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FRIENDS OF OURS IS GETTING READY TO BUILD IN OCEAN RIDGE PLANTATION IN BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC AND WERE TOLD THEY NEED $4000 UPFRONT FOR THE WASTE WATER RECOVERY FEE. THE SALESMAN OF THIS PLANTATION NEVER TOLD THEM OF THIS FEE WHEN THEY BOUGHT THEIR LAND.... AND TRUTHFULLY, WE ALSO BOUGHT PROPERTY THERE - AND PLAN TO BUILD IN ABOUT THREE YEARS AND WE HAD NO CLUE ABOUT THIS EITHER......SO I GUESS THIS IS A COMMON FEE - WE ALSO HAVE THE GRINDER PUMP INSTALLATION FEE, TOO. [/color] THIS FEE PLUS THE GRINDER PUMP FEE? THIS IS TO GUARANTEE WE HAVE SEWER???
Grinder pumps are becoming common in Brunswick county. A pump provides low pressure to move waste from the house to larger pipes going to the waste-water treatment plant. It works similar to a garbage disposal. One reason is "stuff" flows down hill. In low lying coastal where water tends to stand in many areas, there just are not any hills to run down. Thus the low pressure grinder system is used. It also allows the use of smaller pipe which is less expensive, and not as likely to be displaced or move in water saturated soil.
I am not 100% sure what is being referred to as a "waste water recovery fee". You pay for water. Your home home may have two water meters. One rate applies to water used in irrigation, if you have irrigation. The water used just soaks into the ground, so the water is all you pay for. On the other hand, the rest of the water inside the house that goes to waste, toilet, shower, sinks, goes back to the water treatment plant and you pay a different rate for the clean water and then having it treated after use.
The residential service sewer rate is $39.00 for 0 – 3,000 gallons with all usage over 3,000 gallons charged at $6.50 per 1,000 gallons.
Not to discourage you but there will be a number of costs involved in building a new home. They can vary with the builder but several things that builders used to take care of are now the responsibility of the home owner.
Surveys --- there any several surveys you may be responsible for paying ... the initial lot survey -- a foundation survey --- an "as built" survey
If you get a construction loan you will have pay various fees for inspectors to monitor progress so the builder is payed accordingly.
Insurance during construction including wind and hail and flood as well as home owners that will have to be maintained after the house is finished.
Most home have at least a gas fire place ... other than basic gas hookup, you will have to pay for the gas tank, filling it and any other materials/labor for additional gas appliances like hot water, cook top, dryer etc.
Virtually every builder will offer you a "base price' and a long list of options. No doubt you will want some of the options and will have to pay for them.
Depending on what community you live in, the POA tends to tack on fees the builder, and ultimately you, will have to pay for that include construction costs for erosion control, porta potties for workers, and more.
There are just things I remember off the top of my head. I knew there would be additional costs. Things like moving expenses, window dressings, new rugs, picture hangers, water hoses, and on, and on, and on.
When I budgeted for the new house, in my head, I always added about another 30k that I knew we would end up spending for one thing or another. We ended up turning a covered back porch into a 3 season room, added on demand hot water, and upgraded our landscaping significantly. That was half the 30k right there.
Bottom line, plan for it. There are going to be unseen cost and things you want to add along the way. Know it, plan for it and do it with out having a heart attack. A couple of hundred bucks here or there for water/sewer hook ups or fees is pretty small potatoes in the big picture of building a new home and nothing to SHOUT ABOUT.
ditchoc, Thanks for a very informative post. It has been many years since we have built, some of these costs I remember but some are new to us like these grinder pumps.
Click on the water/sewer agreement under new service application.
If I read it correctly, the homeowner pays the plumber to connect to the county sewer, the county supplies the meter.
Here in NJ some of the folks at the end of our street are still on septic because the charge to hook up to town sewer will cost them from 10-15K. We are on large lots (3/4-2 acres) so I guess the farther from the street to the house the more costly??
