Good News Keeps Rollin’ In

I’ve said this before, and I will say again: hiring Bob The Permit Guy was hands-down the best decision we’ve made on this project.

Three major wins needed to move this project forward are establishing a water supply, getting a septic plan in place, and reconnecting the PG&E utility.

WATER

The previous owners had installed a concrete 5,000 gallon water tank some years ago. In order to use it to supply potable water to the house, we know the tank needs to be painted with an epoxy liner, but we weren’t sure what the permitting process was to certify it for potable water usage. As it turns out, there are no permits required because tanks 5,000 gallons and under don’t require them. (woohoo!) Also, we priced out a few options for piping the water from the tank to the house…all of them are quite expensive considering the tank is 500’ from the house. We considered fire hose but that was the most expensive option…until our friend who is a retired fireman mentioned he had hundreds of feet of fire hose on hand that he’d be willing to give us. Um…yes please!

SEPTIC

There once was a cesspool on the property which is clearly now defunct. Bob doesn’t often work with this kind of system, and was anticipating it needing to be torn out completely and redesigned as a new septic system. To both his and our great surprise, the cesspool is being grandfathered in with only updates required by the County. In Bob’s words, “I wish I worked with more properties that had cesspools” because the updating process is far simpler and less costly than a full redesign.

POWER

PG&E is, as one might imagine, a beaurocratic nightmare of a company. I won’t bore you with all of the details but suffice it to say, I would not have had a clue how to navigate the permitting process of having power restored to the house. In Bob’s communications with the PG&E rep, he was told PG&E has no record of ever servicing our address—how that’s possible I have no idea given PG&E has been the only power supplier in Northern California since before our homestead was built. Because PG&E was not recognizing service as having existed at the address previously, the type of permit we initially sought was not going to be issued (so they said). In his discussions with PG&E and the County, Bob provided a convincing argument that clearly the house had electricity until at least the early 2000’s. It’s not possible for the house to be a legitimate dwelling—as the County recognizes—if it had not at some point been electrified. In fact, remodel permits for the property had been issued in the early 2000’s thus indicating the home was a permanent structure with an electrical connection. Despite the house being recorded in County records about the same timeframe as being in extreme disrepair and uninhabitable, it was never officially deemed “abandoned” which meant the permit we were originally seeking is, in fact, applicable. I’m not sure I’m communicating the details with extreme accuracy, but basically it’s a miracle that 1) the house was never classified as “abandoned” and 2) we get to reestablish service vs go through the massive process of establishing service as if our home was a new build. Had the home been classified as “abandoned” we would be forced to tear it down and build an entirely new home at significant cost and red tape. Honestly, we’d have to abandon the project altogether due to lack of funds for a new build. So, we’re a bit excited and relieved over here!

While we don’t have potable water just yet, the septic plan isn’t drafted, and the PG&E permit isn’t issued to date, it sure seems that these three items are all moving in the right direction. To God be the glory!