Now that you have started shopping for sub-contractors and shopping for materials, there are a just a few more things to wrap up before you can prepare to start building. The exciting part is coming soon, just hang in there a little longer!
One of the last things you will need to arrange (2-4 months) before ground breaking are some of your utilities. There are always special circumstances, but I think most of you will need what we needed, and that is:
- water
- temporary power
- septic
- temporary bathrooms
- Let’s begin with water.
Farmer and I are building in the country so for water we needed to drill a well. When we were preparing to build, our timeline was very undecided. A lot of that was because of money, but there were many other factors too. The weather, family members, our own thoughts and feelings, and a few other matters beyond our control made it nearly impossible to set a ground breaking date. Because of this, I was taking my time planning. Things were moving along but I was in no rush because I assumed it would just keep getting pushed back.
Then one day, an opportunity for a contractor came up that we just couldn’t pass up. Everything changed in one short weekend and all of a sudden we were trying to get everything ready as quickly as possible in order to have this guy.
In our haste to get ready to build, we decided that it would be fine to put our well off until later. It would free up some money right then that was supposed to go to the well, to get our house started first. It was also one less thing that we would have to worry about doing while we were in a hurry for the next few weeks.
While I don’t feel like this was a terrible thing, I will say that I recommend drilling your well before building. Here is what happened because we didn’t drill our well first….
^^^Why you should drill a well before building your house
About a week before we were supposed to break ground, Farmer took his tractor down to the house site to level out the area a little. When he began to scrape and flatten the soil where our house would be, he discovered very quickly that it was all incredibly dry sand. It wouldn’t pack at all. Whenever he tried to dig down a little bit, the sand would run right back into that spot.
There was no way we could dig a proper foundation into sand like this. What we needed to do was thoroughly soak the entire area for a few days so it would be more workable. Well guess what ….. we didn’t have water to do that with because we hadn’t drilled our well yet. Our guy was showing up in four days to start the foundation prep work and now we weren’t ready for him.
What we ended up doing is just plain funny actually, but it had to be done because we had no other options that wouldn’t cost us an arm and a leg …. not to mention a whole lot of time. The next day we hunted around the entire farm gathering up every hose we could find. We strung hoses together over 400 feet from a pond across the canal. Yep, that’s right, we ran our hoses from a pond, across a canal, over a road, and along our property all the way over to our new house site. Then we hooked up a sprinkler and turned it on. For three days Farmer moved the sprinkler around, and when our foundation guy showed up, the dirt was nice and ready.
Needless to say, my garden suffered immensely this fall from lack of water because I had to donate all my hoses to the new house ….. totally worth it though.
The next problem we ran into was concrete. It wasn’t really a problem because luckily we left all the hoses hooked up. But we did need water when we poured concrete. Mostly it was to wash everything off during and after pouring the foundation. You don’t want to have to transport things covered in cement to wash them off.
So that was one more instance where we needed water. There have been others, and there will still be more. So you see now why I recommend drilling a well first.
Although, if you have easy access to water without drilling a well, you can probably get by just fine waiting to drill your well. Last year some friends of ours built a house next to our current rental. They just used our water because their house is very close to ours. Problem solved, and they didn’t have to get their well set up until the very end.
If you won’t be drilling a well for your water, you will need to call your local water/utility company to find out what needs to be done for water.
Once we reach the end of our build and we drill our well, I will fill you in on all the details. What I can tell you now, is I got a few quotes from local well drillers to compare prices. They were all nearly identical. They all had a base fee to cover the permit and some of the materials, and then they were charging $28 per drilling foot. Taking in to account the wells that have been drilled around us, we are estimating our well will be 100-200 feet deep. So unless we have a problem, it should come out to $4,500-$6,500.
^^^Temporary power vs generator when building a house
2. Next up is temporary power. You have two options here. You can set up temporary electrical power through your electrical company, or you can do it all with a generator. We now have experience with both so I can tell you exactly what I think about them.
I actually kind of forgot about power I am ashamed to admit. Which is the entire reason we have experience with both options.
