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Reply to "Another Speedster project"

I may have mentioned this before, but my neighborhood was built and, years later the town came through and added a neighborhood sewer system.  That system has a “T” between my house and my neighbor with the mainline to the local pump/treatment center going between and behind our houses through a vacant field out back.  Everyone in the neighborhood connects to the sewer line right in front of their house.

I submitted the plans to the building dept and got a go-ahead for a garage next to the house and set back about 30 feet to allow access to the 1-bay garage under the house and was OK’d by the BI because there was no sewer interference.  So the next week I get a guy in to dig the trenches for the foundation and he starts doing a great job.  After getting the front and sides dug he started  across the back.  Suddenly, this pickup truck comes tearing into the driveway and some guy jumps out and comes running over to the excavator, waving his arms and jumping around and yelling “STOP!” until the operator stops.  

Then he tells us that he’s the Health Inspector and just checked the sewer drawings and my house is the only one in the neighborhood that doesn’t connect going out through the front yard - My house’s sewer connection goes out the back, across the back yard and connects to the main line between us and the house next door, kinda-sorta right where we’re digging.  

So, now that everything’s stopped he goes back to his truck and comes back with a “pipe sniffer” and starts at the back of the house, finds the exiting pipe underground and follows it across the yard and right behind where we’re digging.  The pipe is, quite literally, six feet behind where the guy was digging.  Normally, nothing should be closer than 8’ from a sewer line but he let us go because (1.) we had already finished the other three walls and half of the back and  (2.) it was only a garage and we weren’t going down more than 6’ for the footings, anyway (his drawing showed the pipe down 8’).

I’ve seen Mike, the HI, from time to time (he’s retired now) and we both get a good chuckle out of this house being unique in a neighborhood that has a lot of other eccentricities, too.  Just another day in the life of a small town.  

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