Water and Waste

We are lucky to have options when it came to septic versus sewage and well versus city water, but it still doesn't make things easy sometime.  We had this old well with an above ground pump that we knew nothing about so after much debate, we decided to start with it to see if it was even a viable resource.

We called out a well company to see if they could determine if it would work for our needs.  They came with a generator (no electricity on site yet) and a pump.  However, they should have been able to pull out the piping but it wouldn't budge.  They tried to pry it out and it snapped.  They offered another option but it would be costly and would likely ruin the well.  The well guys said a new well would likely cost about $5k but that didn't include piping it to the new house.  Our water in the end could cost us close to $10,000 and that was just too much.  We called the water company and affirmed that there was a water tap already on site and we would just have to run lines.  It would be expensive due to the location we wanted the house, but much lower than a well.  This route cost us 1/10th of the possible cost of the well.  We were also told the city water was actually a treated spring and supposedly was some of the best city water around (we will see).  The person we hired to do our water lines (a friend's family member) also installed a tap for our camper at a pretty low cost.

Then, we had to decide sewer and septic.  There was a $3500 sewer tap already on site but we were told by multiple people that sewer prices were quite costly in that area and required its own electrical feed from the power lines.  Then, we would have to run lines that long distance like we did the water. However, since we were far enough back from the road, we could go with a septic as long as the site perked.  However, at $500 for the permit, it was a bit of a gamble that could lead to us still going back to sewer with $500 less to spend.  In the end, we went ahead and got the septic permit which had zero problems and the drainfield was approved in a location that would save us quite a bit.  The same guy who did the water lines also did the septic and since our son was dating his niece, he was very reasonable.  It cost us about $5000 for water, septic and the water yard faucet for our camper to tie into.

All we need is electricity for the camper to be functional.