Septic tank systems, gas lines and easments....

Well let me just start out by saying our lot is 2.25 acres. It is a triangle and has huge road frontage on a local 2 lane hwy. However on the left hand side of the lot runs two gas lines. One of those gas lines requires us to have a 50 foot easement on that property line. Then of course there is a easement on the road frontage of, I believe, 25 feet. Now before we purchased our land, January of '07 we had it perked for 4 bedrooms. In order to do this we had to stake a house out on it. Of course we didn't really know what we were going to build. At the time we had only lived here for 6 months and we were thinking we would build this house, but bigger. It needs a laundry room amongst other things. So we laid out a 70' x 70' square. Huge right? That's 4900 sqft. We think there is no way we will need that much room, especially since we planned to have a basement. So we think, " we're good, we'll never have any problems putting a house on here." Fast forward 3 plus years. We have designed a house that is 2352 sq ft on the main floor with a full, partially finished basement underneath. However the house is not a square or a rectangle. It has an angle in the middle of it that causes the house to turn. It also has a large front porch and a back porch. This makes our house 80 feet long and 54 feet deep (front the front of the front porch to the rear of the back porch). Now when they did the septic layout 3 years ago, due to easements and house size they discovered we only have about an acre of land for our septic system. Now that we have a house designed they tell us that is you have a basement that adds 30' around the perimeter of the house.

We have a beautiful view if we can place the house where we want it. The surveyor staked it based on the septic layout of 3 years ago. It is only 65' off the road. We were planning to put it more like 120' off the road. We're not so thrilled so they say we can rotate it to face the upside of our property. We loose our view and are now looking at a neighbors garage. After much time spent trying to stake out the new location of the house we decide to leave it where it is. It will be a little noisier on the end where the kids rooms are but we can add more sound insulation for that. The thing is why have a big front porch if you never want to sit on it??? Hopefully Monday the man who does the septic layout will come out again and lay it out on the property and we will know for sure that everything is going to fit. Who ever thought you would have this issue when you have 2.25 acres??? Not me.

Here are some pictures of the property as well as a picture of the house we have designed the exterior of our after.


This picture is taken from the (if your looking from the road) left side of the property about two/thirds of the way back.



The mow line on the right is our property line. Our grass, weeds, field whatever you would like to call it is not mowed. yet. The view I'm talking about...... beautiful huh?



This is looking across at our property. The land in the bottom of the picture belongs to our neighbor. Sorry I can't describe/define it better.

Here is the picture of the house that inspired ours. Our will look very similar with a few changes and we won't have a cedar exterior. We are planning to use Hardie Board or Certainteed Fiber cement siding.