Due Diligence

We made our offer on the parcel contingent on consulting with a water well driller, a septic installer, a contractor and a soil test.  Anything that showed up and caused us too much worry would allow us out of the deal.

The water well driller brought in his dowser.  Now, I've never seen dowsing done before.  Quite frankly, it seems like hocus pocus, but that's the way they do it here (maybe elsewhere too?).  The driller said that the dowser is very good and always hits the spot and nearly always estimates the depth correctly as well.  The dowser was really nice and brought his helper:  Loki the border collie.  Loki was very sweet and friendly and took his role as Dowser Helper very seriously.  (Of course, right?  He's a border collie!)  In the end, $300 later, we have a well location and water is at 340ft and 460ft in a nice wide crack.  We'll see what the well driller actually finds - we're hoping the dowser is right on.

The septic installer came out and said that with the soil type we couldn't have a traditional leach field.  That's fine, we didn't want one of those.  So, we'll have a small tank installed with a lined pond following that and then an unlined pond.  They call it a wetland system and they work very well.

After making many phone calls, interviewing two contractors in person and then driving around to see examples of their work, we chose one.  Brian Meyers of SunBear is the designer/contractor we chose.  We both feel comfortable communicating with him and his sensibilities are right in line with ours.  His attention to detail was very obvious in the homes he showed us.  We had Brian visit the building site and he believes it a very workable site for the type of home we wish to build.

The soil test is something we did ourselves.  We just wanted to get an idea of how much clay might be on site for use in creating an earthen floor.  We think there's a good chance of doing that.

Our due diligence done, we are looking forward to closing next week.