Shoutout to the guy who told me to dig test pits before buying land

I almost bought a lot near Santa Fe last month. The soil test showed ancient trash pits from the 1300s under the topsoil. Has anyone else saved money by checking ground conditions first?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

davis.diana4mo ago

oh man, that's wild - trash pits from the 1300s? i had a similar scare a few years back looking at a lot in west texas. turned out the ground was full of caliche just a few inches down, which would've made putting in a septic system a total nightmare. the test pit saved me like $15k easy. always dig at least 3-4 pits spread out across the property, and don't just look at the first foot - go down 4 feet deep if you can. a guy i know skipped that step on a place near flagstaff and ended up hitting solid rock 18 inches down when he tried to put in a pool.

3

emmag404mo ago

I mean is it really that common to hit solid rock or caliche though? Maybe it's just me but I've dug test pits on three different lots and never found anything worse than some tree roots and a few buried rocks. The guy in Flagstaff sounds like he had bad luck but that could be rare. And the whole trash pit thing from the 1300s seems like a freak accident not something that happens every day. IDK maybe people get a little too worked up over the worst case scenario.

6