Flushing and Forestry

After spending a small fortune for a septic system and a toilet/water pipe installation, we were all set for working indoor plumbing, right? Wrong! There is no water source, and without the ability to show the faucets working, Warren County still was holding our homeowner plumbing bond of $500 hostage.  I figured that I could rig up a simple pump system drawing from a small tank and at least get our bond back and have some kind of alternative to dumping gallons of water into the toilet tank for each flush.

It's potty time

After a few YouTube videos, I had a plan. I would buy a small holding tank, a simple water pump, and do some basic plumbing to get the water to where it needed to go. I had bought a porcelain sink and a faucet on eBay, but Cassie found a great curb alert score of a nice poly wash basin with faucets installed while on a walk.

Free is for me!

Initially I had hoped to use a large barrel to capture rain water, but we had no gutters/downspouts on the barn at this point. Collecting rainwater is still an option for someday, but a small indoor tank is the short-term solution. It turns out that water tanks are more expensive than I thought. I eventually settled for this 35 gallon model from TSC. I bought a highly recommended water pump on Amazon for about $100. I rigged up simple plumbing to get water under the floor over to the toilet/faucet. 

Holds about 21 flushes

After a few leak fixes, we had a system and I scheduled an inspection time to get things official with Warren County. The inspector was not the same fellow we had before, and he seemed confused by the entire operation and wouldn’t sign off on it until he did some research. This caused a bit of anxiety as we really wanted to be on the up-and-up with Warren County, as well as getting our $500 bond back. After a few days he gave us the official blessing and we were “bona-fide”! 

In the spring I replaced the flexible tubing with “PEX” tubing to improve water flow.

Professional plumbers would probably gag at the sight of this

Not the fastest system around, it is still better than pouring water after each flush.  At some point I may add the rainwater barrel and/or a small inline water heater for the faucet.

Eventually I did add gutters and downspouts, although it took a while due to the contractors getting in the right color.

A non-plumbing concern of ours was that the cedar trees in the front 1.5 acres were getting bigger and bigger by the year, and we really didn’t want a cedar forest choking out more desirable trees. The cedar trees were out of control and not terribly attractive to begin with.

For years I had contemplated buying a nice chainsaw and having my own cut-and burn party but this seemed like a huge amount of work, and I never seemed to have the time. Every year the trees grew a ton and I knew I needed to hire a pro.

Huge mess

After contacting several people who never seemed to show up, I found a guy on Facebook Marketplace who was ready and eager.  He showed up as scheduled and brought a skid steer with a giant tree-shredding apparatus on the front which would turn anything it came in contact with into mulch.

Not a precision instrument

This worked to perfection.  I flagged a few “good” trees I wanted him to save and he pulverized the rest. He left a 20-foot tree buffer between us and both neighbors, and even flattened a few dirt piles the driveway installer guy had left. After spreading some gravel piles and a good days’ work we paid him $2000 and he was on his way.  In 8 hours the front of the property looked completely different.

New view of the property