Recently, my husband and I looked at some property about 60 miles from the place we live on now. It was an old homestead on 120 acres, with an old stucco'd house, 3 barns, a huge grainery, small bunk house and a well that produced only 2 gallons per minute. The kickers were that the well is located about 3/4 of a mile from the house. The house is turn of the century (the last one!) and the stucco seems to have buckled about a foot above the ground all around the outside. Lots of cracks, and the roof needs to be replaced. Also parts of all the barns need to be replaced, or torn down to combine into one good one. The grainery is wonderful, with thick wooden walls divided into 6 rooms about 12x12 with a center hall. Part of the roof is missing on that also. Our concern was with the low water production on the well, and the distance from the house. The realtor didn't seem to know a lot about the place, but wouldn't the old settlers have had a well closer to the house? Or built near the other well if that was the only place water could be found? He (the realtor) said he didn't think any other source of water was available on the property, which would make gardening on the scale I do, pretty impossible. The old place needs lots of work, re-wiring, plumbing, etc. New windows, removal of asbestos in the basement around the heat ducts. The lure of more land, at a price more reasonable than any we can find closer, was tempting, but the possible lack of water in the future seemed to outweigh any of the good features. Any thoughts? I had nightmares of replacing the pipes from the current well clear to the house...probably cost a fortune! Hubby's eyes kind of glazed over at the thought of all the work there would be there, but it did have that wonderful grainery....Jan

-- Jan Bullock (Janice12@aol.com), March 16, 2000

Answers

Jan, our you sure you aren't related to me ? this sounds very much like the place we bought 'took me 6 months to get hubby to go along with it 'Are there neighbors near by?If so ask them about there water and the old owner .Is this an estate or can you talk to someone with first hand knowledge?Everthing you mentioned can be fixed . It would be best if you could buy it and wait to sell your present place until at least the house is done.We moved in before the house was finished and a year later it still is not!We will get there some day.Good luck and if its ment to be it will be , otherwise something better will come along.

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), March 17, 2000.

Jan;

My wife and I bought our place in about the same conditions you describe. My advice would be to talk to any neighbors about water and the county extension office. Also find out about the cost of having a new well dug in that area, that should give you and idea of how difficult it would be to find more water. One thing about putting a lot of labor into a new place is that it truly becomes part of you. Our family has put so much of themselves into our little place in the woods that it's a big part of the family now. God Bless Jim

-- Jim Tanner (tanner_jim@hotmail.com), March 17, 2000.

In our area if the well is less than 5 GPM a bank will not carry the mortgage but, the way around it is to install a 1000/or more, gallon storage tank with an additional pump, automatic flow level control, etc. The place sounds great, run down or not, I would jump at a place like that, it just takes time and monay of course but mostly time to get things the way you want them. Good luck, Hendo

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), March 17, 2000.

Hi Jan, If the price is really good it might pay to have a licensed home inspector look at it. They charge about $300. I think but I'm not positive about that. The thing is, they tell you everything about a place. They are very thorough. They can point out problems you wouldn't have noticed and tell you if the problems you noticed are serious or cosmetic. Then you can decide if you want to deal with them. As far as the well is concerned, we lived with 2gpm for 9 years but we had no children. I could run one washer load, one dishwasher load, and we could take showers plus the regular cooking and flushing use. Well-watering the garden was out of the question. 20 minutes of running the pump and the well was dry for a while. Our solution was rain collection, collecting well water in 50 gal. barrels and mulch, mulch, mulch. Before we rented the place out we had the well deepened another 40 feet to 220. It helped a lot and the people who have been there for the last 6 months, a family of four, have had no problems. If you do buy the place and have the well deepened, make sure the driller flushes the well completely BEFORE you start running water into the pipes. We had to take every shut-off valve apart several times to clean out debris that restricted the flow of water. It sounds like the kind of place any Countrysider would love- good luck.

-- Peg (jnjohnsn@pressenter.com), March 17, 2000.

Jan, maybe the granary would make a good house easier than the real house. I'm not too sure about the settled stucco deal. I used to take a magazine that had old structures remodeled into "modern" homes with the look and feel of antique houses. They had redone a granary and it made a very nice home, with a decidedly country feel to it.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), March 17, 2000.

Jan, you don't mention your location, but several thoughts occur to me. the distance between well and house strikes me as excessive. Was the original homestead closer? If there is another, closer well, and the former residents weren't using it, that carries a whole other set of messages. Is the climate such that you can build and use a rainwater collection system for garden irrigation? Considering the inconveniences of the water situation, is the price low enough to compensate for hte cost of drilling a new well, assuming that's an option? And would a bank fold the cost of a new well into the mortage, since it would presumably increase the value of the property? As attractive as that granary is, the rest of the property seems to carry a lot of baggage with it that you might not want to inherit.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), March 17, 2000.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. We probably will just sit tight and hope the neighbor across the road from us will sell at a time when we are in position to buy it, even though it will be more than what the land is probably worth. The larger one does have some neat features, but too many drawbacks to make it feasible. Too far from any major city to work, and the water situation is just too much to overcome. Well drilling here is REALLY expensive. Because the water is getting scarcer, the state now requires wells to be drilled into deeper aquifers. A well there would run $20K at least. Financing is not possible, due to the condition of the house, and the grainery would make a neat house, it has wonderful thick wood walls in very good condition. Probably the best building on the property. It is dry out here on the plains, and rainfall is not dependable for gardening, watering crops, etc. Most farming here is dryland type. Some things just aren't worth the effort,I guess, and I hate to leave the established barn, garden, fruit trees, etc. that we now have. Two mortgages would force us to go back to work again, so not a good idea. Thanks for the moral support, though! Jan

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), March 18, 2000.

Before you totally give up, go visit your Health Department or whatever agency is the one that issues permits for wells and septics and ask to see their records on the property. They might have records on what appears to be a missing well. You will be surprised at how much you can learn about a property by looking at the records -- in the court house (chain of title, what the property sold for last time,), in the tax office (the assessed current value as well as the taxes, and from the zoning department or building inspectors or health department. Whatever you do, good luck!

-- Elizabeth Petofi (tengri@cstone.net), March 20, 2000.

Hi Jan !Was just reading about "your new place". Sounds very nice, but sometimes alot of work turns into ALOT of work. Guess you have to figure the pro and cons of it all. We have been on our place now for 20 years. It had all the plumbing and wiring done but still needed alot of work over the years. We love our place but we didn't need to do major work and it was and is sometimes very discouraging. even with what we have done with the place. My husband does alot of the work needed but with a full time job and we aren't as young as we were 20 years ago, I sometimes wonder if it would have been better just to build new back then. Maybe look for a beautiful piece of land and build as you can afford. Without a good well and convenient to the house or barns you might have a real chore ahead of you. Consider both sides of the fence and good luck to you folks.

-- Helena Di Maio (windyacs@ptdprolog.com), March 21, 2000.