Shenandoah - land (not house) inspectors? (Chesapeake, Woodstock: real estate, buying, contractors)

[Lusitan]

Hi All -- We are looking at some rural property in the Shenandoah Valley. Does anyone have any recommendations for land inspectors--not house inspectors--who can inspect the land to ensure suitability for building or maybe spot any other issues we're not thinking of?

There is electric, well, and a septic system installed on the land already ... so someone qualified to inspect those (unused) improvements would be the type of inspector we're looking for. I'm familiar with the traditional home inspection process, but not how it's done when we're talking about (somewhat) improved land like this.

[theminnow]

You could ask some home inspectors in that area if they knew or could recommend someone that could inspect the land. Or maybe check with real estate agents that specialize in land only transactions and see if they know of any land inspectors.

[gemstone1]

The place to start for info and data on the well..VDH.
As a video in the above link states, also contact the well driller. That goes for the septic system installer too, it it imperative to know where the tank is and where the drain field is.

As to the specific building site, that would be influenced by the location of the septic system, topography, placement of utilities, rights of way, etc. When I bought rural land the the 70's, my guide was: Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country", by Les Schur.

Regards
Gemstone1

[webster]

As it was explained to me, in VA, each county and city has to determine where gutters are needed and not needed. In my county, not sure if it is statewide, they have not only mapped out the residential lots, but have mapped out county wide where the shrink swell soil is. I'd find the email of the person in charge of residential home inspections and ask if they have a topographical map. At the end of this post is the code section from the Virginia Residential Code that gives guidance on roof drainage i.e. gutters, downspouts and downspout extensions.

The Shenandoah Valley is in the Chesapeake Bay drainage area. I'm not sure if additional requirements have to be met because of that. VA is divided into water conservation districts. Where I live, they come out to look at sites for water issues/drainage. I'd check with them also. They were able to recommended vendors for a project I was considering:

https://vaswcd.org/map-of-districts

There is the information regarding soil drainage and the section from the VA Residential Code:

R801.3Roof drainage.

In areas where expansive or collapsible soils are known to exist, all dwellings shall have a controlled method of water disposal from roofs that will collect and discharge roof drainage to the ground surface at least 5 feet (1524 mm) from foundation walls or to an approved drainage system.

[Bigfoot424]

Originally Posted by Lusitan

Hi All -- We are looking at some rural property in the Shenandoah Valley. Does anyone have any recommendations for land inspectors--not house inspectors--who can inspect the land to ensure suitability for building or maybe spot any other issues we're not thinking of?

There is electric, well, and a septic system installed on the land already ... so someone qualified to inspect those (unused) improvements would be the type of inspector we're looking for. I'm familiar with the traditional home inspection process, but not how it's done when we're talking about (somewhat) improved land like this.

Can you say where in the Valley? It's a big area. I am in the Edinburg/Woodstock area and the wife and I love it here.

[nm9stheham]

All of your items to be inspected take a different specialty/source, and home inspectors is not where I would go. I am not really familiar with land inspectors as a specialty. A quality, local building contractor will have the best knowledge set and experiences to answer these questions but won't have every answer.

You can pursue this to some degree yourself, to at least dig out a lot of info:

WELL: I would ask the seller who drilled the well and contact the driller. Or contact the local VA Department of Environmental Quality office for help for the drilling record. (I am not easily finding public well water records in VA, like are available in other states.)
- Ask the seller if the well has the electric pump actually installed. It may or may not.
- If the well is not more than a few years old, then very likely it is fine, and will pump to the rate found in the drilling report. 5-10 gallons per minute of pump flow will allow normal water use with little or not interruption. but maybe not a lot of garden watering or car washing. If the water table varies up and down a lot, then your rate of well production may vary a lot from wet to dry weather. but that is going to be very localized. The well driller will likely know that info the best.
- If you want the water tested, then someone has to pump the water out to get fresh water into the well, and then take a sample. The well driller may be the best resource for that. A local water treatment company may be able shed some light on what to expect with water quality in the area of interest, but that would only be general info that area, even adjacent wells can vary quite a lot.

SEPTIC: This design and location will be on record with the local county Department of Health. They should have the plan, and probably have inspected it at some point in the build process. But first, examine the real estate advertising for words like 'septic system approved'. If it says 'approved', then the plan has been approved by the local DoH, but very likely the septic system has not been actually built.
- Pay attention to the plan section about the size of home for which the system was designed. You cannot legally build a house with more bedrooms than for which the septic system is designed; you would have to expand the system to make that legally match a larger house size.
- If the system has been actually built: Unless someone has been driving over the septic area, it will probably be fine. It would be easy to have a septic pumping company come out, dig up pull the tank cover off, and check what they can. There is not a lot more that can be done beyond a visual inspection, without a lot of work and expense that should have been done already as part of the final inspection.

ELECTRIC: Can you observe if there is a big, dark green box on the ground somewhere near the proposed house site? If so, then the electric has been installed as far as it can go without the actual final run to the house. This would have been done in accordance with codes and already inspected, so there is nothing to do there.
- If there is no green box on the ground, upon or by the property, then how the electricity will get run to the house is a possible question. Will it be via overhead or underground? A builder or master electrician will be the most likely persons able to help you in that, or probably it is in the plans of the devloper, if this is a developed lot.

SOILS AND SITE SUITABILITY: Strictly speaking, this is a question to be answered by an examination of the soil and underlying rock, perhaps coupled with local geological knowledge, and read/interpreted by a knowledgeable person: Properly, this will be a licensed engineering firm that works in the area of expertise.
- But that tends to be a fairly big expense if you are just examining the land prior to purchase. A builder who has built nearby in that area may be able to express an opinion, based on prior knowledge and experience in the locale. Also, a foundation repair contractor may have some local knowledge. But builder/contractor opinions can only be a non-binding relation of prior experience, and contractors are not soil engineers.
- As for the exact site, a lot of this is common sense. Looking for higher land for better drainage is Siting 101! But erosion, land slippage, the presence of wetlands, pretty much goes back to an engineering firm for a real answer. Other items, like the presence of dense underground rock that requires added expense in excavation or even blasting (limestone is common in the Shenandoah Valley), can often be well answered by a builder, based on prior experience in a locale. And a builder can often put a lot of variables in perspective as for cost tradeoffs. Just walking the land on your own and keeping your eyes peeled will often give even a newbie a good idea of things to be careful of.