Feedback from Readers
(page 2)

Hi Lloyd,
I found your note about septic systems and communities that want expensive systems.

My septic system "failed" and now I have to replace the old one - which by the way sucks - but still works. I am in a very wet area. Of course I bought the house when it wasn't wet, and was young, but 34 years later I'm still here.

So now, I'm faced with replacing what I have probably to the tune of $35,000 or more, but I also found out that if I sell, it would be in “as is” condition and of course that amount or probably more would be taken off the top by the buyers to fix it.

So I have no answers for you, or plan of my own, as I'm a little dumb on this and don't really even know who to contact to fix it. But I saw your note while surfing the net this Sunday morning and looking on the Mother Earth News site.

If I can tell you anything else, or even better, if you an offer me any advice, just write back.

Thanks,
Linda Bickford in Suffield, Ct.

We recently built a cedar log home by ourselves – planed the logs etc – and moved into it 5 years ago. The piece of property we purchased is in a rural area of western Kentucky and there is no gas or water available to the property. However there is electric. Of the 24 acres, there is not a flat spot large enough, even for our little log cabin, and to make matters worse, we are over old fluorite mines. The land has not been mined for many years and woods have overgrown the property.

HOWEVER, the realtor who bought the land before us, timbered off all the good trees and left us with 24 acres of rocky gullies of scrub timber!! A septic system seemed impossible, and with luck we remedied the situation. Our gray water goes under ground and into the woods. We only use biodegradable washing detergents and this works out ok. Our toilet was another matter. After reading all we could find on alternatives, we settled on a incinolet incinerator toilet. After 5 years of use we are still totally satisfied with our decision. In fact, 2 years ago my husband purchased a second one to put in the barn. Yes, we do need electricity to run it, but that is ok with us.

Pass this idea on to anyone else who may have the same dilemma as we did – and good luck with your article.

The Gillihans

I was very interested in your letter to the Mother Earth News in the recent edition. I have gone through the process of figuring out sewage regulations here in Vermont, as I have started in the past year to build a house on family land (32 acres). I was first told the land was unbuildable, then that we needed a $20-25,000 system with 2 pump stations, a sand filter, and a mound. The 3rd opinion got us a mound with one pump for about $8,000 which seems cheap compatatively, but is in my opinion great overkill for a 1-2 bedroom retirement home for my wife and I. The system is designed for 8 person, heavy water users.

Also here in Vermont, many of the friends I grew up with started households with little cabins, and outhouses and no electricity. People are no longer legally able to start out this way, because of new state laws which state that if you do not have a permitted septic system, then your cabin, or whatever you build is considered a “rustic camp”, and you are legally not allowed to live there more than 3 months per year. So it cannot be your primary residence, which has other property tax consecuences. Very complicated, life these days, and makes it very hard for a young person, or starting family to get their own place without a lot of debt.

I could go on and on about this, and describe my experiences, but it is late, but maybe we can write each other more later. Thanks for working on this subject, which I feel is very important, and most people learn about only at the last minute, and then it is too late, and seems insurmountable. I also believe that this issue is one of the main forces making rural housing unaffordable to lower and even middle income people in many places.

Steve Gallagher
Calais, Vermont

Just received and started reading the latest Mother Earth News and came across your letter. I am trying to plan out a small, one-bedroom house for my brother just outside of Petaluma, CA. We were told a couple of years ago that it would cost $25,000 minimum to put in a septic system because the perk test was on the edge of acceptable. When I asked about alternatives to this kind of septic system, I was told there were none.

I do think we could probably use incineration toilets but I have not been able to figure out a good treatment for greywater that the county would have a hard time rejecting and have contacted a number of people. No one writes or calls back. It is very frustrating to think we must pay such a large sum of money to upend of large part of the ranch just to treat this wastewater. And the county wants the system sized for a much larger home than we intend to build as they expect that someone will expand the house some day.

I would like to find a good answer for all the wastewater treatment before going to the county so the plan can be laid out to them which I think would make it harder for them to reject.

This has been very time consuming and I am not sure who to contact next.

Is this the kind of input you were looking for?

Regards, homeowner (name withheld by request)
northern SF bay area

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