I heartily agree with ditchco, we have a substancial "slush" fund for unforeseen costs and "just gotta have" costs.
Thanks again for the good info and anything else that comes to mind will be much appreciated.
Part of the survey of the lot should be elevations. How high is the lot above sea level? This is important to FEMA when you apply for flood insurance.
FEMA has information on the 100 year flood level for your property. That is, the highest level water has a 1% chance to get.
And example: if the 100 year flood level for you lot is 12 foot above sea level and the dirt on you your lot just happens to at 12 feet above sea level then there is a 1% chance you might splash around in a wet lot. Almost any kind of foundation will raise the main level or your house 2 or 3 feet and you should be good. However, if the 100 year flood level is 12 feet but your lot is only 3 feet above sea level, you will need to find at least another 9 feet of elevation for your house, probably pilings.
You really want the first floor of your house and any mechanical's like air conditioning, hot water heaters etc to be 2 or 3 feet above the 100 year flood elevation.
Depending on the type of foundation you may need flood vents. These are vents that allow water to run in and out. It sounds funny at first but moving water can have a lot of pressure behind it. Its better to let the water run through your crawl space or garage rather than have it push your house off the foundation. The cost of flood vents is not a great deal. Maybe $300-400 and likely the builder will include it in the cost of the home if they are needed.
Taking these kinds of things into consideration, a crawl space could be a dark space under your home that is perfect for mold, mildew, varmints, flooding and other issues. A raised concrete slab may be a good choice. This is basically footings, foundation walls filled with compacted dirt and concrete poured on top. Then your house it built on top of that. End result is very little to no chance of water damage or other issues under your house.
If the house constructed properly, flood insurance becomes very manageable in the amount of $300-$400 a year. Wind and hail is the expense insurance and likely to run from $1,500 to $2,000 a year. If it cost much more than that, I would shop around for insurance companies.
I didn't think about any of this when we purchased our lot. Fortunately we got a spot close to water but on reasonably high ground.
Writing about the foundation made me think of a couple more things that "cost extra". The building contract specified how much fill dirt the builder would provide and any above that we would pay for at some dollar amount per truck load. Guess what, we needed 3 or 4 extra truck loads.
Along the same lines, the cubic yards of concrete the builder would provide was in the contract and any more we would have to pay for. Fortunately we had a pretty short driveway. I wish my parking pad was bigger though. We didn't have to pay for extra concrete but I could see where you could pretty easy with a long driveway, larger parking pad, maybe a sidewalk to the back door or a concrete patio in the back.
Anyway, like I said, be prepared to run into unforeseen expenses almost every step of the way.
We have had a lot of discussion/research about foundation/home design etc.
Our lot is 50 ft above sea level and we are looking at encapsulating the crawl space.
My husband is an Architect and this is the type of regional specific research he loves to do. Last house we built was on Yazoo Clay and required a rather complex foundation.
ditchoc, your time and effort is greatly apreciated!
Part of the survey of the lot should be elevations. How high is the lot above sea level? This is important to FEMA when you apply for flood insurance.
FEMA has information on the 100 year flood level for your property. That is, the highest level water has a 1% chance to get.
And example: if the 100 year flood level for you lot is 12 foot above sea level and the dirt on you your lot just happens to at 12 feet above sea level then there is a 1% chance you might splash around in a wet lot. Almost any kind of foundation will raise the main level or your house 2 or 3 feet and you should be good. However, if the 100 year flood level is 12 feet but your lot is only 3 feet above sea level, you will need to find at least another 9 feet of elevation for your house, probably pilings.
You really want the first floor of your house and any mechanical's like air conditioning, hot water heaters etc to be 2 or 3 feet above the 100 year flood elevation.
Depending on the type of foundation you may need flood vents. These are vents that allow water to run in and out. It sounds funny at first but moving water can have a lot of pressure behind it. Its better to let the water run through your crawl space or garage rather than have it push your house off the foundation. The cost of flood vents is not a great deal. Maybe $300-400 and likely the builder will include it in the cost of the home if they are needed.
