Sagebrush & Solar

The weather has been treating us well this winter — so we rented an excavator for a week to dig trenches, the septic leach field, cover it all up post-inspection, clear and flatten the water tank area and hopefully squeeze in some other projects.

We hit the ground running on Saturday with our crew. Our friend, Coty, has big rig experience and helped us last fall with leveling the build site and excavating the house pit. Our neighbor, Gordon, who has been instrumental in our septic progress so far, and my dad, our general contractor, also came out.

First up: trenches. We needed trenches for the water line to go out to the water tanks, an electrical line in a conduit to run between the solar panels and the inverter, the septic line, and a gas line to run from the house to the propane tank. Our trenches are about five feet deep.

Second, the leach field. The first septic inspection is an uncovered one, meaning we had to leave everything pristine for our inspection. Once approved, we can move forward with filling it.

We were also able to backfill and clean up what used to be a massive, unusable hill outside of our front door. Not only does this look better, we can actually use it as garden space, a clothesline, etc.

On Tuesday, we had three inspections scheduled. The gas line, electrical and septic.

We “failed” the gas line inspection; we simply weren’t at the point where our inspector could test it adequately, so we’ll redo it.

We were initially in a holding pattern with our septic pass — the sand we ordered wasn’t on their approved list (live some, learn some), which required some testing to be completed before we could move forward. Thankfully, it passed their tests and we got the green light to proceed.

Lastly, the electric. The inspector was initially surprised at the lack of power we are installing, but ultimately, we passed.

We still have some time left with the excavator and have big plans to finish the leach field, tidy up around the house, touch up the driveway, etc.