Well & Septic - Check!

Sorry it's been a while since we last posted. I'm battling some sort of stomach flu/food poisoning, and just haven't had the energy to post. Last Thursday, the well and septic installation started. While this might seem boring to most, it's obviously two of the most important items for our future home. All I can think of Uncle Eddy's famous phrase..."shitters full!" Ha! Luckily it won't be a while before Brad can use this exclamation! Our tank is 2000 gallons - and that my friend, is a lot of...well, you know. :)

Anywhoo, the septic design has been a hurdle. Johnson County requires that you have a soil and septic engineer come out, evaluate your property and design a system even before you get your building permit. Although we have over 3 acres of land to choose from, it seems our soil showed signs of saturation that didn't make it fit for a traditional "gravity" system. We had to have an at-grade system installed which essentially requires a pump from the septic system out to a leach field located higher than the tank. It involves a whole lot of gravel, dirt and earth moving. Butch, our excavator disagreed with her decision to have an at-grade, and we'd tend to agree with him, but our engineer didn't think it needed a second look, so we proceeded as designed.

I know it doesn't seem all that large, but the hole this puppy went in was probably 8' deep by 10' wide. Brad and I almost fell in it at night when we were checking out the progress, but luckly Butch knows to anticipate morons like us and parked his backhoe in the way. Good thinking!

 

So that's what 90 tons of gravel looks like! Yes, 90 TONS! I guess that's what our at-grade system calls for. Seems like overkill if you ask me!

Eventually we will have a dirt hump that will be a nice mounded flowerbed on the west side of our property. It will definitely be a challenge to disguise, but we are hopeful it won't even be noticable in the end.

This is the pipe running from the septic tank out to the leach field. Seems wierd that we have all of the house plumbing funneling into a small tube, then into a 2000 gallon tank, then back into a tiny tube.

Although it might seem tempting to use these as field goal posts, they will be promptly chopped down flush with the ground - of course after okaying that with the county. Me and the folks down there are going to be great friends ;-).



The second tank seen here with the concrete collar is our pump chamber. This will have an alarm in the event it ever goes out. Translation: anticipate sewage backing up into the house. No way jose!



While the basement was being poured and the septic system was being installed, our well went in. Initially we bid it out at 385' but were keeping our fingers tightly crossed that somehow the aquifer was much closer to the surface than anticipated. When all was said and done, our well came back at 390', so only 5' more than planned. Which is great, becuase every additional foot is an additional $21. That adds up very quickly! The process of digging the well involves the worlds second largest truck (aside from a concrete pump truck) and lots of PVC piping. I wasn't able to witness their work, but will trust that this wasn't their first rodeo. All we're left with of our 390' is a small portion of tube which will eventually be disguised as a flowerbed.

It's crazy how some of the smallest items cost the most amount of money! It's like we have our own little city sewer system just for ourselves!

Oh by the way, our garage got poured too. It is absolutely gorgeous and we can't wait to have an attached garage. Something we've never had! With the temperatures dropping by the second, it definitely was the right decision for our hilltop location.
 

This is a site for sore eyes!

We love this shot as you can see both the basement and the garage finished. The footers for the porch and deck also got poured. You can see the deck footings to the right of this picture.

Our general contractor said that if the weather holds out, he's hoping to start framing on Friday or Saturday. We're not even sure what we'll do when the lumber starts to arrive. We're pretty much at a stand still until that point. I guess the roof trusses are going to be delivered on Monday, so things will start to move vertically - and quickly!

So in the meantime, we plan on sharing some of our ideas for decorating our future home. Stay tuned...

Love,
The Crawfords