You need to call your local electric company 2-3 months before breaking ground to let them know what you are doing. I waited until about 2 weeks before, so we spent the first 6 weeks of our build using a generator.
Generators are fine, if you have one that is big enough. We had a medium sized one and yes it worked, but they could only run 1 power tool at a time. So on the days when we had 3 or 4 guys working on the house, it got a little inconvenient for them to have to wait for each other. The other thing that was less than pleasant was how loud the generator was. Construction sites are loud, but a generator is constant. We couldn’t hear each other yell from one side of the house to the other, and playing music or answering phones was impossible.
It requires fuel to run a generator so it wasn’t a big money saver to use a generator. We went through almost a gallon a day, which right now is almost $3. When all was said and done, the guys were ecstatic to finally have the temporary power set up.
If you choose to use a generator make sure to get one that can handle a few power tools and consider the noise.
^^^How to get temporary power to build your house
Temporary electrical power has been a huge pain in my ….. ahhhhhrg a huge pain! But ….. it has been very nice to have now that we went through the whole mess to get it.
First thing is to call your power guys. Grant county PUD was great to work with and pretty quick to help us out. But, when it comes to electrical, overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to explain my feelings. I didn’t understand one word these guys said the first time I called. Something about amps of power, temporary this, meter box that, conduit, bushing, right of ways, I could go on and on.
If you have hired an electrician to do your house, now would be the time to call him and discuss it. He should ask you a few questions and then take care of it for you.
We did not hire an electrician for many reasons. The two big ones were money, and that I couldn’t find one that I was super happy with. Farmer has some experience with electrical, so we decided to do it ourselves.
So after discussing it with Farmer, showing him my notes from the conversation, and calling our electrical “consultant” (a family friend that agreed to answer electrical questions) we sorted out a few things.
I will write a whole post of our experience with getting temporary power all set up, but for now I will tell you what you need to know to get yours set up.
- You will need to decide where you want the electrical box to be, both your temporary box for during construction and your permanent one. Temporary has to be near your pole, permanent you may want somewhere that people won’t see it. We chose behind our garage.
- You will need to decide how many amps you want for your permanent power. Most houses I believe, run with one 200 amp breaker panel.
- You will need to figure out how many feet of conduit (the piping for your electrical wires that goes underground) you will need.
- You will need to decide how many amps you want for your temporary power. Our options were 60 amp or metered power.
Once you have decided all that, call your power company back and get it all set up. They will probably come look at your site, make plans with you, and tell you what you need to do after that.
After we got everything organized with the PUD and paid the fees for power, they set up our new power pole and little green box. We were then responsible for getting temporary power set up. Again, this is where you would turn things over to your electrician and let them handle it if you are going that route.
If you are doing it yourself you will need to buy your temp power box ***(see tip below) and supplies and set it all up.
Don’t forget to go to Labor and Industry website to request a permit and an inspection. They won’t turn on your power until you have been inspected.
After you have passed inspection, call your power company back and let them know you are ready to have your temporary power turned on. Voila, power!
After we went through all the trouble to set up our temporary power, we learned that many electricians will do it for free or very cheap. Every building site needs a temporary power hook up so these guys always have them available. Even electrician friends would let you borrow them because they can be used over and over again. Find a electrician friend and ask them if you can use their temporary power box for a few months while you build. At the very least, they should let you rent it for a much smaller price tag then buying a brand new one. I have also noticed them a lot on craigslist for around $100. You would need to make sure it is what you need, but why buy a brand new one when so many people have slightly used ones you can borrow.
Our brand new temporary power box and supplies cost us $439.29 It’s really too bad to find out we could have done without that expense. Learn from our mistakes!
^^^What you should know about putting in a septic system
3. The third utility you need to consider is septic/sewer. We are building in the country so we need a septic system. We had to deal with permits and septic system design way back during building permits, so we have a design and materials list all ready to go.
We have had a few people instruct us to wait until after the heavy machinery is finished driving around our site to do our septic system. Apparently it doesn’t handle weight very well and can get ruined with a tractor or a cement truck driving over it.
