Posted by A well know forum user [172.68.90.19] on Friday, March 01, 2019 at 13:22:08 :
In Reply to: Man...Busy Day! posted by Marty [108.162.245.115] on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at 10:59:32 :
Our house was built in 1971. The few others near us were built within a couple of years of ours.
In 1993, we had a very wet summer. Our septic fields quit leaching and black water was bubbling up to the surface. My brother-in-law was working for a heavy equipment dealer at the time and I was planning on renting a backhoe for a weekend and installing a couple more fields.
At the last minute, I decided to call a local guy who makes his living operating a backhoe of his own, figuring he could dig faster than I could and I could lay the pipe as he went. He told me over the phone that I would have to call the county first. So I did that. BIG MISTAKE.
An inspector came out, told me I needed a permit to rework the fields, took some soil samples, rubbed them between his thumb and forefinger, and told me my soil was "Glacial Till" and he could not give me a permit. His reasoning was that fields would not leach in my soil and would immediately fail. I needed to install a $7,500 aeration system (1993 dollars) for which he would be glad to issue me a permit if I were to choose one of three contractors on his list.
I was stuck so I went with the aeration system. Guess what, it is a monopoly. No one can sell parts for it except they guy who installed it. I have to have a contract, updated every year with the installer, which I have to pay for, to have him come out to "check" the system. Failure to pay the contract means that the county can condemn my property for failure to maintain the system. If parts wear out, which they have, I still have to pay parts and labor to fix. It is a never ending money pit.
To top it off, the neighbors had the same thing happen the very next year. Only they contacted someone other than the guy I originally contacted, got new fields installed, and everything is fine to this day. (Must not have glacial till just 100 yards away.)
Someone is getting payoffs on this deal and it is not me.
Needless to say I have no respect for the county and any who work for it.