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Looking at a home on a quarter acre lot, well water & leach field. Can these possibly be far enough away from each other on such a small lot? Seems like a level lot, reported seasonal water in basement. Water has tested positive for "bacteria." Cross off list?
I would assume that whoever installed the leach field had to measure the distance from the well.
Another concern is with this being a 1/4 acre lot, the lots adjacent to it are likely to also be 1/4 acre lots. If a well was drilled in one corner of the lot, with leach field in the opposite corner, where are the wells and leach fields on the adjacent properties?
With flat level land in Maine, it is very likely that you may have 'surface' water pretty shallow. On my land, if I dig one foot down and come back in an hour that hole will have standing water in it. I had to dig shallow trenches to encourage surface water to run off for my fruit orchard to prosper.
Seasonal water in basements is not unusual for many homes here.
"Bacteria" in well water? You may want a well inspector to have a look. It could be that the cap was not set properly on the casing, so bacteria blew in. Or there could be a crack in the casing.
Two previous homes of mine got bacteria in their water. One was a well with a regular steel casing. The other was a hand-dug artesian spring that fed a cistern. In both cases a gallon of bleach dumped in them fixed the immediate problem. The long-term solution was to review how the bacteria got inside, and to seal them.
Our well here got algae growing in it 2 years after it was installed. We flushed it with bleach and dish soap. That worked to clean out the algae. We found the leak where the algae had gotten in, we fixed the leak, and no more problems.
I live on a large pond and there are several .25 acre lots. My lot is .33 and we have a septic, two wells , and a leach field with room to spare. Call the code enforcement department of the town in question and they should be able to tell you what the respective setbacks are.
I live on a large pond and there are several .25 acre lots. My lot is .33 and we have a septic, two wells , and a leach field with room to spare. Call the code enforcement department of the town in question and they should be able to tell you what the respective setbacks are.
this is good advice, start with the local code enforcement officer
be thorough, and ask if any zoning is grandfathered, or conditional, and look at the deed to see if any easements run with the property
Minimum lot size for new lots in Maine today is 20,000 square feet. Those old lots were sold back when people used outhouses. When people began to want flush toilets after WWII, The easiest way to do that was to bury the old washing machine. Codes? We don' need no steenkin' codes. Some of these "systems" still exist. Do not expect that because a lot exists that it complies with any existing laws.
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