Are you moving to El Dorado County from the San Francisco Bay Area?
Welcome, we are so excited you’d like to move to our area! Recently we have had a large influx of people from the San Francisco Bay Area so you will be in good company here. If you are new to our area or rural living here are some things you should know:
1. What is the community like?
Placerville and the surrounding areas have many unique features and opportunities to get outdoors, go wine tasting, hiking, gold panning, camping, rafting, enjoy Lake Tahoe, get apple treats, and connect with others. Some areas of El Dorado County are very rural, and others are centrally located to the downtown areas. Some locations, like El Dorado Hills and Cameron Park, offer a more suburban feel. El Dorado County has a wide variety of feels from country to neighborhood and offers some of the best recreation around.
2. How are the schools?
The short answer is excellent. If you look up the API scores for our local schools you will find them all incredibly high ranking and if you talk to local parents you will find most of them are exceptionally happy with their child’s school. Do be aware that we may have less options than you are used to. We have great unique, innovative and charter school options like Waldorf Schools and Montessori schools but probably less than you are used to from the communities you are moving from. If you are interested in a non-public school or a charter school option it’s best to start your research early and get on the waiting list for the school you wish to place your kids in.
3. How is the traffic?
What traffic? Ha, ha, of course like anywhere we have traffic but probably far less and far less consistently than you are used to. If you are commuting to Sacramento every morning you will have your usually morning commute traffic to contend with but many of us in the foothills and many of you relocating here are either self-employed or allowed to work from home so traffic isn’t a regular part of our lives.
However, because we have some tourist attractions that make our county great like the Apple Hill festival, Downtown Placerville and South Lake Tahoe there are times of year or the week when it pays to learn the traffic patterns. During ski season Friday nights and Sunday afternoons will have considerable traffic on highway 50 as people head up to and come home from the slopes. Similarly, during Apple Hill season (Thanksgiving to Christmas) there will be weekend tourist traffic to the Apple Hill (Camino) area that you will want to watch out for.
Having grown up in San Jose myself, I can tell you, traffic is simply not a major daily part of my life living here in El Dorado county as it was in San Jose.
4. What’s a septic system? Are they safe and reliably? Are they gross?
If you are coming from a place where you have always had a city sewer system then having a septic system can see daunting but it’s really rather simple and it’s not gross at all. If you are in the city of Placerville you likely will have a traditional sewer system but once you get 5-10 minutes outside of town most homes will be on septic.
A septic system consists of a sewer lateral line which is the same as you have now, a pipe that takes waste from your bathrooms out of the home, a septic tank which is just a large collection tank in lieu of having a sewer that collects the waste and allows it to break down and a leach field which is a set of rows of perforated underground pipes that allows the effluent water from your septic tank to slowly percolate back down into the earth. They are safe and reliable as long as you take care of it properly. Never fear, taking care of it should never involve you interacting with the tank. You simply need to be selective about the types of cleaning products you use. For instance you don’t want to use a lot of bleach in cleaning a home on a septic because it will kill the microorganisms in the tank that break everything down for you. You can also help those microorganisms by flushing brewers yeast or a similar commercial product down the toilet once a month to keep the tank healthy.
A well cared for septic system should give you years and years of trouble-free service. You can find volumes of information online about the care and feeding of your septic tank. When you make a purchase with my support, I make sure that you obtain a septic inspection so that when you take ownership you know you have a functioning system that has been pumped out, if necessary. From time to time you may need to have your septic tank pumped out which is an occasional extra expense.
5. Is well water safe and do they run dry?
The answer is yes and yes. Well water is safe and in a lot of cases tastes far better than city water and as a bonus it’s mostly free, you simply pay for the electricity to pump it out. When you purchase a home with my support, you will have the well tested for productivity, measured in gallons per minute output and potability to tell you if the water is safe. You can also have a local water filtration store test the water for you and give you their recommendations on water softening and filtration. We even have a lab in Jackson that can do more in depth testing if there is a specific element you are concerned about testing for.
A well system is very simple, it is a hole in the ground with a pipe or “casing” in it, a pump, and a pressure tank. Some well systems will have an additional holding tank. The county requires a well to produce 1 gallon a minute to be a legal well but if it is under 5 gallons a minute the county will require you to have a holding tank that holds thousands of gallons of additional water. Water fills the casing, the pump draws it out of the ground and the pressure tank pressurizes it so you can take a nice shower. They are simple and reliable systems that have stood the test of time.
Do you have another question about moving to a rural area that I haven’t covered here? Give me a call and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.