Spring is right around the corner and we're getting set for some major stepping stones. About 90 days ago, a Lexington Electric Service engineer came out to the property to map out the locations of our power polls and overhead wire. Underground power was not an option for us for several reasons but partly because supply chain issues have created a shortage of ground based transformers. Of course we wanted to preserve as many trees as possible but this change means we had to clear several more trees. The LES engineer was great at zig zagging the line and post locations though so, it wont look like we've done much more clearing than was necessary for the driveway.
LES will provide the first two power poles and we can span up to 300 feet between them so, this should get us power back to our initial build site with minimal expense. Chris Lewis is our electrician and he's ready to set our meter base and final pole. Once that is done, the State will come out to inspect it and give LES the all clear to hook us up.
Water will be a bit tricky. We had to get permission from Bible Grove Missionary Baptist Church to bring a new water line in from Bible Grove Rd crossing over part of the church's property where the old road once was. The Elders met and granted permission and I was able to locate a spot where the water meter was placed. We had quite a time getting the "811 Call before you dig" folks to understand where we wanted the water line but, by the third trip out we had a clear path identified. The largest water tap we could get was a 1 inch because the water line on Bible Grove Rd. is only a 2 inch line. We will be installing a 1 inch line approximately 900 feet in all and eventually we may have to have a large holding tank as well as water pressure this far up Bible Grove Rd can drop pretty low at times. In fact, the water department would only "guarantee" about 20 pounds of water pressure. We also looked into digging a well but that solution was very expensive ($10,000 plus for the first 200ft and $75/ft thereafter) and there was no guarantee we'd hit water.
I located a local source for a storage container (Ricky Derryberry) and it is already delivered about 5 miles down the road waiting on our dozer work to be done and the gravel (chirt) to be brought in. This will serve as our "barn" and we will use it to store and secure our tools and supplies.
This spring (if it ever stops raining), we will finally start using the DitchWitch for trenching our water line. It should go pretty smoothly as the ground has very little rock. We'll bring water and power back to the initial camp site and i believe that will also be the initial location for our storage container. We should have dozer work beginning in a matter of a few weeks and once we have a decent gravel driveway, we can finalize the installation of water and power.
A simple septic system will be installed (haven't determined exactly what size or where) for our initial camp site and a structure similar to the one above is planned for our AirStream (Avion) camper.