We are waiting for a few months to put our septic system in but not everyone chooses to do that. It can save money to have your excavator dig it at the same time he is there digging your foundation. It’s a few hundred dollars just to have an excavator brought out so doing it all at the same time saves that extra fee.
Consider what is best for you. Think about where your septic system will be and where the machinery will be driving mostly. If it is way out of the way then it may be worth it to do it earlier and perhaps mark off the area where people shouldn’t be driving.
Also don’t forget that permits have an expiration date. Our septic system permit expires after 1 year so we can’t wait until we are done building to put it in. We are planning to do it in the spring when the ground thaws.
4. The last utility to remember right now is temporary bathrooms. Everyone forgets this one because it’s not directly related to your house. But, your workers won’t be very pleased if you don’t provide an outhouse for them to use. You won’t need it there until the building starts, but start a few weeks early shopping for portable bathroom options.
Utilities are one of those things that I just pushed back and pushed back and didn’t think would be a big deal. Once we started building, I saw just how big of a deal they were. We needed water, we needed temporary power, and we needed temporary bathrooms. Septic could wait, but still needed to be thought about and planned for.
Don’t wait until the last minute to get your utilities set up. There is no reason why you can’t get them taken care of early so you have them ready when you need them.
Several of the steps I have written will be happening at the same time. Be sure to read the last few steps so you know everything you should be working on right now.
Need to go back to Step 8? CLICK HERE
Did you miss the 8 things I am glad we did before we started building our house? CLICK HERE
Have a question? Leave a comment or send me an email, I always answer.
As always, wishing you luck building your own house!
~Farmer’s Wife
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Steve says
As an fyi I researched the septic system design p.rior to the final offer on the property.
The ‘perk test’ was critical and it was required through the State Health Department.
They requested a spring through almost summer (Jan through May) for water depth measurements.
Unfortunately the perk test revealed the water table at best was 50 inches down from the soil surface.
I believe a minimum percolation for effluent is around 5 feet. This forced me to have an engineered system.
Referenced as a ‘Wisconsin Mound’ or Mound System. That is about 2 to 3 times the price of a standard leach line system. Be aware.
It also has to be engineered via a civil engineer. My first bid was $7,000 from one engineering firm.
Ultimately I found and engineer who does mound systems frequently. His charge was still $2,600.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Thanks for the information Steve. Any comments, prices, ideas, etc, are greatly appreciated by all of us!
Hannah Oliver says
I have been reading several of your blogs, and just read “Grant County”. We live in Ephrata, how crazy! Where abouts did you guys build. Your blog has been extremely helpful!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
No way! We are practically neighbors! We built on the west side of Royal City. If you are building soon I can give you some good suggestions on who to hire and more importantly who NOT to hire haha. Keep in touch!
Jennifer says
Wait, what?! We are in Moses Lake and are wanting to do our own house. Neighbors!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Awesome! Let me know if I can do anything to help out.
Alicia Schreibeis says
Did you look into the pros/cons of using natural gas vs propane for heating your home? We are about to build on a raw plot without services and are trying to figure out which would be most cost effective to get to our property and to use. I can’t seem to find where you may have mentioned this at. We are in Montana so I assume the climate would be somewhat similar to yours?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
We don’t have natural gas in our area. I honestly didn’t look into it hardly at all sorry. Good luck!
Monica says
I am really enjoying reading your blog with building on your own. My husband and I are going to closing on our construction loan soon and are hiring subs ourselves as well to save money. Did you get any kind of insurance in case someone got hurt on the job or if something went wrong with the home-builders insurance?
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Monica, we chose not to. However, I made everyone sign contracts that included that information in them. We also got homeowners insurance just a few months after we started building.
Dana Mullins says
I am dreading this part of my home renovation plan, we’re trying to do everything by ourselves. Contractors are such a rip-off! Thank you for sharing your experience on this, it has truly inspired me. All the best to you all.
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
You are welcome Dana. Best of luck!
Jeanine says
I love your blog, it’s so informative and we’re hoping to build our dream home. I’m learning so much from you, and we live “next door” in Cle Elum, Kittitas county..
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
So cool! I love finding new neighbors! Best of luck Jeanine