Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think 500 ft is generally a pretty deep well. I wonder how many people actually have to go that far? $10,000 for a well sounds really expensive to me. I am a do it yourself person, have actually done almost everything myself, so when I hear crazy figures I have to wonder. The fact is that you can't drill a well yourself, you need the drill rig for that, and as far as quoting well casing goes? They do not know how long they have to drill before they are in ledge? Mine was about 30ft. I am as skeptical about well drillers as I am about car salesman. Get a quote to drill per foot cased, and not cased. That is all you need to know when comparing drillers. Tell them you will buy the pump, plumb it and buy the pressure tank yourself. This is not brain surgery. Once they understand where your coming they will price competitively for the drilling. They are going to have it done in 2 days max. I understand you may have no intention of doing this plumbing yourself. The point is you need to make them think your fine with doing the simple tasks they want huge money for. I just replaced my pressure tank this year and it was a couple hundred bucks at home depot. You can always just have the plumber do it. You don't need the well people to do anything other then dig the well. When they understand that then you can get a clear idea of the drilling cost. They are going to want to sell you the pump and the tank etc. That is fine as long as you know what they cost. Do not blindly accept what they say. If you find a well pump is $1000 they are going to pay $700 for that wholesale. They may tell you a well pump is $1200. If you say yeah OK .. to them that is $500 in a minute phone call to order the thing. Just be smart, I'm not saying your going to get ripped off but you could be. If you don't have local ties, your not knowledgeable about systems and cost, your using bank money...easy to get ripped off.
This is very useful for narrowing down your possible building sites on a large lot of land. You can get the soil type and determine roughly the suitability for septic systems of a part of your property so you're not wasting time on a spot that will never be buildable.
I'm building my own cabin right now. Literally by myself and in segments (adding on next year to complete what I start this year) so not quite what you have in mind. I'm loosely basing my cabin on an 1850's structure that is basically one room deep so it lends itself to completing in stages. But consider some issues I've noticed. Really look at where you build in terms of logistics for living there year round. If you want the ability to drive right to your front door you may not want a long driveway that goes up or down a steep hill. I passed on a property where the only access possible was via a steep hill on the side of a ledge. It would have made for some very scary winter driving, slide down the hill you'd go off a small cliff. No thanks. Plowing a long driveway gets expensive. I put my cabin a good distance away from the road but I also don't mind just walking in from a parking spot. I've already got a half mile or so of class 4 road to deal with so I don't want to spend anymore time on road maintenance in winter.
The site costs are more or less fixed for whatever you build. The septic, cost to get power, etc. for a given site. What you have more control over once you've decided on a particular spot is how large and fancy the house is.
I do have a few nice springs on my property so I'm not spending big money on a well. That's a cost that's hard to avoid though, you need the right property to have a suitable spring.
I think 500 ft is generally a pretty deep well. I wonder how many people actually have to go that far? $10,000 for a well sounds really expensive to me. I am a do it yourself person, have actually done almost everything myself, so when I hear crazy figures I have to wonder. The fact is that you can't drill a well yourself, you need the drill rig for that, and as far as quoting well casing goes? They do not know how long they have to drill before they are in ledge? Mine was about 30ft. I am as skeptical about well drillers as I am about car salesman. Get a quote to drill per foot cased, and not cased. That is all you need to know when comparing drillers. Tell them you will buy the pump, plumb it and buy the pressure tank yourself. This is not brain surgery. Once they understand where your coming they will price competitively for the drilling. They are going to have it done in 2 days max. I understand you may have no intention of doing this plumbing yourself. The point is you need to make them think your fine with doing the simple tasks they want huge money for. I just replaced my pressure tank this year and it was a couple hundred bucks at home depot. You can always just have the plumber do it. You don't need the well people to do anything other then dig the well. When they understand that then you can get a clear idea of the drilling cost. They are going to want to sell you the pump and the tank etc. That is fine as long as you know what they cost. Do not blindly accept what they say. If you find a well pump is $1000 they are going to pay $700 for that wholesale. They may tell you a well pump is $1200. If you say yeah OK .. to them that is $500 in a minute phone call to order the thing. Just be smart, I'm not saying your going to get ripped off but you could be. If you don't have local ties, your not knowledgeable about systems and cost, your using bank money...easy to get ripped off.
Very good advice that applies to many consumer areas of life. I always try to make good friends with folks in the building trades so I can buy them a beer to take a look at quotes and things and help me not get ripped off by subcontractors
If you're a small family, a two-story yurt might be for you-- check on the Yurt Foundation of Bucksport, Maine.
Looks like you could build a sweet tricked out Yurt for about $20k or much less if DIY! Have to figure out toilet, shower, water, electric though. I see a lot of Yurt vacation rentals in various states going for big bucks on airbnb!
Very good advice that applies to many consumer areas of life. I always try to make good friends with folks in the building trades so I can buy them a beer to take a look at quotes and things and help me not get ripped off by subcontractors
Good luck getting them to show up. Any DIY acting as their own general contractor always goes to the end of the queue. If anything else shows up for work that is repeat business, you get bumped from their schedule. That's not just a Vermont thing. That's everywhere. If you grew up in the town and already know everyone, that's different. That's not most people.
A good general contractor is well worth the cost. Ordering materials, scheduling subs and making everything come together when it should is a lot of work. Many banks won't let you be your own GC unless you really are one.
If you want to save money, do what I did. Show up every night to clean up the job site and organize the next days materials. There are many small jobs that even someone with no experience can do and save money. I have countless hours in my house, but know every inch and how it was built. Having said that, I wouldn't do it again unless I was retired.
A good contractor is probably well worth the cost. Especially if you do not know who the local trades people are. I never used one but I would be curious just what they expect to take out of a job they are managing? If I were building a $250,000 house and I thought the contractor was going to slice $30,000- $50,000 out of that for management. I wouldn't do it as that is a years salary for me. How much is that contractor going to add to the price? I suppose you could say costs would actually be less as he knows who is best and least expensive subs are. Not sure I buy into that though. For example when I had my septic system designed I sent it around to a bunch of people for quotes. Now this was an engineered system, had a material list, elevation drawings etc. My quotes ranged from $13,000 to $6,000. This amazed me as there is no possible variance in the system, it is what it is, build to spec, has to be inspected before it is covered and stamped approved. So I give it to the low guy. He is such a great worker, and so cheap I use him on all kinds of stuff. That alone saved me a fortune. If I had left it to a contractor? Well I am not sure but I doubt it would have worked in my favor like that.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
