Septic System Saga

I found the excavator parked in our backyard of the new house yesterday, in preparation for the septic system to go in. Seeing this final, major piece to a functioning house all cleared and staked out according to plan reminded me of the very first time we knew ours was changed forever.⁣

When we purchased the land more than 3 years ago, it came with the engineered plans for a 5 bedroom system. Septic systems are expensive, and the materials used for this plan in particular were higher end and not 100% necessary.⁣

Considering we were building just a four bedroom house, plus planning to only ever have two children (LOL), we decided to spend a bit of money up front to have a smaller, less expensive system engineered for our new home - $1,400 to be exact. The only downside we saw was having to wait another month to pull the building permit, as the new plans had to be approved at the town’s next Board of Health meeting, but the savings far outweighed the slight delay.⁣

On February 4th, not long after our new design was approved, we found out we were having spontaneous triplets.⁣

That smaller septic system no longer worked for our now instant family of five. We could have stuck with the approved plans, but our contractor warned us that a system that size for 5 people could cause problems - expensive problems - down the line.⁣

Back to the drawing board we went, this time with the properly sized system, but the less expensive materials. It cost us another $1,400 and another Board of Health meeting (they were super confused why they were seeing this property for the THIRD time), but came with the peace of mind we wouldn’t be facing something catastrophic in the future.⁣

Bumps like this will forever be laid out in our road ahead as our new normal with triplets, but with each passing mile it gets a little easier to overcome.