On Monday we came close to clearing the last hurdle we face before getting our building permit. The final item on the checklist is a soil test for the septic system. Kirk, the man we hired to do the soil test, was finally able to get a backhoe onto our property to see just how deep the soil is over the bedrock. We had had a good bit of rain over the last day or so, so the ground was very wet. I wasn’t sure Kirk and the backhoe operator would want to get out onto the cleared area of the lot. They made it OK, although the backhoe slid around quite a bit during the digging. The operator had to push himself around with the bucket a few times.
Kirk, the backhoe operator, the backhoe, and a hole in the ground
Kirk and the backhoe operator admired our soil. They said it was beautiful. Kirk said the deep red color indicates that water is moving well through the soil, reaching all the little iron particles and rusting them thoroughly. That is apparently a good sign for the operation of a septic system.
According to Kirk, the soil is just deep enough to put in a conventional septic system leach field, although he said we will need to cover the leach field with a foot to sixteen inches of additional soil so the pipes won’t be too close to the surface. That’s good news, since the other possibility was an alternative system that would have been more complicated and more expensive.
The bad news is that I could hear the bucket on the backhoe banging on the rock even before I got to the lot. Once the backhoe operator reached the rock, he wasn’t going any deeper with his equipment, but we’re going to have to go through that rock to excavate the basement. It’s possible the rock can be broken up into small enough chunks to get them out without blasting, but we won’t know until we start digging.
We should get Kirk’s report Tuesday or Wednesday. Then we take it to the county health department for their approval. We then take the health department certificate, two sets of house plans, a site plan, a driveway permit, an officially-assigned street address, and a zoning verification form to the inspection department. After some period of time, we hope they will issue a building permit and we can begin the actual construction process.
I, too, was struck by the redness of the soil in your image. I’d associate that kind of red soil in the South with prime agricultural lowlands; it’s interesting to see it at such an elevation.
Good luck; septic systems are such a pain in the neck. Our house has been served by a conventional system since at least 1925, but our neighbors had to install a mound because they couldn’t get perc. I wonder, if we had to replace our system, if we’d get the perc we need, too, to be in compliance. I’m not going to ask too many questions.
Did you anticipate that you might have to blast rock for the basement when you chose this site?
Glad to see the progress here and a little blown away by all the steps it takes to get a house built. I like Scott’s questions and observations.
Scott — Our new lot looks like it will have much better soil than our current lot. I think most of the topsoil around the house was bulldozed downhill sometime in the past. We just got back from taking our soil test results to the county health department. They are going to send someone out to inspect the area. We are hoping he OK’s a conventional septic system.
All the houses up on the mountain have basements, but some of them have almost the entire basement above grade. I had to have some blasting on our current house site but even so ended up having to build two feet higher than I planned. On the other hand, the neighbor across the street hit no rock at all. I really had no idea what to expect at the new lot. I’m a little worried about what appears to be a uniform, fairly hard layer of rock two to four feet below the surface. I hope it breaks up without blasting, but at this point I really don’t know how it’s going to work out.
Robin — A lot has changed in the 16 years since I got the building permit for the house we live in now. There are more requirements and regulations. The inspections that long ago were also pretty lax. I don’t expect them to be that way today.