help up by lack of parts

the loggers are still down without some parts to make their machines work. they're estimating a start date of september 5th now. with two weeks work that puts our excavation work at september 19th or thereabouts. all this schedule slipping is very common in my experience with building. i will become alarmed if it slips any further, but at this point we're still good to go for getting all the stuff we need done for the fall, which includes clearing, installing the well and the septic system, all the piping and perhaps a small generator hut to run the well. who knows, we could have running water by october, but i wouldn't bet on it.

our investigation of alternative systems is moving forward and we've identified one specific system that seems promising. it's called the presby enviro-septic system, made by a presby systems in new hampshire. it's approved for use without variance in new hampshire, which means that you can just install it there without special permitting. too bad vermont isn't granting it the same status--maybe it's because it's made by a new hampshire company.

i'm not sure the enviro-septic will be less expensive than the mound design, but from reading their installation manual and talking with their designer there is a possibility that we could save substantially by installing this system rather than a mound because it can be installed on a slope without the huge pile of sand that a mound requires. about $18,000 of our mound (roughly 1/2) is the sand, labor and equipment to install it. also, the enviro-septic system, if it fails (and all septic systems can fail), is relatively easy to repair without digging up the whole system, unlike a mound, because the sand around it acts to disperse processed clear water from the system unlike a mound which uses the sand as the decomposition medium which can become clogged over time. so, if a section of the presby system fails, you just replace the section and cover it back up.

if it does look like we can save some big bucks installing this alternative system, and everything turns out cool with the state, we will convene a land use meeting to make the decision, since installation would have to wait until spring to give time to our engineer to complete yet another wastewater amendment. we won't be needing a septic system until next summer when we put the buildings up so it really doesn't matter, but process is process.

i will report more as soon as we have some hard info. i'm drowning in soft info right now!