Clearing land for my building and yes more math problems

[cycle_gator]

One other site factor to consider, where is your well likely to be and where is your septic tank and drain field going to be? Ideally they are a minimum of 100’ apart and septic is downhill from building making gravity flow, highly preferred, much easier to install. One other detail is where the access road is located in relation to the drain field. You want to avoid driving on it. Sorry to pile in more complexity. Thinking all this through ahead of time yields a happier result at the end of the day.

 

[Chris616]

One other site factor to consider, where is your well likely to be and where is your septic tank and drain field going to be? Ideally they are a minimum of 100 apart and septic is downhill from building making gravity flow, highly preferred, much easier to install. One other detail is where the access road is located in relation to the drain field. You want to avoid driving on it. Sorry to pile in more complexity. Thinking all this through ahead of time yields a happier result at the end of the day.

I agree with you that thinking things through first yields a better result, Tim. We have occasional multi-day power outages during the winter. That is particularly difficult for one of our neighbours who does not have a generator. They have lots of water available for manually filling toilet tanks with a bucket, but the septic effluent has to be pumped uphill to the septic field, so toilets are unusable in a power outage. The terrain here is rocky and hilly, so it was probably easier and less costly for the original owners to do what was done. Back then when the sun was shining and the wind wasn't blowing they probably didn't consider what would happen if they didn't have electricity to pump their septic waste away.

Earlier in this thread someone posted that "...You are over thinking this". I couldn't disagree more. Thinking and planning costs no money and no physical effort. I can think of a bunch of people who have said the opposite, but I've yet to have someone tell me at the end of a big project that they wished they had spent less time planning the project before launching into it.

Chris

 

[1930]

Sorry for the delay, Jason. TBN didn't give me any notification that your discussion thread was still active.

Mark's response (post #36) left out a few details, so here are the steps in great detail:
- Click the link to the Marion County GIS viewer.
- After it finishes loading, click "Parcel Search" in the "Basic Tools" menu.
- Input your parcel ID into the rectangle and click the "Search" button.
- After it finishes loading, at the bottom-left of the screen click the tab heading labelled "Layers".
- Click the plus sign to the left of "Elevation Information" to open up a sub-menu.
- In that sub-menu, click to select the checkboxes next to "Contour Labels (1 ft)" and "Contours (1 ft)".
- If you want to also see the satellite/aerial photos like in the picture that I uploaded, then in the same list where you found "Elevation Information" scroll down and click the plus sign next to "Aerial Imagery".
- In the sub-menu that opens up, click to select the checkbox next to "Aerials 2017".

By zooming in and out (making the magnification bigger or smaller), you should be able to get the exact picture that I got (except that I blanked out your parcel ID and another identifier so that I didn't give out any information that you had not already done). You can do that using the plus/minus signs at the top left of the image.

A contour map shows lines of constant elevation. If you walk along any of the lines you're not gaining or losing elevation. The numbers indicate height above some reference level. I'm guessing that in Florida that the "122" at the top-left of the image (north-west corner) means 122 feet above sea level. The reference elevation doesn't really matter, though. You're just interested in the difference between the numbers on your property. I see "122" in the north-west corner and "104" along the southern border (near the centre east to west).

Since the contour lines shows constant elevation, drawing a line that is perpendicular to the contour line shows "straight downhill" or "straight uphill" depending which way you're looking. In the following picture I've drawn three lines that go roughly perpendicular to the contour lines. It seems from your other thread that you're in a dry area, but if surface runoff was an issue the green lines congregating at one point show a place where it probably wouldn't be good to build a house.

Chris

View attachment 614481

Thanks for that, just getting in after the weekend, Ill check out what you say and thanks for the clarification

If you could make a few smaller piles or get someone with a bigger machine to do it, it's best to burn that stuff when it's green. If you let it sit there and dry out and then decide to torch it, you better hang on. You ever lit off a dry Christmas tree?

You want to burn it with the logs horizontal just like they are stacked. When they get a good bed of coals going they'll just fall in place.
Don't make a tee pee out of it.

Thanks, Im not gonna torch it just yet, I dont want to draw any attention at this point to all the the work Im doing. Green timber puts off alot of smoke. Technically my fire pile has to be only a few feet in diam as per county regs

One other site factor to consider, where is your well likely to be and where is your septic tank and drain field going to be? Ideally they are a minimum of 100’ apart and septic is downhill from building making gravity flow, highly preferred, much easier to install. One other detail is where the access road is located in relation to the drain field. You want to avoid driving on it. Sorry to pile in more complexity. Thinking all this through ahead of time yields a happier result at the end of the day.

Good thinking

 

[1930]

I wanted to update this thread and mention that the 8 ft burning rule was simply not true, according to local fire dept I could only burn a pile of brush 8 ft in diam at any time. This I found out to be false by calling the Florida forestry, they had very little requirements, asked very few ( and I mean very ) few questions and issued me a cust ID # that I could call in any time of the morning at 7 AM 7 days a week and as long as there wasnt any special precautions for the day I was allowed to burn all day.

They told me that the fire just needed to be out by 7 ( I think )

I found this to be impossible to do, the coals got so hot anyone would have thought I was making glass, I have let the thing sit seemingly out for a week at a time, gone back the next weekend, thrown some brush on it and it would eventually flare back up.

Took me 3 days I guess, I pretty much burned all day and it burned all night but I have zero brush or timber left, its all a huge pile of ash sitting in the bottom of the burn pit.

Im glad its all gone, ( including every last stump ) what a relief after seeing it for so long and stressing about having to pay someone thousands of dollars to haul away.

Never having done that large of a fire Im still somehow dumbfounded on how a huge pile of brush and wood like that can just go away.

 

[1930]

I would like to contact Chris Lowe that added to this thread in post 39 ( and others ) is he reading this?

I was able to do what he says, I dont know how he knows these things, maybe he is doing this sort of thing for a living, Ill admit that he is better at this stuff than me and Id like to know if he can help me with another elevation question?

 

[1930]

USGS -- Groundwater Watch

 

[Chris616]

I would like to contact Chris Lowe that added to this thread in post 39 ( and others ) is he reading this?

I was able to do what he says, I dont know how he knows these things, maybe he is doing this sort of thing for a living, Ill admit that he is better at this stuff than me and Id like to know if he can help me with another elevation question?

Got your message, Jason. What's your question?

Chris

 

[1930]

Got your message, Jason. What's your question?

Chris

Thanks, I was wondering if there were some way you could tell me how many feet above sea level this USGS -- Groundwater Watch area of this well might be so that maybe I could use that number and then use how many feet above sea level my property might be and then maybe I could have a guestimate as to how many feet below the surface I might have groundwater.

I hope that makes sense?

This rainbow springs well is quite a few miles from my property but I do not know any other reference to use to get an idea of groundwater levels for my property

Do you have a better idea?

Im also wondering if you have any idea of where I might find something that tell me how far the sand goes down, whats below that and then below that. Do charts like this exist?

I have contacted the local extension services but havent heard back from anyone about this.

USGS -- Groundwater Watch

 

[Ford850]

You could check the well logs from your state. Usually states have them available online, sometimes archiving back for decades. If you can find them for properties close by, a well log has details of each. For example, they might list sand 25' - 79', sand and gravel 80' - 104', gravel 105' - 136'. The also list the water level, the flow, etc. Not that this is the same for every property, but if you find one close by it might give you some idea of what you have on yours.

 

[ovrszd]

I use an app on my phone called "My Elevation". Works very well.