Taking these kinds of things into consideration, a crawl space could be a dark space under your home that is perfect for mold, mildew, varmints, flooding and other issues. A raised concrete slab may be a good choice. This is basically footings, foundation walls filled with compacted dirt and concrete poured on top. Then your house it built on top of that. End result is very little to no chance of water damage or other issues under your house.
If the house constructed properly, flood insurance becomes very manageable in the amount of $300-$400 a year. Wind and hail is the expense insurance and likely to run from $1,500 to $2,000 a year. If it cost much more than that, I would shop around for insurance companies.
I didn't think about any of this when we purchased our lot. Fortunately we got a spot close to water but on reasonably high ground.
Writing about the foundation made me think of a couple more things that "cost extra". The building contract specified how much fill dirt the builder would provide and any above that we would pay for at some dollar amount per truck load. Guess what, we needed 3 or 4 extra truck loads.
Along the same lines, the cubic yards of concrete the builder would provide was in the contract and any more we would have to pay for. Fortunately we had a pretty short driveway. I wish my parking pad was bigger though. We didn't have to pay for extra concrete but I could see where you could pretty easy with a long driveway, larger parking pad, maybe a sidewalk to the back door or a concrete patio in the back.
Anyway, like I said, be prepared to run into unforeseen expenses almost every step of the way.
thanks for the wonderful information - we, like JerseyJ, have patted our expenses for our move - even with these fees - it's so much cheaper down in Brunswick county than in southern NJ. We pay $16,000 for property ins - we just feel bad for our friends Mary and her husband, who are currently well into the process and did not know about all these fees - they are on a strict budget - we built our home in Mt. Laurel but did not have these fees as the builder (not custom) had put them into the price of the house/lot when we built. Being ORP is all custom, these fees are new to us, too. But we are still in the black on all of this - our poor best friends are moving from a state where the property taxes are actually in line with NC so there move is not profitable like our move. thanks for taking the time to wwrite about all this detail, and i will forward to my husband when he returns today from a long distance business trip. Best wishes !
thanks for the wonderful information - we, like JerseyJ, have patted our expenses for our move - even with these fees - it's so much cheaper down in Brunswick county than in southern NJ. We pay $16,000 for property ins - we just feel bad for our friends Mary and her husband, who are currently well into the process and did not know about all these fees - they are on a strict budget - we built our home in Mt. Laurel but did not have these fees as the builder (not custom) had put them into the price of the house/lot when we built. Being ORP is all custom, these fees are new to us, too. But we are still in the black on all of this - our poor best friends are moving from a state where the property taxes are actually in line with NC so there move is not profitable like our move. thanks for taking the time to wwrite about all this detail, and i will forward to my husband when he returns today from a long distance business trip. Best wishes !
PS - forgot to mention our lot is at 59 feet above sea level - it's a golf pond lot in ORP so I am not concerned with the flooding issues. Husband scoped that piece out already before we purchased two years ago.
Glad it was helpful. About the grinder pump fee ... best I remember part of your water bill will be a few dollars a month grinder maintenance fee .. don't remember the exact amount but it wasn't much .. if your grinder pump ever has any issues .. the county is responsible .. notify them if there is a problem (there is a alarm and a flashing light as part of the pump, there is a button to push to turn off the alarm, the light will continue to flash) ... they will come out and fix it ASAP ... no further cost ..... unless ... you do something foolish to mess it up of course.
Two primary reasons the pump has problems .. grease and tampons .... I'm sure you get the picture.
Good luck ... take care ... welcome to coastal living in the Carolina's
yep - Judi - this is a great site - I emailed that to Mary to show her the different fees, including Grinder Pump......Good source of information!!
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[/color] THIS FEE PLUS THE GRINDER PUMP FEE? THIS IS TO GUARANTEE WE HAVE SEWER???
