Another Plan B

I had taken a day off this past Friday to drive to Sanderling and meet a well driller on The Lot. This did not go as I had hoped. The driller would not offer any opinions as to where we might drill to get the best water; his attitude was “Tell us where you want the well and we will drill it.” I can understand the liability issues involved, but the guy has been working in the area for 40+ years and must have some idea of what constitutes a good place to drill.

Pam and I are still hesitant to risk $10k or more on a well without some reassurance of getting good water. And, for resale value, I learned from our original realtor that generally you do not recover the cost of a well and septic unless you also build a house. (Recovery  without a house is roughly 60%.) So, after weighing the options, we have a new Plan B.

In essence, we have two problems to deal with. The first is having an adequate supply of fresh water for cleaning and cooking. (We generally use bottled water for drinking.) Water could be supplied by a cistern, either above or below ground.  At around a nickel a gallon, 200 gallons of water, enough for several weekends, would run about $10.00. In Colorado it is very common to see trucks running around with water tanks which are used to provide household water. Glenwood Springs even has a self-serve, coin operated, water station for filling these tanks. A tank could be our solution for water.

Typical water tanks. (Web photo.)

The bigger issue is holding capacity for the toilet, sinks, and shower. I want to get away from having to pull The Box down to the local dump station every few weeks. There are always issues with packing up The Box, getting it off its jacks, hauling it out and back, then resetting everything. A solution may be to get a trailer-mounted honey wagon such as this Phelps unit:

Phelps Honey Wagon. (Photo by Phelps.)

The concept is to drain The Box’s holding tanks into this trailer-mounted rig then take the trailer to the dump station. The Phelps unit has adapters to hook it directly to an RV’s drain system.

These solutions would not be cheap but would probably be less than the $10k we had budgeted for a well. Not at all elegant, and an increase in the amount of manual labor required to make everything work, but given the seasonal nature of our use of The Lot and The Box this may be a practical solution to our problem. Pam suggested making money (on the side, during retirement) by providing disposal services to other RV owners; we see quite a few RVs parked on lots around the area. I am not too warm to this idea (can’t quite picture myself operating “Jerry’s Honeywagon”) but who knows?

Speaking of The Lot, here is a photo taken on this latest trip; most of the snow is gone but the trees have not yet begun to bud out.

The Lot, Friday, April 24.

In other news….

Weather has been soggy for several days, unusual in this part of the country that normally receives around 8 inches of rain per year. The moisture sure has helped the lawn but it has put back working on The Box. I still need to get underneath and complete my rodent-proofing job.

We dropped a bunch of money on the Honda this week in suspension repairs. I installed a new upper control arm and a shop replaced both lower ball joints and gave the car 4-wheel alignment. This next Friday, pay day, a new set of tires will replace the current set. With the new axles I installed  earlier this month, the total repair bill (with the new tires) will come in just over $1,400.00.  The ball joints, axles, and control arm are the first repairs the Honda has needed; everything else has been routine maintenance. Well, except for the two times we have hit a deer; one incident required some body work and the other a replacement head light. Not a bad record for 361,000 + miles. Now our goal is to hit 500k miles and at the rate we are going we will probably get there in 3 years or less.

Brother-in-law Craig and his wife Dianne are starting construction on their Midwest lakeside retirement home. We are following those developments with great interest and wish them smooth sailing and no issues.

In family news, my favorite uncle passed away last Wednesday. Uncle Emil was 90 I believe, and had the best sense of humor of any of my uncles. I remember visiting their place at Christmas – Aunt Shirley always had a great looking tree – and we spend several 4th of Julys on the farm as well. He and my father were good friends, more than just relatives, and Uncle Emil will be missed.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

In the course of my working life as a transcript evaluator for the local community college, I read course descriptions from the scientific areas of Geology and Hydrology frequently.  While I am by no means an expert, I do know there is a science to locating water in an area that involves sampling the types of rock where catch basins occur etc.  No matter how nice and well meaning the local driller with 40+ years of experience may be, “pick a spot and we’ll keep drilling till we hit water” doesn’t strike me as scientific.  And never being lucky at gambling in the past, just how lucky do Fields and I feel about hitting water at 300 feet/$10,000?  Drilling “till you hit water” could go down 400-600 feet/$20,000.

I am not adverse to spending money on improvements to the Sanderling lot, but I want to have a bit more control over the outcome.  I’d rather spend $10,000 (might even be more than that when all is said and done) on a cistern, honey wagon, better dog fencing, driveway extension into the “saddle” area of the lot, more gravel for the driveway, a portable carport. Since we have long-since concluded our use of Sanderling will be recreational and not as a permanent home, the new Plan B needs to take that into account.

This whole situation was created by Park County regulations dictating a well must be put in first, before a septic.  We can haul water from the hand pump provided by the homeowners association.  Never thought I’d appreciate the day when an outhouse (now illegal) was the logical option.

Happy Trails.