House on a well? Anything to worry about

As for propane, again, boy do I know about them too. :)

9 times out of 10 the unit you have was installed by the owner that got it at a deal from someone they know and not professionally set up. And 95% of heatpacks are set up for natural gas. Simply open the door to the unit where the nozzles are. If you don't see definite markings from a professional stating clearly "set up for propane" or either a baggie laying in the bottom with an extra set of nozzles, it is most likely set up for natural gas and is shooting 3 times as much propane as needed. It's exactly like a carburetor. Sure it will run, but horrible. And wear and tear is greater. But the nozzle kit comes with a pressure spring and a set of nozzles and cost around $60 from a dealer. I did mine last year and my bill went down to a third of what it was. Of course you have to set the pressure so you need a hvac person or the gages with know-how.

It pays to have an educated hvac dude in the family like I do.

My bill is around $100/month in the winter now with propane to heat 1,000 sf with a 2 1/2 ton unit. Propane is cheaper than electricity. Don't be a dumb ass and just run what you got like 95% of what others do^^^^^^ before swapping to electricity. :flipoff2:
Check it out and try it first. I love mine and would never go to electricity.

Make sure the regulator is sized and the unit is sized. If too small of either or too large of either then you are wasting propane. Your underground propane is best situation if the regulator is sized for the distance correctly. It's cheaper to buy in bulk like that but you have to be on a contract with a distributor. so it can get pricy when fill-up time comes.

I use 100 pound cylinders that are transportable and I can drive 2 miles to fill mine up. Heatpacks have an emergency backup that allows them to operate if the power goes out. So if I'm caught in a storm, I have it covered better than anybody heating with electricity.

Wood makes a hell of a mess and you can't buy my time at such a cheap rate to cut wood like that. Unless you have someone just dropping wood off to you or like to spend weekends on end cutting wood and emptying ashes every day and you don't have a nagging wife having to dust every week, it's not for you.

I'm different than most. But I'm the type to dig in to see if something is feasible before bailing ship. It's just me and I feel my experience and knowledge gained has saved me a lot of money. The operating cost of a pump for a well is like $5/month. The operating cost of the fan of a gas pack is about the same. My water is free all I want. And propane is the future and most likely to have a lower cost for MANY years to come due to the supply. Electrical companies are charging more and more and the fees and taxes is well over half the bill. Electricity is only going to go up, never down. It's illegal to sell solar energy in NC (blame backwards over governship for that) so that only goes as far as you use it and the equipment is still good but solar equipment technology is getting outdated on a daily basis.
 
Last edited:
For the well, get it tested. Your county can put you in touch with a water quality tester. We had ours done a few months ago. They come out and take samples at your tap and send them off to the lab. The cheap test is for bacteria only. That costs about $50. The more expensive test includes a list of common chemicals. That test costs about $125.

As for the Propane, make sure that you own your tank. That way you can call up the supplier that has the best price that week. A lot of places will offer to rent you the tank at a low price, but then you are locked into their refill prices. For example, this year I called Americas. They told me that a 120-lb tank costs less than $50 per year and the first fillup is $1.88 per gallon (or pound, I can never remember the unit). That's great, I said. how much are the following fillups? $4.25 per gallon (or pound). For refernce, that was about 70% more than what anyone else was quoting me.

You can buy a used tank on Craigslist for a few hundred dollars. It would pay for istelf in saving within the first couple winters.
 
Thanks everybody for all the info so far!




Macdaddy4738 said:
Another vote against propane. I'd say the only positive about it is if you actually own the in ground tank and can get it filled at your request. If a company owns it, your SOL and they will fill it with how much they want, when they want. The only good thing about propane are gas water heaters. From what I understand, they are much more efficient than electric.

As another item of note, have the thing surveyed immediately after you buy it. You do not want surprises and everyone should have their property surveyed.
Click to expand...

The disclosure says that they own the tank, so that is one good thing. I will have it surveyed before the house closes.

6BangBronk said:
I have a WONDERFUL well guy in Durham if it's local if you need anything checked out or installed. My neighbor went the aerator route with our well dude and seems to like it.
Click to expand...

Pass me his name, would like to get it inspected if I do go with this place.
 
hans747 is right on propane. Just for kicks I called around to every single store that sold propane locally and found a HUGE difference from place to place. No two was even similar until you get close to where the BIG pipes come out of the ground locally. And the price usually reflected to how far the place was located from the big pipes. For me it is in Apex. You can't beat L.G. Jordan Oil Company in Apex. I can save quite a bit to take my tanks there but my time is more valuable the older I get. My local Exxon in Durham is $3.85/gallon at the moment just for comparison and 2 miles from home.

