River House Diary

How not to make friends with your neighbors! Duke Progress Energy was digging a trench to bury the power line from the pole to the house and severed our neighbor’s irrigation system. Damaged irrigation pipe; personal collection

Neither the county or the water company, who owns the sewer line, knew exactly where it was, which made tapping into It an interesting proposition. Our contractor was afraid it was so far under the road, digging to it may collapse the road — something none of us wanted! But they finally found it and were able to successfully connect our sewer collection box to the main line. The water company that provides sewer service to our community is privately owned and they have been “interesting” to deal with — not knowing where the sewer main was located or even its size were just additional examples of their casual attitude toward customer service. Digging for the sewer main; personal collection

We’ve had temporary electricity service at River House for months, but we are at the stage where the electricians are prepping for the final service to be installed. The power company requireD a meter base and one was installed yesterday. Meter base; courtesy of Austin Bayliss It didn’t look like much from the outside, but on the inside, it looked downright dangerous — wires everywhere! Meter base; personal collection

Our propane tank was delivered the Friday after Thanksgiving. It stores fuel for our gas logs, grill and generator since we do not have access to natural gas. The tank will be buried in the front yard. 250-gallon propane tank; personal collection

Our sewer service is provided by Carolina Water Service, Inc., of North Carolina., a private company with a very rudimentary billing system. They began sending monthly bills as soon as our application was approved in May. Each time we got a bill, I would have to call them to get the charges removed because they claimed they had no way to know when we began using their service. A few days ago, the sewer collection box and pump were installed. It still needs to be connected to the sewer line, but I no longer have to call to have the charges removed. It’s not operable yet, but our grace period is over. Sewer collection box and pump; courtesy of Pete Dagutis

Construction seems to be creeping along at River House, though Pete has been making several infrastructure decisions. What type of heat pumps do we want? Do we want a generator? If so, which one and where should it be located? The generator is fueled by propane as we do not have access to natural gas. My brother has a 60-gallon propane tank just for his fireplace and recommended we get a 100-gallon tank. But with the generator, we are in 360-gallon range; and feel like a tank so large would be unsightly. So it should be buried, which means buying the tank instead of renting. And then where should it be located. Honestly, I feel like we are running out of space for infrastructure “stuff” between the sewer collection box, heat pump compressors, generator and now the propane tank. Our builder recommended burying it in front of the pantry window. So that is the current plan. Add caption

Siting the outside compressor units for the heat pumps was a lot easier than siting the sewer collection box and pump. There was only one logical place and that was tucked in behind the closet extension on the right rear side of the house (green square below). The only downside is that they will be along the wall of the primary guest room. That makes the noise decibel rating more important when Pete selects the units he wants installed. Green square indicates the location of the heat pump compressors; personal collection

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 decide...

Our lot is served by Duke Energy Progress for electricity and Craven County for water. Setting up new accounts and getting service established at the property for construction was pretty simple. Sewer service, however, was an exercise in frustration. When we closed our land, we got a packet of information about the private company that provides sewer service to our community. We filled out the forms, had them notarized (can you believe it), and sent the forms to the contact email address provided. A week went by and I heard nothing about next steps. I took to the Internet to find a phone number to call and discovered North Carolina was no longer a state covered by the company. After a little more investigation, I realized there had been some sort of sale or spin-off and our sewer service was now provided by Carolina Water Service of North Carolina. Their tagline is: Superior Quality. Efficient Operations. Exceptional Customer Service. Carolina Water Service of North Carolina we...