My little part of the world is growing quickly. I am close enough to the Seattle Metro area that remote work, even with an occasional office visit, is very viable. I don’t have all the technology needed to set up an office but it is easy to find property that does. Seattle being the crap pile that it is has added to the exodus.
All of these new people have put strain on the water table. Water is treated as a shared resource and all new wells need to go through an approval process costing around $5000 and taking up to 6 months. This is regardless of whether a future drilling option hits water or not. Once the well is dug and pumping water, there is a limit on how much water can be taken out of it per day (currently 250 gallons).
I was originally planning to spend the summer puttering around the property for the summer (at least) cleaning up the dump that it is and thinning out the 30 years of unmanaged tree and plant growth. Maybe spend some time deciding if I was going to go forward with a cabin. I started to get worried that if I didn’t have a well, the property would never have any added value and of I didn’t get one soon, I wouldn’t be allowed in the future. Regardless, it probably wasn’t going to be getting easier or cheaper to get a water going forward. I finally decided to head to the water department with my checkbook to start the permit process.
At the counter, I was politely informed that pump permits were only given out for existing residences or when a building permit is approved. Neither of which I had. My Wintershed isn’t considered a residence and the new trailer would still need to go through the permit process to get a permission. Yep, my little town has hit the big time, bureaucratically and administratively speaking. So now I had to build a cabin.
As mentioned earlier, my town is growing quickly. And the people moving have the budget for mini mansions (or bigger). My little budget was having a hard time getting any attention from the local designers and architects. They are looking for the big Seattle money. I finally broke down and entered my info on the Houzz.com website to see if there were any further ranging architects that might be able to take on the job. A couple of more clicks and my phone was ringing. The lady on the phone confirmed what I was looking for, put me on hold and a couple minutes later I was connected with Steve Senger with the caveat that he was pretty busy. Maybe he could help me along though. After telling him my woes and sharing with him my cabin idea, he kindly took on the job since it was so small.
Some Back and forth and here is direction I am moving in……
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The cabin will be located on top of a foundation hole that was dug out for a previous cabin plan. It isn’t the spot with the best views but it will let me get my water pumped. So in short, it is a really expensive pump house.
With design in hand, I embarked on another google search and email spree looking for an engineer. Someone that could take the designers drawings and do some math to make sure it wont fall over when all the nails are nailed and the screws are screwed. Kind of surprised that they didn’t have to factor in who was doing the nailing and screwing.
Final approval in the Spring and I turned right around and scheduled a well driller. Also very busy and they wouldn’t be available until late summer.
While I was waiting for the drillers, I had to prove that I could get rid of the water. Meaning I needed a septic tank. The building permit approval requires it too. I had to dig a couple test holes for the soil percolation test. The inspector came by looked at the dirt and said OK. I then had hire a consultant to put together the plan for the septic system. That was the last step in my permit application.
Back to the water though. I paid a local guy who is well regarded as a pretty reliable water dowser. Which I passed That needs to wait on the road access too. So I am still a bit away from driving my first nail but I am on my way.
A few weeks later, I had my building permit application and my checkbook in hand. The review process took a few months but winter was approaching and I would not be able to do anything anyway.