Every written contract I read when I first moved in and had a rented tank was out to reel you in only at first to bend you over afterwards. If you own your tank they HAVE to compete for your money. No single person that sells propane will sell you a tank. It's where they make their money at. I speak from a lot of experience before telling all of them where to go with their rental tanks and buying my own tanks.
I'm in the market for a larger tank now. But it seems they are much easier to find in the summer time and my mind slips until I switch the heat on and all of them are bought up by then. Maybe I'll start searching today.:beer:

Tommy Smith 919-672-1259 will set you in the right direction on the well. He's the one to come out and check it out initially. If it needs well work though, he will send you to a 70+ year old man named Harrold Pullam 919-418-8667. Harrold does the major well work. Tommy does the initial inspections and sets up work with Harrold unless it's mainly labor / inspecting. They work as a team. If Tommy feels Harrold is best suited to come out, he'll contact Harrold. But Harrold has more work than anybody in the well business and usually not in a hurry to respond to calls especially if he don't know you. But Harrold has inherited the name "The well guy" for a reason.

Neither Tommy nor Harrold know me by name. But I had to have my pump pulled and wires replaced a year ago and Harrold remembered every well in Durham though for he's serviced every one of them. He remembered my house from my original 68' deep well in my pump house from 1950's when he helped install it.:beer: And he remembered the original owner like it was yesterday. But Harrold is a different breed and still thinks he's a teen ager. He forgets that most people his age has retired, lost their minds or died.

Neither does water testing. They just install / fix / and inspect the system. And you won't find it done any better or cheaper. I know they do Durham but have no idea if they do anywhere else?
 
x2 on survey. If you plan on living there and not flipping it. I speak from experience that it's good to know EXACTLY where you stand. UNLESS it has been surveyed in the past 10-15 years by a reputable surveyor with good equipment, then the 1.15 acres is +/- until it's surveyed. If you have a good surveyor do the work, it becomes down the the .0001 acre. That's within 4 square feet/acre. My 6.78 +/- acres I bought in TN became 5.5546 acres after the survey and I took exactly that and prorated the price down by 82% during closing. 90% of the time acreage is exaggerated up for sales.

Remember you pay out of your pocket for the survey and NO sharing with the seller. And the survey will only be disclosed at closing and the seller will be unable to up the price at that point if by chance it comes out more. But if they pay some for the survey they will know ahead of time with their own copy.

Keep in mind it is pretty common to do land grabs if the surveyor is reputable and able to piece together the adjoining deeds and discovers open land. Free land is hard to come by but due to technology and alot of old surveys out there, it's common. When we surveyed Umstead State Park we found a 10 acre triangle that was unclaimed. I see it from time to time with residential lots.

A subdivision divided in the last 15 years though is usually cut and dry. Look and see if there's a survey done recently before ordering one done.

:beer:
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys. My step brothers (are) and one still is a surveyor so I hear all about it. I might even see if he can do me a favor if he is in town.
 
Have you looked online to see if it has a recent survey? That would be free of charge if local? What town/county is it located?
 
shawn said:
Dude. If there is not a current survey, you have that done during due diligence, same with the well and septic inspection. But hire an independent inspector. No way in hell do you want the county out there looking at it.

The county only knows about systems that were installed on the last few years. All they know about ours is that we have one.
Click to expand...

X2. Keep the county out of it. They are the ones that put themselves into it if you have issues reported and the ones to determine if they need to hang the "Condemned" sign up. What they don't know will never hurt them.
 
shawn said:
The county only knows about systems that were installed on the last few years. All they know about ours is that we have one.
Click to expand...

That alone is worth a lot. Today, I found a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house here I was somewhat interested in looking at. I went and got an existing system report for the home. The report said:

A. The system was designed for 2 bedrooms, not 3. Doesn't really matter to me as I'm a single guy and the load on the system won't be anywhere close to overwhelming even a 2 bedroom system. BUT, when it does matter is resale. 3 bedrooms on a 2 bath system...good luck selling it. It's an easy enough fix maybe, apply for a system extension if you have the soil, but then I discovered problem B.

B. The damn system isn't even on the lot the house is on. It's on the lot across the street, which is privately owned. There are apparently easements for it, but there is no way in hell I want to deal with that nightmare. Sewer isn't available out there, so I'm stuck with that situation if I buy the home. That also indicates that the soil on the actual home lot isn't any good (this system was put in around 1995, and the standards even then aren't anywhere close to what they are now).

And then on to the next issue.

C. With a third bedroom, that indicates that most of the newer habitable space is currently undocumented (I like that term, I'll use it from now on). That means it was built without permits, so who really knows if it's up to code without tearing apart walls. This also hurts resale.

