Category Archives: Utilities

Week 2: Our Private Well Drilling

Posted in Private Well by

Our property is on a street that doesn’t have a water main from the local utility/water district.  So, that means that everyone has their own private well on their properties.  And since ours hasn’t been installed, that was one of the first orders of work (once preliminary grading was complete).

Johnson Drilling, the well driller arrived at the property on Wednesday and began to drill the well.  They can drill down about 60 feet per day (unless they hit rocks, then the rate/hour is reduced).  At a rate of $40 per foot, I’d like them to spend as little time at our place as they can!  Ultimately, they need to hit an aquifer with a good rate of water flow (gallons per minute) in order to pump enough water for our house.  We want to be above 10 gpm, and ideally more like 20 gpm.

Since the other homes in the neighborhood all have wells too, we’re able to review the well logs for their wells and see how deep those wells are.  Unfortunately they’re all over the map, ranging from 100’ deep to 450’ deep…so we have no idea where ours will end up.  At the end of the day Friday they still were drilling.  And apparently they must have hit some rocks because they’re only 60′ deep now.  Eeekkk.  One good thing is that at 60′ they did hit water, but only at a rate of 6 gpm.  We’ll see next week where they end up!  Drilling will pick back up on Tuesday.

Johnson Drilling arrived on site Wednesday to mobilize for the well drilling.

Johnson Drilling arrived on site Wednesday to mobilize for the well drilling.

Check out the buckets they had..."Let's Do This." Love that!

Check out the buckets they had…”Let’s Do This.” Love that!

Our well site is located at the tree line in the far northeast corner of the property.

Our well site is located at the tree line in the far northeast corner of the cleared area of our property.

Two trucks were there, one for drilling and the other for hauling the steel casing for the drill. Vintage trucks though - I think my Uncle Greg needs to sell them some new Mack's!

Two trucks were there, one for drilling and the other for hauling the steel casing for the drill. I can’t believe they showed up with Kenworth’s…apparently they don’t know their clients very well 😉 With those vintage trucks, I think it’s time they invested in a couple new Mack’s!

Here's the drill in action, which is located on the back end of the tan truck.

Here’s the drill in action, which is located on the back end of the tan truck.

The turquoise truck hauled all of the casing pipe.

The turquoise truck hauled all of the casing pipe.

Check out how close they are. Those are some tight spaces they're working in!

Those are some tight spaces they’re working in!

Septic & Private Well Permit = Approved

Posted in Permits, Septic System by

We are pretty fortunate when it comes to our septic design.  Since our lot previously had an approved building permit, there was also a previously approved septic design.  Before we bought our property, during the site feasibility study period in May 2013, we hired Huard Septic Design to confirm that the site passed a preliminary perc test.  As it turns out, Dave Huard actually did the septic design on our lot in the past.  Fantastic news because he was already ready familiar with our property and the soil conditions.

Back in early August 2014, we contacted Huard Septic Design again to create us a septic design.  Really my only concern would be the future landscaping that we’d want to do on the property – terracing the yard, and regrading the back of the property to increase the usability.  I spoke with Dave Huard and he said that a small amount of regrading is allowed in the septic drainfield area, but not a whole lot.  With that information, I revamped our backyard grading and gave him the grading plan below (yellow area being where I’d want them to locate the septic system).

Highlighted in yellow is the area that I graded for the septic drainfield.

Highlighted in yellow is the area that I graded for the septic drainfield.

After initial research to gather existing data in his office, Dave, from Huard Septic Design went to the property to stake the proposed well location and dig six soil test holes on August 27th, 2014.  Although we already knew the soil characteristics from our preliminary perc test last year, the holes needed to be dug (and well staked) for the County’s inspection.  For you geotechs out there, the soil logs all came in with approximately the same information:

0-5” sod/top soil

5-30” brown sandy loam with roots (type 4)

30”-54” gray gravely loamy sand with cobble (type 4)

54” compacted

Back at the office, Dave really did fantastic!  He utilized the (yellow) space that I graded for him and designed a pressure-distribution system.  This is one of the less expensive types of septic systems (phew) as shown in the design below.

Pressure distribution septic design

Pressure distribution septic design

After my approval of the design, and a check for the application to the King County Health Department, our septic design application and private well application were submitted to the health department.  Huard Septic made the submittal really easy for us – they gathered all of the information needed for the submittal, including doing all of the private well research and submitted everything on our behalf.  It truly couldn’t have been easier.

Our plans were submitted to the County on September 16th and since our property already had an approved septic design in the past, it was submitted as *expired*.  Theoretically, it could have taken between 10 to 12 weeks to hear back from the County, but since it we were submitting approval for a previously approved (yet expired) design, it flew by, and two weeks later on October 2nd we received the approval in the mail!

Perc-ing Up

Posted in Septic System, Utilities by

Today was our Perc Test…when we found out if our soils are adequate for having a septic drainfield design or not. We met Lance (our realtor) and Dave Huard (from Huard Septic Design & Monitoring) out on the property in the afternoon.

For some background information: Dave did the septic design for the previous house that was to be built on the property, and happens to work with Lance quite a bit. Dave is extremely booked right now, but because of the great working relationship that Dave and Lance have, Dave fit us in with only a week’s notice. If I was to call and try to get a perc test done (without Lance) the soonest that Dave’s office could have fit me in would have been a month from now…which would have been after our closing date. I’m so thankful that we are working with Lance!

Initially, I thought today’s meeting was just for discussing the perc test process, property history, and seeing when Dave could fit us in, but Dave showed up with his mini excavator ready to work! It was fantastic, the weather was perfect for us – blue skies and sunny, and we were all there able to get the results we were looking for on the spot. Dave dug five holes around the property in the approximate area that we’d put the drainfield to look for soil depths. I learned that although it’s called a “perc” test, back in the late 1980’s they stopped actually using water measurements to determine if a soil will perc or not. Now, the drainfield designer will dig holes and examine both the soil characteristics/classification as well as the water table elevation (if present).

After digging the five holes, Dave could tell immediately that the soils would be great for a septic system – any system type too. There’s different types of drainfield systems and the more complex the system is, or the worse your soils are, the more expensive the septic system is. We’re lucky because our soils are good enough to have any type of system. The only limit we may have is the amount of space available between our house placement and the wetland buffer area on the property. If we don’t allot the drainfield enough room, then we may have to go with a more expensive system that takes up less space. All that will need to be decided during final design of the system, after we’ve chosen a house plan and developed the site plan. For now, all we needed was the preliminary results that the soils meet perc requirements.

A big “Thank You” to both Lance and of course Dave for fitting us in despite his extremely packed schedule!