electric and septic issues...

[jimgranite]

We are trying to figure out where our house will go-- we have 16 acres of mostly flat land with a seasonally high water-table, so our septic will have to have a drain tile 36" below the trenches, and therefore needs to be at a  high spot so there will be enough fall for the drain.    If there is not enough elevation we will need a mound system (yuck). The highest point on the property is pretty far from the road-- 400 ft. or so, and therefore will  require a longer run for the electric.  The power company is going to give us a credit for what they estimate our first 30 months of service will be worth, and beyond that will be our cost.  The closest pole is about 250 ft down the road, so they will have to put in 2 or 3 poles to get to our property, and then either poles or an underground cable to our house site.  We are still a year or so from starting the house, but we wanted to build our barn this year, and to do that you need a septic permit.  That seemed like an annoyance at first, but I am now glad that we'll be forced to figure this stuff out now.  We are waiting on estimates for both the septic and electric and I am hoping that neither will be budget-busters.

[MountainDon]

Hi there jimgranite. Welcome! Whereabouts are your 16 acres located?

G/L on the estimates.   Don

[glenn-k]

Would it help any if you put your drain field on the hill and put in an effluent pump so you had a normal system but just pumped the effluent to the higher field - house could be closer if you wanted with a normal septic tank - an added chamber and filter on the effluent out plus a pump is the difference- .  I did one that way.

[jimgranite]

16 acres in East Central Indiana.  This part of the state used to be a swamp and is now farmland with drain tiles running underneath.  Our field has several broken tiles that seem to drain into a low spot on the property.  We want to put our pond there.  


Glen-- I have considered having a pumped system with the house lower than the drainfield.   My wife hates the idea since if we lose power, no toilets.  

[glenn-k]

Thats not necessarily true, Jim.  I don't know how long you expect to be without power, but there is an extra tank - you can probably use ferrocrete or concrete.  Just make it big enough to hold the extra capacity for a few days use then when power is back on it can pump out to the field.  We did about 400 gallons here at my customers - that will hold it over quite a while.  You can still use the toilet until the tank is at capacity even with no power.  You gravity to a normal tank then out of it to the pump tank and from it the clear effluent is pumped up to the higher elevation drain field.  Seems my customer shopped and got a suitable pump for about $300.

A generator could also run the pump.  It's not very large.  Seems it's less than 1/2 HP.

[MikeT]

I just had a 1500 gallon septic tank installed upslope of a 500 gallon vault that is downslope of my house.  The vault has a grinder pump in it.  I can get you more specs if you like.  Our state requires only certified installers place plumb these systems, so you can imagine that the costs was higher than if I would have done it myself.  The 500 gallon vault and grinder pump cost me $5500 plus another $2K for the excavation, hook up, piping, etc.  Note that this cost me $500 more than the septic tank alone.  The pump was a special order deal.

In case it helps, here is a picture of the 500 gallon tank before backfill.  The next picture is the 1500 gallon tank that is 30 feet upslope.

I am planning on doing the DWV hookups and the electrical wiring myself to save some money.  Both the tank and the vault have control box systems as part of the setup to alert you if there is a problem.

NOTE: I agree with Glenn's comment about the holding vault being large enough to keep things until power is restored.  That said, I still plan on wiring the things up so that I can go to my back up generator if needed.

[MikeT]

It looks like the picture of the 500 gallon vault did not make it.  Sorry.  Here it is.

mt

[jimgranite]

Update-- we got a rough estimate for our septic at $8-$10,000.  I was hoping for 5-6 but I guess the perimeter drain pushes it up.  The design will be $600.  For that price I may be motivated to pay for the design, but do some or all of the work myself.

Still waiting for an estimate on electric, but we did hear that some of the neighbors trees will have to be trimmed and/or taken down, at our cost.  

[glenn kangiser]

Sounds reasonable, Jim - or what I would expect to see at least.  Thanks for the update.

Mike - I like the looks of what you are doing - interesting project all the way around.