Truthfully, I was willing to take a risk if county sewer was available. I figured I could get an estimate to run the sewer and abandon the existing system and factor that into my offer price, but there isn't anything there so oh well. Real bummer too, it looked like a sweet place for the price (and now I know why it's so cheap).
 
I would get a septic inspection before I made a move... The thing about the inspection that people don't realize, it's merely a finding of fact. ie just measures setbacks, solid levels in the tank. And checks to make sure there are no obvious system failures.
If the house has been sitting empty for a while the inspection is kind of useless because there is no way to check for surfacing effluent. Which is the most important part of the inspection.
Around kernersville the cost of a point of sale inspection is $399.

if the system is failing the cost of a repair will vary. It's can range anywhere from $3k-$10k. But most systems that I quote are $3k-$5k.

Been in the business for ALOT of years and been to Several of NC States environmental science classes. So if you need some more advise let me know.
 
Black Bear said:
you people?!
Click to expand...

You heard me right!

Riddle said:
I would get a septic inspection before I made a move... The thing about the inspection that people don't realize, it's merely a finding of fact. ie just measures setbacks, solid levels in the tank. And checks to make sure there are no obvious system failures.
If the house has been sitting empty for a while the inspection is kind of useless because there is no way to check for surfacing effluent. Which is the most important part of the inspection.
Around kernersville the cost of a point of sale inspection is $399.

if the system is failing the cost of a repair will vary. It's can range anywhere from $3k-$10k. But most systems that I quote are $3k-$5k.

Been in the business for ALOT of years and been to Several of NC States environmental science classes. So if you need some more advise let me know.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I plan to get an inspection if they take my offer. We will see what happens.
 
I love my propane gas pack, but apparently I am getting a smoking deal on propane so maybe that's why.

Duane
 
Well, finally found something and went under contract last week. .99 Acres of land with a all brick ranch built in 1977 that has been fully renovated inside. No Gas heat either! Hopefully all goes well over the next 2 weeks with inspections. 24x32 garage in the back, 19x25 car port attached, plus a shed and some other stuff.
 
Macdaddy4738 said:
That alone is worth a lot. Today, I found a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house here I was somewhat interested in looking at. I went and got an existing system report for the home. The report said:

A. The system was designed for 2 bedrooms, not 3. Doesn't really matter to me as I'm a single guy and the load on the system won't be anywhere close to overwhelming even a 2 bedroom system. BUT, when it does matter is resale. 3 bedrooms on a 2 bath system...good luck selling it. It's an easy enough fix maybe, apply for a system extension if you have the soil, but then I discovered problem B.

B. The damn system isn't even on the lot the house is on. It's on the lot across the street, which is privately owned. There are apparently easements for it, but there is no way in hell I want to deal with that nightmare. Sewer isn't available out there, so I'm stuck with that situation if I buy the home. That also indicates that the soil on the actual home lot isn't any good (this system was put in around 1995, and the standards even then aren't anywhere close to what they are now).

And then on to the next issue.

C. With a third bedroom, that indicates that most of the newer habitable space is currently undocumented (I like that term, I'll use it from now on). That means it was built without permits, so who really knows if it's up to code without tearing apart walls. This also hurts resale.

Truthfully, I was willing to take a risk if county sewer was available. I figured I could get an estimate to run the sewer and abandon the existing system and factor that into my offer price, but there isn't anything there so oh well. Real bummer too, it looked like a sweet place for the price (and now I know why it's so cheap).
Click to expand...


This sounds very similar to the house across the street from us (You aren't looking at a house in Lexington, by chance are you?!?!?!) The house was built by a guy who owned a duplex up the hill from him. When he built the house, he tied the septic system onto the system from the duplex with a pumping system because the land he's on won't perk. I don't know who he paid to approve it, but they did and he built the house. Fast forward a couple years and he manages to get a second mortgage on the house (again - don't know how). He goes to jail and the second mortgage bank repossesses the house after his ex-wife goes in and rips the furnishings out of it. Because of the septic issue, the house cannot sell and the bank is not willing to take such a huge bath on it as to short sell it for what people are offering ($30-32,000 for a house that it valued over $147,000 according to mortgage). Now, once city sewer comes through (it is only annexed to the other side of I-85, a clear 4-5 miles from here), the house can be connected and finally worth something again, but in the mean time, the basement has been left open many times to the environment and flooded. Entire basement was covered in mold and had to have an abatement done.
 
ManglerYJ said:
This sounds very similar to the house across the street from us (You aren't looking at a house in Lexington, by chance are you?!?!?!)
Click to expand...

Nope, over in Montgomery County. I ended up buying a house here in town, but I suspect it has a septic system somewhere on it. It was built in '65, like 8 years before the sewer was put in.
 
Back
Top