Finally some good-ish news

Pete Bissel came up today to do the perc test for the septic.  The good news is that despite heavy rain the last couple of days, the site perc'd very well, and the 6' deep hole they dug for the testing was only just starting to collect water in the bottom after two hours.  I won't need a complex pump system like the guy who came out and inspected the pipes said, which means the cost of the unit will be closer to 10k than 20k, which is a breath of fresh air.

All the good news came with a major caveat though: the septic will have to be in the front yard.  It doesn't sound bad on its face, but it means that I will have to get a new well drilled; the leech field will end right on the side of the driveway opposite the well.

But to head back to positive developments, if the driveway has to move (it might have to move over a foot or two) I haven't yet paid for the gravel to be delivered, so I haven't lost out on that yet.  I might wait for the gravel until after the septic at this point.

To give you a better idea of where the leach field will be, it will essentially be in the wall of the old foundation by the driveway.


The fill, while it perc'd well, is still full of garbage.


The excavator chewed up my driveway a bit.  He flattened one of my driveway markers as well, though it wasn't damaged, just folded over.


The first place they looked was the back yard, which meant driving the excavator up the hill.  Even the pseudo-paved part of the driveway got beat up.


Due to the recent developments with the town selectman, I am rewriting my letter with the reasons (the ordinance didn't actually change, so I am actually applying for an exception not a variance).  It makes my argument a bit weaker, but I still have a paper trail of the selectman saying it was fine, even if she flat out lied at the time.  I hope to get it all done tonight so I can get the ball rolling tomorrow.

I did briefly look at what it would take to reach 700 square feet via adding a detached garage, and a 24x22 garage would do the trick.  That isn't wide enough for both vehicles and some spare room for the mowers, but i can get either the mowers and other things and my car or both vehicles.  It has one 10' wide door and one 8' door.  The truck will almost scrape on an 8' wide door, but should fit through the 10' without issue.  The car is narrower and should fit through the 8' without issue.  If it comes to it, I suppose I could always build a little lean to off the side for the mowers and whatnot if I wanted to get both vehicles in.  Note that the drawing is an isometric view, and is not even remotely close to scale.


Also notable in the picture above is that I finally broke down and bought a t-square.  I am using one of the plywood boards that dad gave me (they are reasonably close to square) as my drawing board.  Not ideal, but it works.  Drawing on this is much faster.  The isometric view of the garage in the above picture took maybe 5-10 minutes to draw.  A little old school, but works.