1239.50 and We'll Be In By September

Tuesday before last, we traded a doodle-ridden, coffee-stained, meticulously completed checklist atop a set of engineer-stamped building plans and check for $1239.50 for our building permit.

$1239.50. Does that seem like a lot for a building permit to you?

Once I regained consciousness, the cowboy shirted gal at the front desk assured us that everyone paid that amount. We didn't believe her but in lieu of pissing off anyone at the county building department, handed her a check.


PICKING UP OUR BUILDING PERMIT.

Sounds easy and it may have been if the checklist wouldn't have had things like:

1. Proof of site's potable water source.

In our case that meant
a. find and hire a well driller for our Washington project while we were living in Vermont
b. have the well guy drill the well in Washington while we were living in Vermont wondering "Couldn't well people just dig as far as they wanted and no one would know?"
c. have the well guy tell Vince were at 440 feet and still hadn't hit water while we were living in Vermont. I was walking Max down the road and heard Vince tell them they had to hit water (Vince was in the house) and 40 feet later the hit 100 gallons a minute.
d. get water sample out of the well to send a water sample tester
e. figure out to whom the water test results were sent by mistake

here's another one:

2. Approved septic system design.

In our case that meant
a. find someone to dig the holes for the perc test
b. arrange to have the county board of health engineer at the site while the holes were being dug to do the test
c. send a detailed map to the excavator to make sure he digs the test holes in the right place
d. fly from Vermont to Washington to be there when the excavator re-digs the holes and the county board of health engineer re-does the perc test. (they'd read our detailed map wrong...upside down, I think....and the first test was 180 degrees off)
e. wait in the field with, while paying, the excavator. The county board of health engineer forgot about our confirmed appointment and never showed up.
f. fly back to Vermont without a perc test....

Anyway, the whole checklist had those kind of 'where do I start' line items.

In any case, we now have....
• footings
• a board formed foundation that is insulated and partly backfilled (our concrete guy looks like Ron Howard's brother)
• a driveway that is excavated and mostly graveled (Vince did the excavation in his free time)
• an approved septic system
• a pole and buried electric line
photos top to bottom...

See? In by September.