If you read my last post about our house, you know that I left off by saying that we found THE. PERFECT. PLACE. If you haven’t read my last post yet, you can read it here:
You wouldn’t want to miss all the crazy neighbor and house hunting stories.
Anyway…
The perfect place I was talking about is 5 acres near work for Timothy; five beautiful, heavily wooded acres on a secluded hill. One day, when Timothy was at work, he asked a guy he worked with if he knew of any good land nearby; we had been looking for years. Well, that guy said, “Actually, there is some land for sale across the road from me.” We decided to go take a look.
When we got there, we parked on the side of the gravel road and started looking around. Right then, a couple who lived on that same road drove up to us. We told them we were there looking at the land that was for sale. They invited us to hop in their vehicle with them and they would show us around. They spent an hour or so showing us the different 5-6 acre parcels that were for sale.
It didn’t take us long to find the one we liked the best. It was at the top of a hill with a view of trees and a distant lake. We emailed the owner and made an offer that same day. (It just so happened that it was my birthday!) The owner told us that they had just gotten an offer that very same day for a little more money than what we were offering.
Here’s where all the years of saving and not indulging in all the luxuries that everyone else was enjoying paid off. We had the cash for the land. The other person who made an offer wanted to work out an “owner financing” deal.
The owners of the land said they didn’t want to deal with owner financing so they liked our offer better. They asked if we would come up on our offer a little. We came up some and they said, “SOLD!”
If we would not have had the cash and wanted to do owner financing like the other people, we could have lost out on the prettiest piece of land around.
As a side note, before any money was exchanged, we got a copy of the survey and scheduled a perc (percolation) test. There is no city sewer system out here so we were going to have to get a septic system. A perc test will show you the absorption rate of your soil for the septic system.
With a septic system, the waste from the house goes out to a septic tank. The solids in the tank are digested naturally by bacteria. Once the tank fills to the top, the wastewater starts flowing out into an overflow pipe (yuck, I know). The overflow pipe takes it downhill to the lateral lines. The lateral lines have holes in them where the wastewater can start seeping into the soil. Once it gets into the soil, it is naturally cleaned.
Our soil here has a lot of clay in it so the guy doing our perc test had to go all over our 5 acres to find a spot that had the proper soil mix. If we had installed the septic system in an area with too much clay, wastewater could never have seeped out of the lateral lines and it would have backed up in the house.
(I know you’re enjoying this topic.)
This is important because if the land can’t pass a perc test, you can’t install a septic system on it. In the country, there usually isn’t a city sewer system to hook your house up to. So, no septic system = no house.
Someone who is licensed through the health department does the perc test. There is also a list of people to choose from who are certified by the health department to install septic systems. When our perc test was being done, they needed someone who had a small trac hoe to dig holes so they could test the soil. In our case, the guy who dug the holes for the perc test was a certified septic system installer and offered a discount on the septic system installation if you let him dig the holes for the perc test AND install the septic system. Did you follow all of that?
The health department has to verify that your land passed the perc test. Also, the septic system installer has to submit their plans of how your system will be laid out. They do this by drawing it out on paper and by flagging it on your land. All of that has to be approved. The size of your septic system is determined by the number of bathrooms, sinks, and bedrooms you have. The more bathrooms, sinks, and bedrooms most likely mean the more people in the house. More people = more water and waste.
If you want to read more about that topic, here is a link to the EPA with a more in-depth explanation.
https://www.epa.gov/septic/how-your-septic-system-works
Once we looked over the survey and passed the perc test, we purchased the land! After that, we didn’t go back for several months. It was summer and it was hot! In the Fall, we finally went back and paid someone to start clearing trees (only enough trees for the house and driveway; as we wanted to keep the land natural with the house nestled in the forest). The plan was to build a garage first so we would have a place to put all our stuff while we built. We would attach the garage to the house with a hall later.
So, we had the garage built then the septic system installed.
Once the septic system was installed, we felt like we were moving along. I think we held our breath through that whole process because we always had thoughts of “What if the land doesn’t pass the perc test? What if there are too many rocks to dig a hole for the septic tank?” We had lots of “what ifs” in our mind so it was so satisfying to see the septic system in the ground.
Our hill is so rocky that the installer could only get the septic tank buried about a halfway. So, half of it is sticking up out of the ground. Timothy suggested we take lawn chairs out there and sit on it. (It is made of concrete after all.) I rolled my eyes thought that was a pretty bad idea. You might be a redneck if you use the top of your septic tank as a patio.
Seriously.
I could just picture him out there in his lawn chair with a glass of tea and some Bermuda shorts on. However, in his mind, we just passed a milestone AND spent a lot of money (it costs around $5,000) so it was worth savoring for a while!
We originally planned to live in the garage for the 6 months it would take us to build the house. Obviously, it would need to have a bathroom, kitchen and plenty of electrical wiring for this to happen. However, that first summer, after building the garage and moving a lot of our boxes into it from our house, we caught AT LEAST 75 scorpions IN the garage. SCORPIONS.
I had only ever seen one scorpion in my life up to that point… and it was a dead one. Those things are hideous. We couldn’t even fathom the kind of atomic bomb pest control we were going to need to get that problem under control. At the time, we had a four-year-old and a baby who was going to start crawling within a couple of months. There is no way I could let them play on the floor with a problem like that.
Now, I would like to clear up a little confusion here. Yes, we could have just stayed in our current house while we built our new house. The house we were living in and our new land were only about 15 minutes apart. But, if you remember from before, we were going to build our new house with the cash we had saved plus the money we got from selling the house we were living in (which was paid for).
That’s why we had the plan to build and move into a garage first. We needed to sell our house to have plenty of cash on hand for the building process to build without a loan. Living in the garage was going to be a bit of a challenge but we had the pioneer spirit. However, as we worked on the land more that summer and discovered that huge scorpion problem, we realized we were going to have to come up with a big plan to get it under control.
Thankfully, it was my mom and grandfather to the rescue! After my MiMi passed away, my Pop moved in with my mom. He discovered he liked living in the country with her and my Dad. However, Pop and my mom hadn’t gotten around to selling his house in town. It just so happened that his house was only a few minutes from our land. It was vacant but completely furnished. He offered it to us to live in while we were building our house. In exchange, I offered to help them get it ready to sell. The plan was that we would live there while we were building our house and by the time we moved out, his house would be ready to go on the market. It was a HUGE blessing and it worked out splendidly. His house sold immediately after we moved out.
So, what was next? It was time to draw custom house plans and hire subcontractors! More on that, next time.
In case you are wondering…yes, we got the scorpions under control. Timothy did a lot of research online and found a professional grade chemical we could spray around the outside of the house. We have always been against spraying chemicals but we had a choice; either we were going to live in the house or the scorpions were. We chose us. Plus, we have about 4 untouched acres they can live in. We claimed our territory and it worked.
If you are wondering what chemical we use, you can find it here:
Talstar 3/4 Gallon Pros Pest Control Insecticide (96Oz Jug)
It’s expensive but EFFECTIVE! Keep in mind that it’s a concentrate. 1 ounce makes one gallon. However, we have found that, around here, 3 ounces to a gallon is what takes out the scorpions.
See you next time!
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All the best,
Lindsey
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