Homes… Your Thoughts… Old or New?

[Jstpssng]

Yeah, my septic permit was filed with the health department. The reason is to make sure the septic isn't gonna be a problem for someone else.

But if you have 10 acres or more, no septic permit is required.

After my father passed away in 2017 somebody wanted to lease the greenhouse. He had put in a flush about 40 years ago but I couldn't find a permit and nobody else seemed to care. The plumbing inspector was supposed to file every permit with the state but there was no record so I thought he must have bootlegged it.

Last month while cleaning out the house I finally found the signed paperwork. I mentioned it to our lessee who informed me that he's been paying $150/month for a portapottie, apparently because he has employees.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

A few more in nearby city historic district.
Imagine in middle of 100 acres.

 

[Jstpssng]

To each their own, I guess. There is an old farm house I drive past on a regular basis which once compared to those. The maintenance bills obviously overwhelmed the owners.

 

[ultrarunner]

Gonna venture a guess that compliance on most of those is fairly low. How is anyone gonna know if you put in a new toilet?


Same here. Only permits you need where I live is septic, and that's a state regulation, not local.
Don't think I'd want to live in a historic district or something on a registry for that reason. I do try to keep renovations in the spirit of the era my house was built, but not gonna go overboard.

At sale, certification of low flow toilet is required which raises the permit question.

Building departments had a habit of going to suppliers checking sales of gas appliances and then cross check for open permit at the address…

I have not run into it in the Internet age but it was real when I started out…

Window and exterior door replacement is easy… can’t hide it.

My last 3 roof replacements with permit never had more than a drive by… no inspector on the roof but still had to pay fee to the city.

 

[Jstpssng]

Google Earth photo.

 

[ultrarunner]

Sometimes I take for granted the freedom we have here to do as we wish with our residences around here. I've never lived in a town, so I don't know what that's like. We've got about 25 acres here and our local government is not big enough to handle what you're describing. That sounds like a Communist system.
I'm sure you're location has many advantages. Maybe you can get 300 bushels of corn/acre there and we can only get 250 bushels. It doesn't sound like the kind of place somebody on a Tractor forum would want to be at.

SF Bay Area… it’s interesting owning acreage in a city of 450,000 in a metro with 12 million…

Yet I have a dozer to maintain fire trails I was required to put in, a Deere 110 TLB and Kubota BX23…

The dozer was easy… the cost to hire out fire trail construction was twice the cost of the dozer… and that is how I came to own my first tractor… a few years later I had to install culverts so I bought the backhoe..

 

[Oaktree]

View attachment 3258940

Google Earth photo.

Heating bill alone would put many into the poorhouse.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Some people with large houses I know close up some rooms in the winter.

 

[ultrarunner]

Growing up we never heated except the week around Christmas when the Greats would come to visit…

Oakland California has nearly perfect climate based on the number of heating and cooling days measured in major metros…

It’s easy to find homes well over the million dollar mark with no A/C…

A lot of the older homes only had side heater option on the kitchen gas range… no insulation and with single pane double hung windows…

With the push to ban gas heat almost all new installs are heat pumps requiring a service upgrade…

When you cook, heat, dry and make hot water with gas not a lot of electricity needed.

 

[WinterDeere]

Some people with large houses I know close up some rooms in the winter.

That’s what we do. We have four floors in the main house, plus two floors in the 1990’s addition, plus two floors in 1890’s addition, plus two floors in carriage barn. We close off entire floors in some of these sections when we are not using them, and just leave the heat set down at 62F in those parts of the house, or 55F in carriage barn. It’s no problem to open a door and crank up the heat when needed.