Vincent Bratt

Hello Permies

I posted a while ago about getting onto my heavily wooded property in coastal Maine. It has been amazing here so far and just being on the land has been a huge blessing that we are very thankful for.
We have a ton of trees here in what is a pretty unhealthy, unmanaged forest which we are working on currently.

These trees have brought me into my current state of confusion of how to proceed with building structures or even building anything in general. It feels incredibly wrong to go to the store to buy lumber when there are hundreds of trees here which are perfectly usable and just rotting otherwise. We aren't really able to bring heavy equipment here, and we don't really want to either, but just the process of milling these boards with a chainsaw takes a long time and doesn't seem like the best way to do things.

I would ideally like to use round wood for most things, but it is hard to find good information of how to work the logs in round form. I am a trained carpenter and my mind kind of blanks out when looking at something circular instead of rectangular.

Does anyone have any advice or faced a similar experience before? Recommendations for how to process logs into usable materials with minimal machinery? Some helpful tools I may not be aware of?

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:In many areas, an approved septic system is absolutely required before a property can be sold or subdivided. It doesn't have to be used, or connected unless there is a permanent residence. But it's an expensive check box that must be ticked off.

Yes we ran into that about 3 years ago when trying to buy a property right before covid happened... Hearing that we needed to have a septic before we could develop basically put us off until right now when we found a spot which already had well and septic. It can be a tough rule at times, but I guess it helps keep people accountable. Thanks for your reply.

Steve Zoma wrote:Hey fellow Mainer...

I think you can work on both. If you already HAD power on site then it should be a simple matter for Versant Power to hook you back up. A call should get that in process...

As for the well, I was not sure if you have a well but no pump, or a well and pump. There is a huge difference. I would get the water working though ASAP as it is 2023 and we as humans have just become accustomed to having water. You can always power your small arrangement in the short term with a cheap generator, but go without water and you will be hating life.

Kind of hard figuring out about moving sheds and all that without a map or pictures to go by. I have moved a ton of buildings, but it is never easy and best to find workarounds if you can leave them in place. This is Maine, winter is coming soon even though it may not seem like it. You got plenty to do already I would imagine.

Power is on site, and there is a meter as well but it is not hooked up due to inactivity. The well has a pump, and overall the water is good to drink besides slightly high iron contents (We are thinking it may lessen over time since the well has not been in service for 20 years...) Having spoken to Versant, I know the poles are privately owned by me as well, not entire sure what that stipulates however. Yep we definitely have our hands full!

As far as plumbing in the actual well, what kind of considerations are we going to need to take into consideration in order to keep it operating throughout the winter? A well house has popped up on my ever growing 'to-build' list, but other than that will I need to be putting all my pipes below the frost line? (Yes I did not grow up in the cold, lol)

Thanks for your advice!

Hello,
My partner and I are just starting to plan our build for a piece of land we recently purchased. This heavily forested piece of land has a well, septic, grid power (that needs to be reconnected), as well as one 12x20 shed and a 12x8 shed. The interesting thing is that none of these utilities are hooked up or really plumbed in any way, in fact the septic system has never been used before. The well does not have a pipe connecting anywhere, but there is a pipe that goes into the septic from above which we could use to pour buckets of dish water, etc. The power is another thing entirely, as we are going to need to get the system put back into service, I don't think it will be too hard, but I am also prepared to just run a generator for the initial stages of the project.

So the structure we are thinking of living in, the 12x20 shed, is not near the septic, but is fairly close to the well. The septic is a good bit uphill from the shed, and the easiest way I can see to get this to work would be to move a shed closer to the septic, and plumb in lines as necessary for comfort while I am building the main house.

Another HOWEVER, we are planning to move to the property fairly soon and before we can even really think about moving the shed, there are several other projects that are going to need to be finished first, primarily the reconstruction of our bridge in order to allow vehicles to the main portion of our property.

So I guess what I am really getting at here is, how can we live on the land full time in its current state? So far I am thinking of just a generator and a small storage tank for our water. As well as a composting toilet which we can either convert to compost or just pour straight into the septic. I can definitely see these options getting old fast, however they can definitely work in the short term future.

Does anyone have any advice for this situation? Maybe something I'm not seeing? We are located in Washington County, Maine, and as such I will also be needing to consider what will need to be done to ensure the property is habitable during our winter months.

Thanks for any input, or just for reading this far. We definitely have a huge project in front of us!