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trying to find the septic tank
Apr. 18th, 2019 09:02 amYesterday's adventures in owning a house in the 'burbs:
Tuesday and Wednesday were non-rainy, so on Wednesday morning I spent about 40 minutes watering the lawn. This feels futile. I'm having trouble having faith that any of the grass seed will sprout. The ground is damp all the time, with all the rain we have been getting, but the grass seed sits on top of the ground, and probably dries out. I should've gotten the grass seed in the matrix of greenish-whitish stuff to hold moisture around the seeds.
Not having faith that I'm not going to have to go through putting down seed all over again anyway, I didn't mind the idea of digging up some of the yard. And I have to find the cap to the septic tank, to get it pumped. This seems imperative for passing the Title V inspection.
Never buy a house that's not on town sewer. Just don't.
I thought I remembered vaguely where the cap was, and there's a patch of lawn that's depressed, with bumpy and scraggly lawn around it, about where I thought the cap might be. Dug there. Nope. Dug more holes around there. Still nope. I kept hitting something very very hard, with a clang, with the shovel, and getting all excited thinking I had found it, but in every case it turned out to be a large rock. Fucking glacier droppings everywhere. I dug many many holes. Found nothing but frustration.
Then I thought-- let's look at where the main outflow pipe is in the basement, and where it exits the foundation. The tank should be somewhere on a straight line from that, right? So the main outflow pipe should point in the right direction. It's hard to tell exactly, because the pipe goes off in a bit of an angle, but it seemed to be pointing to much closer to the driveway than I remembered. That's weird.
Started digging holes near the driveway, but decided I needed to stop wasting time on stupidity. I should study the Title V paperwork from 2004. There's a map, it should help. The problem is that since this was done, the location of the back edge of the house has moved: We tore down the laundry room, and replaced it with the mudroom and an extension to the dining room. Hopefully the Title V map has enough information to figure this out-- like, the entire shape of the back of the house, showing the back wall of the living room, so I can measure from there. I still have to dig up the Title V paperwork and look at it before I know how dire the situation is.
This boondoggle left me in a very cranky mood. I went back to my mom's, and failed to deal well with not remembering the WiFi password, and not having a clean shirt, and there not being any food that I really wanted there, and the lack of decaf coffee, and my mother being gone on her grocery store run for so long that I started to worry about her, and my kid getting into the candy leftover from the gingerbread house kit.
Tuesday and Wednesday were non-rainy, so on Wednesday morning I spent about 40 minutes watering the lawn. This feels futile. I'm having trouble having faith that any of the grass seed will sprout. The ground is damp all the time, with all the rain we have been getting, but the grass seed sits on top of the ground, and probably dries out. I should've gotten the grass seed in the matrix of greenish-whitish stuff to hold moisture around the seeds.
Not having faith that I'm not going to have to go through putting down seed all over again anyway, I didn't mind the idea of digging up some of the yard. And I have to find the cap to the septic tank, to get it pumped. This seems imperative for passing the Title V inspection.
Never buy a house that's not on town sewer. Just don't.
I thought I remembered vaguely where the cap was, and there's a patch of lawn that's depressed, with bumpy and scraggly lawn around it, about where I thought the cap might be. Dug there. Nope. Dug more holes around there. Still nope. I kept hitting something very very hard, with a clang, with the shovel, and getting all excited thinking I had found it, but in every case it turned out to be a large rock. Fucking glacier droppings everywhere. I dug many many holes. Found nothing but frustration.
Then I thought-- let's look at where the main outflow pipe is in the basement, and where it exits the foundation. The tank should be somewhere on a straight line from that, right? So the main outflow pipe should point in the right direction. It's hard to tell exactly, because the pipe goes off in a bit of an angle, but it seemed to be pointing to much closer to the driveway than I remembered. That's weird.
Started digging holes near the driveway, but decided I needed to stop wasting time on stupidity. I should study the Title V paperwork from 2004. There's a map, it should help. The problem is that since this was done, the location of the back edge of the house has moved: We tore down the laundry room, and replaced it with the mudroom and an extension to the dining room. Hopefully the Title V map has enough information to figure this out-- like, the entire shape of the back of the house, showing the back wall of the living room, so I can measure from there. I still have to dig up the Title V paperwork and look at it before I know how dire the situation is.
This boondoggle left me in a very cranky mood. I went back to my mom's, and failed to deal well with not remembering the WiFi password, and not having a clean shirt, and there not being any food that I really wanted there, and the lack of decaf coffee, and my mother being gone on her grocery store run for so long that I started to worry about her, and my kid getting into the candy leftover from the gingerbread house kit.
