This is my neighbor. I live on top of the mountain, this house is down in the valley. This house was just built a few months ago.
There is no room in the tiny yard for a septic tank, plus, there is a creek 15 feet from the house on the right side.



They had to install a complicated septic tank system.




In the background is a typical 1,000 gallon concrete septic tank. But, in the foreground, is a two-chamber, 1,500 gallon tank.



Here the typical 1,000 gallon tank is in the foreground, the two chambered 1,500 gallon tank is in the background.
The sewage goes into the 1,000 gallon tank. Then the overflow goes into the first chamber of the big tank. There is a pump in there, which pumps the liquid sewage uphill 100 feet to a plastic tank buried in the ground.
Then the sewage flows back downhill into the large chamber of the big tank. And then, another electric pump sends the waste, back uphill.

These guys had a hand held Ditch Witch, never seen such a thing. A big Makita chain saw motor, with a bar about 3 feet long with little bitty ditch witch teeth on it. They got up there on the mountain and made 500 feet of ditches, which were just 6 inches deep! These ditches are about 120 feet up the mountain side. Very steep hill about a 70 degree slope. And they ran 500 feet of plastic pipe into those ditches.

Complicated! I have a traditional septic tank so this thing is very very complicated to me. The company that is installing it drove down 90 miles from Lenoir NC. They told me that the cost to the home owner is $40,000.

It's not uncommon for people to buy without full knowledge of what they're getting into.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

All that and the fugger RIGHT DEFUQ on the road.

Jesus also said, never build within beer bottle range of the white line.

Pumping crap uphill is never a good idea

I'll bet that 3/4 of the basement bathrooms in the country have sump pumps.

Or they knew full well the requirements and had decided it was still worth the investment.

Believe it or not, some folks do their homework.

Sump pump or grinder/lift pump ?

You mean macerator pumps? Anyone I know that has had a new house built with a basement in the last 30 years has toilet pre plumbed . I would not even bother to retrofit a house otherwise.

I had a contractor (a particular one that was notoriously a wise ass) call my office one day.

He wanted to me to give him the stationing for his sewer service off of the manhole. He had spent the last several weeks building one of his cookie cutter spec homes and had apparently assumed that the manhole out front was sanitary sewer.

I had the pleasure of letting him know that there was an air relief valve inside that manhole. Hahahaha

The guy was in a panic, I chuckled at I hung up the phone. Went and shared that with a couple of my civils. Got a high five from the chief for the laughs.

Modular home salesman told me that more than once they had delivered a unit onto a small piece of prairie and were then asked, "Now where do I get my utilities?"

An E-ONE grinder is about $9,000 just for the unit. Add another $3-5k for the plumber, the electrician, the inspector, the permits.

I wouldn't get any other mickey mouse home depot bullshît.

I moved up here 23 years ago. At that time, on this lot where this house is, there was a really old, ugly, pink house trailer. Like what you would have seen in a trailer park in 1960. Twelve foot wide and about 45 feet long.
Nobody lived there, but about once a year, I would see some people on the porch, I guess they came up from out of town for a little vacation. It is right across the road from the French Broad River.

This guy bought this place a year ago, and he told me his plan was to just fix up the old pink trailer. Remodel it. And, he said, the old trailer had a sh*t-rigged septic tank, he was just going to continue using the old POS septic system.
But, when he got into fixing up the old trailer he discovered it was all infested with bugs and rats and not worth the trouble. So they took the metal of the trailer to be recycled. And they built this house.

This house is a "tiny house." I would say it is about 500 square feet, it is built by this outfit. nanostead.com
It is a very well built house. Very expensive no doubt.

So, once the guy had to demo the old trailer, he had to get a new building permit, it was Auf Wiedersehen to the old septic, and he had to do this uphill pump septic system. I heard that the guy had tried to just sneak this house in without a permit or modification of the septic, but since it is right on the road he got caught by the inspector.

We just bought a lake front camp in Western MA and are getting a AI septic that will likely be in the $40-$50K range, high ground water level, hard pack with poor perk test. We knew what we were getting into and negotiated the price of septic off the sale price. The properties on both sides of us have had somewhat similar systems one running since 1999, the other running since 1995. If you want waterfront probably 90% of the lots around here are going to need a similar system.

Mass Law requires a septic inspection at time of sale and near the water and in the Berkshires where soils are thin and poorly drained, many older systems will fail and require replacement and with the slope and soils a conventional system isn't an option.

200-300 per sq foot , HOLY COW WTF are they thinking?

I know exactly where this house is. I was wondering where the septic would go due to the location.

Not bad at all.

Why not? We all do it every election.

What has he got in it and what would it sell for? I'm betting neighbor has lost his arse bigly on this one.

Which Bible version did you find this gem in?

the mormon bible

they make it up as they go along

Kind of like playing Monopoly with grandma.

Makes sense.

Due north of that up in Mont. Co. VA septic systems have to be 'engineered', been this way for near 20 years now.
We were one of the last 'lucky' ones and have a system[designed by county health dept] that cost a whopping $2K to install in 99.
Systems in the county now run $20K at a minimum with most running $30K+

It’s good that you live on top of the mountain, your cshit will flow down to him eventually.

Looks like ya had enough help !

I worked for a GC that built a mini storage complex that was across a creek from the big city sewage treatment plant. You could literally throw a rock across the creek to the treatment plant. But, there was no line within many thousand feet. There was the bathroom in the office, one in the apartment for the keepers of the mini storage and a restroom at the back of one of the buildings. They spent $50,000 putting in a "drip" septic system. First of its kind in the state. Took six months to get approval. Would store the stuff in a 1500 gallon tank and then run it out through drip lines through the woods.

When we bought our retirement property we were blessed by two pristine creeks from different directions converging on our place. One of them went into the woods and we were of the mistaken opinion that it would always be clean and nice. And it was until the neighbors from hell bought a tiny spot upstream and built a two story house on it with nowhere to put a septic system. They buried a septic tank and proceed to build an outbuilding on top of what was supposed to be a leach field. A REALLY small leach field. Now the creek is nasty with sewage. Easy to tell when they do laundry because of the soap suds floating by. Water is so filthy I will not let me dogs in the creek anymore. Welcome to America.

call your state's office of groundwater protection. More so if that is a USGS blue line stream, they should rip them a new one. Either an order and permit to repair or a condemnation order.

First hand experience?

I have a friend who grew up in NC and inherited some land from his Grandma. He plans on moving back to NC and building a home on this property when he retires. He told me that when he was a kid his Grandma had her outhouse built out over the creek near her house. That was back in the days that most people (and scientists) believed that water purifies itself when it flowed a certain distance over gravel/rock/sand. They also believed that poisons (insecticides/fertilizer) would purify itself when it passed through the ground before it reached the ground water.

I should get into the septic business a little more. That is one area where capitalism doesn't work in this country. A little help from an honest contractor would cut the cost of many of these septic systems in half and they would be way more trouble-free.