First as creekside said you *have* to be sure of the boundaries if you don't already have them surveyed. Then as lwo said you have to determine about running power - how far off the road (how long a driveway) do you plan? Contact the electric company and see what they charge - you may want your house closer to the road than originally planned, over a certain distance you will require a transformer (and of course more digging/conduit or poles). Then once you have an idea of how long the driveway will be, you can walk with engineer to determine where best to site the house - he should be able to give you an idea of suitable sites (avoiding ledge, wetlands, etc.) though sometimes ledge can lurk where you least expect it (ask me how I know!). He'll do the perc tests to find out where best to put the septic and what design will have to be. You may also have to hire a soil scientist and a surveyor to then go out and mark wetlands and proposed foundation/septic/driveway locations to bring to planning and zoning and/or wetlands commission. Of course you have to have an idea in mind of what the foundation size and shape will be. Although our preliminary site plan showed we were more than required distance from stream, our engineer *and* soil scientist as well as DH had to attend wetlands commission meeting (at $100/hr each, they got to us at the end of the meeting). Be prepared to pay $$$ and build in plenty of time for delays. B/c the commission only meets once per month and we had an ice storm the day in Feb they planned to meet, we did not get reviewed until March meeting, and we could not start clearing land until we got their approval so we lost a month. Once we had the site cleared and started digging we hit ledge and had to move the house (took some doing, since we couldn't change approved septic site w/o losing even more time), clear more, dig and pray the new location would allow us to have full 9ft basement. Since we were doing modular builder said we couldn't change house/garage plans w/o impacting schedule, we had to keep all windows, garage orientation the same, so tried to shift foundation SW without changing passive solar design/orientation. This from 100 miles away, looking at site plan while on the phone with excavator! So we ended up with 3ft door walkout on gable end, 4ft change in elevation, instead of 11ft drop with walkout (bigger door) in back. At least I was GCing all the sitework myself so we could change the foundation plan and the driveway length/curve. As far as well, our driller said you never know what you're going to find until you start drilling. Be prepared for cost overruns there. Our neighbor's well produces so much he can't use it fast enough (with 2 teenage girls!), he had to put in an overflow. We took 3 tries to find decent amount of water (used other 2 wells for geothermal), then we had to hydrofracture. GT wells are 279ft each and water is over 500ft.

My 10 acres were within a very small subdivision. We found out about the lot, had it bought and closed on within a month. Paid $650 for the perc test which included his marking boundaries of the property, designing septic, soil analysis and slope information. After reading this I'm glad we didn't know what we didn't know. I am not sure we would have pressed forward without panic first if I read all that. It can be scary, there is so much involved, but if you love it, its all worth the research. This is going to be your home :) Here's what we did...call a lawyer (no real estate agents involved, my dh found the lot on Craigslist~), another reason to talk to the lawyer (we have a creek on our property and had to talk to water conservation society as well - can't build within 50 feet on each side of it, blah blah blah) call a soil analyst (he knew about local well diggers/septic people and county requirements so he taught us as we went along), research HOA stuff (no horses - boo, but chickens for eggs ok, no white siding - boo, but plot, setbacks, building requirements all listed for us), and call your city/county permit office and see what the secretary knows about the development. We're in a little county but it might help you too. Our gal was SO helpful, even giving me the # of the best/but cheapest soil guy who turned out to be a gem. Hope my little bit of experience helps encourage you - we knew nothing compared to all this and have a beautiful piece of property. Hope yours goes as well.

You will want a landing at the top of the stair where the door into the house is. Opening a door while standing midway up the stairs is bad form. It is difficult to reach the door handle because you will need to stand two steps away (and down) for there to be sufficient room to swing the screen/storm door out to open it. You won't be able to stand on the top step and pull open the door without having to back down the stairs while pulling the door open.

Yes, cpartist, if it was one or 2 reasonably timed phone calls, and the surveyor freaked out, told the client he was busy with his other clients and that the client should go elsewhere, then I would request the retainer be returned and I would gladly go find someone less busy. But it's been a week since the revisions were asked for, and the surveyor "keeps blowing me off". A week for a change to a drawing is about the minimum time I would expect, given the first drawing took at least 3-4 weeks? Today would probably be my first call. But it sounds like OP has made enough calls already to be considered an impact to the surveyor's time. And that's why the surveyor is probably telling him that he's given priority to the other clients, I'm guessing. Yes, if he's actually put the OP on the back burner in favour of existing clients, then I wonder how he's ever gotten repeat business. But firing him now is going to mean a longer delay, and even more money lost. And unfortunately, it's not going to be the last person who acts unprofessionally in this venture, so if OP doesn't have a favourite drink yet, he soon will.