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We are also thinking of moving to Maine, but not to the South. I guess we'd like to hear opinions about towns like Pembroke, Machias, Whiting area. Are jobs tough to come by? We'd be willing to do pretty much anything, from retail to professional. My background is environmental education and tourism infrastructure development.
Washington County is very rural and sparcely populated. The county seat is Machias and I would suggest that relocating there will be difficult if you are going to have to find work unless you can find a job using your environmental educational background, which will probably mean the University of Maine at Machias. Whiting and Pembroke are very rural with very little industry or business. Eastport is a small city with great promise due to a very large seaport system that is almost totally unused. Great promise in Eastport and there are many in that area who are trying to get things moving, but the whole area is very, very slow. I love it in Washington County, but I imagine having to work at a job to survive up there will be very difficult. The economy in Washington County is very very slow, and the area has been the recipient of many state initiatives to help it, most of which have yielded minimal to no results. The major industry there is really blueberry growing.
Thanks for the info, Acadianlion. Washington county sounds perfect, more of America needs to be that way.
We are looking to buy land first, hold onto it, and then build at a later date. Hopefully one of us can telecommute for work. But we will get that sorted at a later time.
I was just wondering about costs of building homes. Drilling wells, septic tanks, a guesstimate on how much they might cost?
Well, very variable costs. Septic systems will depend on the number of bedrooms and the kind of soils and system that is necessary. I am going to make an extreme generalization and say that septic systems will cost anywhere from three thousand to thirty-three thousand. Last year a system was installed in my partners house, and it was $3500. A simple system for two bedrooms. When I built my house eleven years ago, the system was fairly simple for three bedrooms, but required a tank with a pumping station and was around $10,000. For planning purposes, I think that $10,000 should be enough for most applications. Systems that require extensive chambers or long distances for pumping, will be more, and systems that merely use gravity feed and a relatively small leaching field will be less.
Wells will also vary a huge amount. Some areas do not readily produce wells and some areas will produce so much water that you could be tempted to go into the bottled water business. And not always the deeper the well the more water either. For a normal residential well around $2500 is probably enough, and for that your well will be around 200 feet deep. I drilled a new well for a commercial building that I built in the town of Blue Hill in the nineties. Blue Hill village is notorious for not having water that is easily found. At around 300 feet the well driller stopped drilling, and I had sixteen gallons per minute of flow rate...fantastic and almost unheard of.
As far as the cost of construction itself is concerned there are so many variables that a "typical" square foot cost is simply not realistic to predict. A lot of people are starting to buy factory built homes, and there are many that are pretty good looking houses. The single biggest reason for doing this is the speed with which a house can be delivered for occupancy. Labor is difficult to get to work on a project here, and the "good" builders are having a hard time attracting and keeping quality workers who show up, on time, every time, sober or straight. Don't let anyone trivialize the issue of drugs: we have exactly the same problems here that exist everywhere else in our society, and those social problems complicate life here much as everywhere else. My wife and I are thinking about building a new home next year, and we are seriously looking at modular housing for this house. So much simpler to have the ground work completed and then the house is moved into place and planted by a huge crane...two weeks later the house is ready to move in to. A lot of options, and if you are building from scratch, you MUST be here to be a part of the process, or at least be on site every day. The only other way to do it, I think, is to hire an architect and have the architect supervise the construction as a part of the contract. Just hiring a builder is not a guarantee unless you are actually HERE. This is not new: my father retired to Maine in the late 1960's, and they tried to have extensive renovations made to the beautiful old farm house that they had bought while they lived in Massachusetts. There were many errors made and the entire project took MUCH longer than it should have, simply because they weren't here.
Thanks for the great info, AcadianLion, I feel a lot better.
If we did build a house, whihc is what we are leaning towards, I will be there for sure. I would love building it myself. Boy that would be crazy! But why, it could be a good experience.
We are really looking at property in Washington County. Rural area, cheaper land, and close to the coast. A great combo in my opnion.
We are also thinking of moving to Maine, but not to the South. I guess we'd like to hear opinions about towns like Pembroke, Machias, Whiting area. Are jobs tough to come by? We'd be willing to do pretty much anything, from retail to professional. My background is environmental education and tourism infrastructure development.
Hello, We are currently building our dream home in Whiting, Gardners Lake Rd to be exact. There are so many wonderful things about this area that just take you in, if you enjoy nature and very kindhearted genuine people then look no further the Machias area has all that a person needs to live a peaceful and wonderful life..Q
Don't move to the area unless you don't have to work. Good jobs are very scarce
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Loving Machias and Whiting
