There are homes here in NH that still have outhouses. Some of these homes are large 4 bedrooms colonials. The outhouses are out front by the road so the service truck can easily dump them. My question is - who would buy one of these homes that in some towns is north of $700k.
Thats crazy. Do they have indoor plumbing?
The ones I know about only have water in the kitchen with a hand pump.
And I agree - it’s crazy. To each their own.
Some would say “quaint” … lol … reminds me of coworker friend, his parents lived in Georgia and home’s water supply came from well down the hill a little , pumped by hand into bucket, then carried up to house. He decided to help by installing electric pump and piping so they could just flip a switch. After much work, parents wouldn’t use the new-fangled contraption, reverted to hand pumping and carrying water in bucket. Said the water from the pipe tasted “funny” .
Not to continue this, but around here you cannot sell a house without an up to date septic system. Cost me $10,000 on my dads house. Of course I think it could be just a tank, so maybe that’s what they are pumping out. “Where’s ma? Oh she went down the driveway to see a man about a horse.”
I wouldnt buy a house with a well or a septic system, for ANY money.
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A few miles from my home, there is a small development of very upscale homes, located in one of the few areas of the township w/o either city water or city sewers. To their credit, the builders installed a sprinkler system fed by a HUGE storage tank in the basement, but even with that amenity, I wouldn’t want any of those homes. And then, there is the issue of the septic system…
That is a problem here in the Northwest in certain places as well, as we are running out of easily habitable space. We have friends who built a beautiful home on a hillside overlooking a bay, but it’s equipped with a series of pump and tanks, since the septic field is located 50 yards UPHILL from the house.
That’s the ONE advantage of these out houses. No need for a septic system. The waste is picked up weekly (or bi-weekly) and carried away.
And I wish we had that law here in NH. Towns like Merrimack NH where an estimated 50% of all septic systems are NOT working properly. It was a study done by the EPA on the towns ground water.
One place in Andover MA had these 6 beautiful 5,000 sq/ft homes. All on septic. A builder put up 100 homes down the road from them and the water table shifted. All of the homes septic systems failed. The town refused to run a sewer line (2 miles away). The homes were condemned. Estimated value of each home today is north of $2 million.
One of my fraternity brothers worked for a company that built systems to provide fresh water for lots that didn’t produce fresh well water. Sewage water would flow into a greenhouse, the plants would pick up the water, and it would evaporate off the leaves. The water was collected to provide drinking water. Land that doesn’t perc is a lot less expensive than land that does.
And here I thought condemned homes were basically worthless
If I could buy a condemned home for $500,000, install updated plumbing for $100,000, and sell it for $2,000,000 I’d be $1,400,000 ahead.
They are NOW. If it happened today $2 million would be their insurance settlement.
Some of those homes you may not be able to update the plumbing because of lack of land. You need a certain amount of land for septic and leach field.
We looked at 1 house with a holding tank, forget how much it cost for service but it turned us off on the house.
Holding tanks aren’t the problem. The Leach field is the real expense. We have septic. Most people in NH are on septic. If the leach field fails, the cost to replace is about $40k.
The holding tank works fine without a leach field, I think the cost was $300 every 90 days to get pumped out for a 3000 gallon tank measure 96" wide and 109" deep.
You have to live in a municipality that will allow that. Many won’t. My town won’t.