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I'm confused and would appreciate your advice in this situation. We're getting caught in county regulations (Texas) concerning the septic system and we need to redesignate the structure as a 2 br vs. a 3 br. Supposedly the county thinks that as long as the br has a closet, it's designated as a bedroom. The septic is large enough for a 2 br and that's it unless we can get rid of a closet in the 3rd br and call it a den or whatever. Anyone ever hear of anything so stupid? We were supposed to close on our house last week and now they're bringing up this crap.
I'm in Texas and yes, septics are designed based on bed/bath.
When I built my home the county had to inspect and sign off.
The septic is designed for bed/bath and soil quality.
You may not use that 3rd bedroom but when you go go sell you will probably list as a 3/2. The septic needs to be able to handle that. The holding tank and entire system is designed that way.
In our area, if you have a septic system allocated for a 2 bedroom home, then it needs to be sold as a 2 br home. Not a 3 bedroom. You can call the other room anything you want except 3 bedrooms, OR.. you can increase the septic system to a 3 bedroom. That ususally consists of adding more lines to the system. The agent and/or homeowner could be fined/sued in this instance if they do not market the home properly.
I think it's silly because we bought the home from the original owners. It was a 2 br but they added on a 3rd one. They used all 3 br. and we use one.
Our buyer will be the only one living in the house also.
It's only on an acre of land so a bigger system cannot be added.
None of this was brought up at all when we bought the house but now it's all being brought up.
It's a small town, a bunch of good ol boy type people that don't have a solution to the problem yet and want to take it to commissioners court. Making it a bigger issue than it already is.
Sorry I'm ranting. I'm not happy about this situation when if there was/is a problem, it should have been brought up long before now.
Wow..looks like you got caught in a tough spot there. When the original buyers added the 3rd bedroom the septic should have been modified to accomodate that.
I guess best bet is to rip out that closet..make it a recessed bookcase or something and call it a den. Then you are back to a 2 bedroom house.
Most all cities/towns/municapalities code requires a 500 gallon holding tank per bedroom. The amount of bathrooms make no difference at all. The leach field will increase accordingly. There are basicly no codes for the leach field size but it is rather based on soil quality which is determined by a leach test usually done by an engineer.
Basicly a 3' round hole is dug about 3' deep. Then a 1' round hole is dug at the bottom of that hole. The small hole is filled with a determined volume of water and you sit and wait to measure how long it takes to leach/absorb into the ground. These results, using a formula, are submitted to the building dept and they give the go ahead on the septic design and you go ahead and build.
The size of your land makes no differnce as I have personally built homes on 40' X 100' lots and even keeping the septic field the required distance from the well we were able to do it within all codes. If you have a larger lot then your options are endless. You can just add another 500 gal tank in series between the existing tank/tanks and the drain/leach field.
I used to pay contractors about a thousand dollars for this add on. I know you are trying to close but this whole process takes a month or so. I didnt understand your situation completely but if I have it right, take down the closet wall and do a quick patch job to call it a 2 bedroom just to get it closed. Then do whatever you want, its your home.
The reason you are having a problem is the home was likely not grandfathered into the old codes. No one can make the old owner make changes but once the home is sold the new owner will be reqired to bring it up to code. That varies too. Most times they can not make you change anything as a new owner/buyer unless you apply for a building permit to make changes. Then they can make you update the septic.
There are too many varibles. Talk with the building dept and get your answers.
I thought of something else. You said the previous owner added a new bedroom. If he did this in any recent times, perhaps the past 30 years or so since building codes were inacted then he likely added this bedroom without a permit. Because if he went about things properly and got a permit then they would have made him follow by adding septic capacity.
This opens a whole new set of problems. The worse being if you have a fire your homeowners insurance will use it as an escape clause to NOT pay you. The least of which the room may not have been built safely.
Just wondering if we could call one of the closets shelf space, maybe take down the doors. We want to call our agent but her brother just passed away and she's in Houston. Don't want her to deal with this stuff now. She called us yesterday and told us some of this but she wanted us to get in touch with someone today and talk to him and he's the one that said this could be a big problem.
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
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In our county you just need to take the doors and closet rod/shelf out to render it into an office. Take the bedroom door off as well. It sounds stupid, but it passes around here.
Good Luck
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