Contractor Lovefest ...

The contractors handed each other the door knob today.

After our initial shock to the news of having to get a new septic system, and having to demolish the cottage, we have settled in on the fact that there is no way around it, and we're going to do it.

Therefore, we called all the septic contractors in the world (at least the ones listed in the yellow pages, and the ones referred to us), and surprise, surprise, most of them showed up. That is astonishing, considering that when we were trying to get someone to do air conditioning work for us, only one of the five we had called showed up, and they didn't bother to send us a bid (I think I already ranted about the bad economy, and that the next person to tell me about will get an earful from me).

This time around, though, we will have the good fortune to choose between several bids, which is unlike when we had the roof work done, when we only received one bid (don't get me wrong, we did like the contractor, and he did great work).

Aside from septic contractors, we also had a well drilling company come by today, to inspect an old well in our basement. For unknown reasons it had been replaced with the well currently serving the building, but the inspection revealed two reasons why we would not want to reestablish the old well as our water supply: It does not provide enough water, and it is not tight anymore, i.e. there is a potential of contamination.

In other words, we have to get a new well. Now, before the guys showed up to inspect the well, their boss was here this morning, and we talked to him about our dilemma, one of which is that the water we have today is just fantastic, it's soft, doesn't have much minerals in it, and (most importantly) it allows us to treat the water with UV instead of chlorine. So we told the boss, that if we had to get a new well, we'd really like to hit the same water vein as we have today. His response was, and I kid you not, to get his dowsing rods (Wünschelrute) from his car, and follow the vein. You have to see it to believe it! According to his dowsing rods we could potentially hit the same water vein, that provides us with the yummy water we have today. I'll believe it, when I taste it.

Dirk