Waste Water Management Nightmare Continues

I wish I had better news to share, but the fact is I don’t.

We finally made contact with a personal engineer regarding getting a design for a waste water system.  That’s where the good news ends, at least for now.

It appears that nobody moves very quickly in the south.  In fact they would need to pick up the pace just to move at slow speed.

After getting the report for our soil we delivered it by hand to the Health Department agent in town who is supposed to be our “go to ” guy.    He is about as helpful as a blind man telling you which tie you’re holding looks best with your complexion.

He gave us a list of personal engineers to interview for our waste water management system, and after going through the entire list only two were actually still around, and one never answered his phone, returned voice messages, or responded to email.

That leaves us with one from the long list given to us.  They at last returned our call, and maintained email contact while we sent them the documents they need to review.  Great, right?

It has taken nearly three months to get to this point.  Last week we were at last ready for a face-to-face meeting to discuss the process, the options and the price for the design.

Mind you, this waste water system is for a one bedroom, one bath home with two adults, and a composting toilet.  No dishwasher or other water consuming appliance.

Including watering the animals, we use less than ten gallons of water daily.

They are telling us what we need is a 1,000 gallon sealed tank (plastic), chlorination and de-chlorination equipment and an ultra-violet system which will leave the water pure enough to drink…… but instead of pumping it back into the house they plan to have it pour out onto the ground.

The entire system will be installed above ground, in what they refer to as a “mound” system and will cost around $20,000 and will require monthly maintenance.

That’s not including their design cost of $4,000 and it is not guaranteed that it will be approved by the state.

They’ve said that when we meet and after they do a site visit (tell me again why we had the other guy do a site visit?)  they may be able to design a less expensive system.

We asked for an appointment for a meeting this week, but apparently the “engineer” is on vacation until next week.

Meanwhile, we are looking at all our options including giving up and moving to another state that is a bit more relaxed.