I have to say... building mall does have its
disadvantages. Take for example, the site work to connect to the public sewer and water mains. I lined up a site contractor before I ever broke ground in July 2015. He was a couple weeks later than I'd hoped in excavating my foundation, but no big deal.
Fast forward to Fall 2015: I had my plumbing roughed in inside the house and I requested that the contractor proceed in connecting the sewer and water services. After a couple months back and forth, he wasn't able to fit me in, so I made do for the winter.
2016 kept me busy with work, so I only made sporadic progress on the house. At the end of summer, things were finally moving along and I set the goal to move in around Thanksgiving. Mid September, I scheduled my connections for the following month Long story short, my small job was evidently a lower priority than the bigger, high-dollar jobs. He started on the sewer November 23 and finished the water on January 31, 2017. Granted, there were many weather-related delays in there, but there were also plenty of fine days with the machines sitting idle.
Sorry for venting. Thanks for bearing with me, but the lesson learned is to budget way more time for contractors to do their thing than you would expect. It is classic for them to be juggling multiple jobs at one time. Here are the photos:
 |
| The existing sewer main was about 8' below grade. The excavation gets pretty deep at the connection point! |
 |
My lateral had to run under an existing storm drain. You can see that water was
filtering into the excavation, complicating matters. |
 |
| They dealt with the water by excavating a little deeper and dumping stone in the bottom of the trench. By running a pump buried in the stone, they kept that area they were working in dry. This shows the 6" trunk line (green) and the 4" lateral connecting in from the house. The trunk line will extend farther to allow a future connection for the main house to be built sometime later. |
 |
| The water meter pit is in the foreground, with a 2" polyethylene service pipe. In the old days, 3/4" or 1" was adequate, but with the new sprinkler codes, we need a larger pipe to feed the fire protection system. |
 |
| The 2" lateral tees off to a 1 1/2" house service. For now, I have a freeze-proof yard hydrant near the end of the tee. When the main house gets built, this will be removed and the 2" line will be extended. |
