should not be used for household use. In my case there was good water at 365' which everyone that had lived around there long had already drilled new wells for.
That is a huge difference in the cost of the well so I suggest you check with locals to see how deep they had to go to get 'good' water.
Okie Bob
PS: Again, everyone needs to put their location in their profile. Makes it easier for everyone to give info if we know where you are located.

MountainDon · January 19, 2009, 11:25:09 AM

Quote from: Okie_Bob on January 19, 2009, 07:39:14 AM

PS: Again, everyone needs to put their location in their profile. Makes it easier for everyone to give info if we know where you are located.

...might be windmill tilting OB, but here it is again

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=4973.0

January 19, 2009, 01:22:26 PM

Homegrown - try not to obsessed about it too much or it'll take the fun/adventure out of the process. I did the obsessing thing at first but then took the appraoch that this is a system related problem. When we bought our land we knew well water was available to the neighbors and asked them about it along with the well driller. The well driller said he wouldn't stop drilling until he reached good water (flow and quality) so that gave me more confidence that he'd do it right.

The septic system was driven by the soil type on the property which lead to only 2 possible locations for a conventional system. This then put the well at least 100 ft from that location. In your area you might be able to use a conventional system or might be required to use a mound sytem as previous mentioned. Another possibility is the new areobic kind (sp?) which operates link a sprinkler system and can be eco friendly. Check with the local plumbers that install spectic systems and see what they think might be required in the locations you're looking at.

When I had the well put in I had them place the presure tank on a sideways cinder block. This allowed me to later have a small concrete floor poured and then erected a shed based off the small house plans. I built 4x8 sections of wall in Dallas then hauled then to the build site which made things go up very fast on site. oh and make aure the well cost includes everything including the tank and presure switch.

Also look at access and how power will be run into the site and is it reasonably close to the well and house location to be.

On our property we had a clause that the property had to pass a septic perc test. if it hadn't passed, then we could have continued with the purchase as is or tried to negotiate based on higher cost required for another septic solution.

If you go with a property with an old well and septic system you may want to think about having them inspected first as they may be unusable. Possible clause in offer?

Not sure if this helps as I can be a bit wordy at times.

Jens · January 19, 2009, 02:17:35 PM

Quote from: glenn kangiser on January 18, 2009, 12:44:26 AM
Prices vary a lot - around here standard septic is around 5 to 6000, but the state is talking about making it around up to $45000 - hope we kill that... I have read of some back east talking $2800 or so -

Well, well , well. 16 t0 35 or so per foot? Lots of variation - that's hole and casing only- again rough guess - depends where also. Pump is extra - 2500 up.

I think the building departments, and codes have done more to remove our freedom in this country than anything else. That is atrocious. A septic tank is basically a hole in the ground, with perf pipe coming off for leaching, and proper drainage.

Everywhere I have posted this question HT, it is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10k for the two, of course that depends on average soil drainage qualities, and average depth of well.

MountainDon · January 19, 2009, 03:53:38 PM

Quote from: Jens on January 19, 2009, 02:17:35 PM
I think the building departments, and codes have done more to remove our freedom in this country than anything else. That is atrocious. A septic tank is basically a hole in the ground, with perf pipe coming off for leaching, and proper drainage.

Jens, there is some truth to that. I don't like many rules and regs, but I am practical about it, IMO. If there were no regs on how septic systems were to be installed, how long do you think it would be before someone was actually just digging a hole in the ground and dumping the sewage in it? Not everyone would, but there would be some. Some of them would do it because they had no scruples, other would do it because they are stupid. I wouldn't want then to be next door to me.

I defended codes once before with the following example. I know someone who ran a length of soft copper tubing from a natural gas supply line on the house to his workshop out back. He buried it about6 inches in the ground. Part of it was under the area where he parked his RV trailer. Now granted code did not prevent him from engaging in such a dangerous practice, but code did provide the legal system to have that corrected.

If we lived in an ideal world we would not need so many rules; the basic 10 would do.

Jens · January 19, 2009, 06:20:13 PM

Heard that Don. The first building codes in the country, were fire codes in Salem, MA. The buildings were all put up with common walls, thatched roofs, cooking fireplaces (no spark arresters available!), the town burned down a few times. They just seem to have gone crazy anymore. It is due, in large part I think, to people that have no scruples, like you say. If it is for your personal residence, I think natural selection should be allowed, but unfortunately that puts innocents at risk.

It is just too bad that people don't simply use common sense, but then that wouldn't benefit Mr Simpson, and all of the codes inspectors out there! Case in point, cob walls have been proven to have 10 times the compression strength of stick framed walls, but cannot be load bearing in many places. I guess they are trying to protect from improperly built ones, but with the amount of crappy stick framing I've seen after years in the business...lets just say that there must be a lot of greasy palms out there!