Days 3 & 4: A video walk-through
As I clear more and more of the drive, I thought it’d be nice to give you a video walk-through of the section of the property that I’m building on. So here it is:
I’ve also applied for 3 permits:
- Road Access – which enables you to ‘connect’ your property to the road with a culvert or drive entrance of some sort
- Minor Development – which enables you to develop the actual drive, as well as installing other culverts, decks, trenches, well drilling, and/or install a power pole
- Septic – this one’s obvious, but I was surprised to be able to apply for it ahead of time, with the approval pending a soil percolation test to see how well any effluent will be absorbed into the soil, as well as a system design which needs to be done by someone certified by the State to do so (which includes one of my neighbors, who is coming 4 days from now to do just that)
The thing is the Road Access permit cost $300, but for what exactly? For the road supervisor to come look at the entrance and recommend a size for the culvert? Seems pretty pricey for a 5-minute visit.
Then there’s the Minor Development permit, which was also $300, but this one makes even less sense because it takes zero effort on the part of the county. I’m simply being charge for working on my own property. To be honest, I’m fairly certain I could contest this in court, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort – which is probably why it still exists.
And with the Septic permit, that one’s $500, and it does entail an inspection of the septic once it’s complete, but according to the neighbor that’s certified and does this thing on a somewhat regular basis, it takes the county an hour’s worth of effort; tops. So $500 is rather onerous.
I suppose the county does need to make money to support its operations, but it sure seems like that’s what property and income tax is supposed to be for, not permit fees. And you’d think that the permit fees would only be to cover the cost of fulfilling the permit. Right?
Anyway, with that $1,100 out of pocket, I think those are the only permits I’ll need from the county except for the construction permit ($500) and the final occupancy permit ($300). (There again, why would I need to pay to occupy my own house?)
Aside from that, I’ll need electrical and plumbing permits from the State. So for those two things, I’m planning on hiring contractors – which I estimate will cost roughly $1,500 each.
And at least for the electrical, I can ‘rough-in’ all of the wiring, and then just leave the main panel for the electrician to do and connect it all together, which will minimize the amount of work I’ll need to pay for.
In fact, I already got a deal on the wiring, and I intend on making all the standard outlets 20-amp outlets instead of the usual 15-amp outlets so that I can run things like a space heater, for example, and still have enough capacity to run other things on the same circuit.
I’ll also need a 30-or-50-amp inlet for the backup generator, and aside from that, I’ll need 30-or-50-amp outlets for stove, dryer, water heaters, sauna heater, and hot tub water pump – all of which are going to be electrical appliances as opposed to gas so that I can run them on sunshine and not be dependent on gas deliveries.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Until next time…