Sewer Collection Box Location

Our lot has 15-foot drainage and utility easements on each side centered on the property line — so 7-1/2 feet on each side is the building setback. The side property boundaries are not perpendicular to the road but the house is. It pretty much takes up the entire buildable area side to side.

When we walked through the house with our project manager last Wednesday, the main sewer line came out of the left side of the house. This meant the sewer collection box and pump would be buried in the drainage easement. This concerned me. I called the Craven County planning department and spoke to a very nice, informative planner. After providing a verbal legal disclaimer, his advice was basically don’t do anything in the easement area that would expensive or inconvenient to change.

I emailed our project manager and relayed this advice, but he was already on top of the situation. He had made a site visit with the subcontractor who will be installing the pump and collection box, and they decided to relocate it to the right front of the house about five feet from the foundation so that we can still have foundation planting beds.

Green dot indicates final location of sewer collection box and pump; courtesy of Austin Bayliss

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