I purchased a 1 acre lot in virginia beach,va. for a spec house. there is less than six inches of soil to the seasonal water table and the health dept. won’t approve a septic system. I have been told that raising the lot using fill won’t be acceptable, but i don’t understand why. I am desperate to solve this problem. HELP!
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Replies
wasn't your purchase agreement contingent upon a successful perc test and an approved and designed system with your permit in hand ?
carpenter in transition
sorry to say this but ya should have made shure that the lot perked BEFORE ya bought or at least had somthing in writing.could you get away with a ''mound system'' in your area? lots of luck.
Mound system is probably the only option you have.
Unless you want to go the composting toilet or incinerating toilet route...
Even then, you'll have to have some way of disposing of grey water...
Just for your information... In the future, please pick a category, and post in it. Posting the same thread in more than one category, can get one or both threads pulled...
I hope you get the septic problem figured out...
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its called an wisconsin mound
In Va you don't get a building permit without septic. The Health dept. likes composting toilets just fine, but they require gray water to go into a septic system.
There are occasions where an existing leach field can be removed and replaced with new dirt. I've never heard that allowed where there's no existing system.
Mound systems are approved here. Likely the only on-site option. Other than a sewage treatment system, of course. Used to be a Colo company offering small systems for about the price of a well and septic. Whole thing was isolated from ground water. You do drink what you put into it. Monitored by remote computer and recharged with water periodically.
Betcha there won't be any more purchases without that septic contingency. If there was a Realtor involved, questions should be raised.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
hp,
Down here on the bayou where we have high water tables and clay soils we use aerobic septic systems. My plumbing buddy says the water comes out potable but I haven't got him to drink any yet.
Here is one of the systems we use.
http://www.clearstreamsystems.com/
KK
if Youm can't do an enginneered system, an alternative is to purchase a nearby vacant lot that will accomodate a septic system, and pump to that. May require easement(s) through neighbors property.
You can sit on it and wait for town sewer.
I'd think a local engineer would be your best bet. No only do they know the technology, they deal with local officials all the time and know how to work with them, too. Since the building season is beginning and you probably want to get started, it's probably worth getting professional help for the small cost and getting on with it.
They still go by perc testing down there? That is considered archaic here in Maine. But the results are similar, The soils test needs roughly 18" of native soil that is appropriate and not hydric soils. Nobody buys a lot without confirming the soils test unless they onluy want a barn on it.
However -
There are newly approved high tech systems that can make a small field design palatable tothe officials. Consult a soils engineer familiar with newest technology.
If the lot was represented by the seller or the realtor as being buildable, you may have a case for recompense against them in court....
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Normally ,there are usually several classes of systems that can be installed, depending on the terrain, etc.
A class 4 may be a raised bed.(mounded)
a class 5 may be a aqua-robic.(special sand)
Another class if all else fails is a simple "HOLDING tank (no leaching bed) it has to be periodically pumped out. Dig a hole ,throw it in, install a "full" indicator to a room in the house. no huge outlay of money that would be involved if in installing another type of system.
The only draw back will be the ongoing, never-ending pump-outs when it's full.
But you at least you will have a system. (holding tank)
Check with your local enviromental authorities.
Thanks to everyone for all the input. Sorry about the post to general and construction forums. This is my second use of the site and I didn't realize that wasn't appropriate. No question, there won't be any more land purchases without septic permit. Live and learn. A realtor was involved, and the lot was presented as buildable, though not in writing. I have hired a consulting engineer, and, reluctantly, a real estate attorney. My locale won't allow a mound system. I believe an aerobic system would be ideal, but they are considered experimental here in southern Virginia. Regarding a holding tank, how big are they and how often do they need to be pumped out? My household of six uses about 20,000 gallons of water a month, so a holding tank doesn't seem realistic.
Thanks all,
Chris G.
hpbuilders
Chris, there are folks in Richmond who would likely want to hear your story about the Realtor. There is no assurance at all that you'd get any compensation, but you should impress on that Realtor that those mistakes will not be tolerated. This is the whole reason for licensing, requiring those with knowledge (or who should have knowledge) to treat the unsuspecting public fairly. You encountered either incompetence or fraud. Septic approval is a very old and common contract contingency. There is no good reason you should not have been advised. Any Realtor involved in an unimproved land sale should know that septic approval should be in the contract, even if he/she believed it to be approvable.
I recently saved a would-be buyer here from a purchase where electricity, and phone line, was unavailable. The Realtor had no idea such a thing could be. She does now. Something else to stick in the back of your mind, electric hookup is not a given. Access, on the other hand, is required by law. These are things Realtors are supposed to know, and advise on.
As you've found, the Health Dept adjusts their rules according to locality. If the locals request more stringent measures, the Health Dept. enforces them for that locality. Here in Albemarle county we have a 25% slope restriction, making much of the county unbuildable. Elsewhere, 50% is allowed.
Good luck.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I agree that HP was the victim of a really unscrupulous or rookie realtor. Raw land purchases here ALWAYS have a perc contingency, along with 30 days for power, phone, etc. to be explored. A real estate office that would omit those terms on your purchase offer would be sued out of business quickly.
Yup. Contingencies, and how they're worded, are the most important part of the contract. It's been a lot of years since I was a licensed agent so I don't know what the standard forms look like, but the trend has been to be more protective of the buyer, not less.
The point is to get an agreement with the seller, get the property briefly off the market, and allow the buyer time to work out the details. In reality, I've not seen a list of contingencies that wouldn't allow the buyer to back out, but that's part of the process. For the seller, you want to keep that time as short as possible and hope that the agent has brought in a serious buyer, not a tire kicker.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I checked out that holding tanl option for someone here on a two bedroom house, and found that they would be spending a n extra hundred bucks a month for pumpout service with no long term gaurantees for how much that cost might escalate over time due to environmental icensing for disposal of sludge.
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Double posting is frequently necessary in other forums to get notice, but not here so it is understandablwe that you might think it was needed. Don't let it worry you. It's out job to get frustrated over it;)just don't let it happen again! LOL
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here we use ####engineering technician to do a tile bed layout before appling fore a building permit 'these people know all the currently approved systems.
as my developement is on fractured limestone we get to see the newest types of systems .
some of the types weve used are raised bed (5') , filter bed style(no longer in favour here} arobic Has to be inspected on regular basis and yhe pumps don't last well, pump up unit due to bed being higher than drain line {can freeze if not properly installed thus a bitch to fix in winter plus lots of $ )
In my opinion the worst system is a holding tank no matter how big a capacity , seen up to 8000 gals can.
A relatively new one we have several of is the aqua flo which uses peat moss in the drainage field which has a u shaped plastic cover over the moss plus a special fiberglass tank that is inspected yearly ' the peat moss has to be changed every 5 years these so far seem to be no problem other than the tank is about 2' bigger than the lid and I mannaged to drop the rear wheel of my backhoe into one last summer
the aqua flow system uses less land area than a conventional syatem therefore appeals to buyers who don't want to cut down a lot of trees but they are no cheaper than a regular system
If you can put in a regular tank have a strainer put on the outflow from the tank as a septic failure here entails removing the entire bed by truck and an entire new bed installed to the regulations current at the time of the new installation ( the reason I know the above info was because I had a license to install untill I got out of them a few years ago}