First Tahoe Cabin Post

By | October 5, 2002

One minor problem with weblog categories is that sometimes you want to have a relatively long introduction, i.e., more than just the one or two line description at the top of this page. The obvious thing to do is to provide an informative introduction in the first post (unlike this post, which so far has been completely uninformative). Of course, if you do that, people will read the introduction only if they start reading your weblog category right after you start publishing it or if they are obsessive people who read everything, no matter how dull. In general, you should avoid the latter set of people in life. They are better known as stalkers. If you don’t want to end up as the featured subject in a poorly-made-for-TV movie on Tuesday night at 3 a.m., I’m telling you, avoid these people like the plague.

Hey, whom am I kidding? Virtually no one will read any of this blathering ridiculosity (it’s my weblog, I can make up words if I want to), so why should I worry whether no one will read all the posts all the way back to this introduction or if no one will read any of the posts. So there.

Anyway, if you’re still with me, we bought the cabin in a 50-50 split with Sandra’s sister and her husband. The downstairs is about 650 square feet. Upstairs there is a narrow loft, due to the steep slope of the roof. The cabin is on about 0.8 acres of land.

The big problems we have to deal with are inbound and outbound water and other outbound waste materials. The lot has a 12 feet deep hand-dug well. Even with an expensive water filter, we aren’t too keen on using surface water sourced that near to the surface, especially with a major road not too far away. Yum, yum, nothing like a little MTBE-laced water in the morning. The house also doesn’t have a septic tank. The shower, bathroom sink, and kitchen sink essentially drain into a hole in the ground. It doesn’t even meet your basic graywater trench standards. An Incinolet incinerator toilet dispatches human wastes. Our first big projects include drilling a well (which will likely need to be about 250 feet deep) and putting in a proper septic or graywater system. Because of required distances between the well, the septic system’s leach field, the property lines, a seasonal stream, and the road, the placement of the well and the septic system will be a significant challenge.

3 thoughts on “First Tahoe Cabin Post

  1. Linda Potter

    I enjoyed your comments about the Incinolet and just recently purchased one. I am building a small cabin in Central Nevada at Kingston Creek at the foot of the Toiyabe Wild Life Study Area and have run into road blocks every where in the permitting process. I quess I’ll just put in a graywater transaspiration system to water the trees and elderberry bushes. The creek runs through the property and the people in Carson City don’t seem to care about all the illegal septic tanks that are within 10 or 20 feet of the creek they just don’t want me to build that close
    within 30 feet. They don’t seem to understand that this the plumbing can be done without any danger to the enviroment. Are you on the California side or Nevada side?? And what are you doing about the permitting process if anything??
    Thanks for your input
    Linda Potter
    711 Smokey Mountain Av
    Henderson, NV 89012

    Reply
  2. Summer

    Hey…I found your Incinolet story HIGHLY amusing…and cracked (is that the right word to use) up reading it-which caused my 7 yo to ask me what was so funny every ten seconds…which i didnt share with her-even though my husband accuses ME of having jr. high humor, maybe i can save my kids! anyways-thanks for the amusing read-and i LOVE the pics!!! esp. of the helpful workers. btw, speaking of tern’s, i used to, in my early emailing days, almost always, when going to type the word “busy” almost (and sometimes) type the word “busty”. Well…”gee, tom, we’re really “busty” these days and cant come over” and the like-well…it always made me BUST out laughing…and youre probably thinking-“get your OWN dang blog!”. thanks again,
    Summer

    Reply
  3. Bill

    Hey I just stumbled on to your blog and found it very amusing. You have a unique writing style.
    I haven’t been able to find any recent posts however, and am wondering if you are still alive.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.