Blog > 10 Things to Know Before Moving to Sebastian Florida 2022

10 Things to Know Before Moving to Sebastian Florida 2022

by zacharycoletti-chime-me

If you are planning to move to Sebastian or thinking about selling your home here in Sebastian because Sebastian is growing too fast? This video is for you! Watch till the end.

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If you’re thinking about moving to Florida and you live out of state, or definitely out of our area and you want to know what I need to know before I move to Florida before I relocate. We’ve got 10 important things to consider before you move.

Today we’re going to talk about the 10 things you should know before you move to Florida.

1. Humid

It’s humid in Florida for most of the year and when I say humid, I mean it’s wet, if you go outside you’re going to be sweating. For most people, it’s not going to be something new. You already know this but it might be actually refreshing to some of you who may be moving from states with drier climates. I’m from Colorado and when I take my lovely wife out there it’s so dry, my nose bleeds inside sometimes and now that I’ve lived here for a long time, going back there is so dry. So it is refreshing to come to it but when you live here it starts to be kind of burdensome. For you ladies out there your hair can get frizzy and if you are a professional and you wear suits and ties it’s tough to wear those and be outside. If you’re a golfer and you want to play golf during summer you have to choose the right fabric and the right moisture-wicking. I recommend cotton because cotton breathes and if you wear that polyester stuff, it looks cool but it’s like sweating in a bag. You’ve got to wear light and breathable fabrics.

It’s so stinking hot and humid so just dress light and be prepared. Keep a towel with you so you can wipe off your forehead and be prepared to take a lot of showers. I used to drive the beverage cart back in my college days and you need to sit on a towel when you’re driving the golf cart because your butt sweats. For those of you with pleather seats or leather seats, you might want to do the same thing as well.

2. Pools

If you don’t have a screen around your pool and if your pool and pool deck is exposed, the pool decks get really hot. They can get really hot especially if you have a darker color around the exterior of your pool. You know you have to pull your pavers or paint or anything like that. The darker colors look good and they hide the dirt and they definitely can be hot on your feet, same with your driveways. You know we had an asphalt driveway and that thing was so hot in the summertime. The pools get warm without a screen and that feels awesome in the summertime. Obviously, it’s nicer here than most of the country during the winter time and that’s why we have a lot of folks coming here snowboarding!

We’re seeing more and more people make the move here and everybody wants a pool but the pools actually are chilly in the wintertime. If you think you don’t need the pool heater because it’s Florida and it’s hot, well the water temperature drops, and then when you get a bunch of rain, the temperature also drops. So if you’re looking to swim year-round, you need to consider the pool heater. Well, look at it this way, if you’re going to come here and you’re going to purchase a house that doesn’t have a pool and you’re going to install a pool yourself? You’re looking at possibly a $75 to $80,000 bill to get a pool with a cage installed. The screen enclosure people call it “birdcage” and if you’re spending that kind of money and you don’t put an extra three to five grand for a pool heater, you are skimping. You’re not going to be able to enjoy your pool year-round. It’s a little chilly outside, but getting in that pool and it’s 78 degrees 76 degrees it’s a lot different than getting in an 85-degree pool. Don’t paint it dark, and if you do, make sure you’ve got some good coverage so your little footsies don’t burn. And there’s a thing called a “cool deck”. You can paint it or you can spray it. It’s called a “Spray Deck” that’ll keep it cool. Think light colors and in the winter time definitely get a pool heater. I recommend it.

3. Septic tanks

Septic tanks, you have to have one unless you’re one of the very few older homes here in Sebastian that are on the city sewer system. You’re going to have a septic tank with most houses unless you are in certain areas, especially here in Sebastian. There are certain areas in Vero Beach but most houses in an HOA will be on a county or a city water system and the sewer system is called Public Utilities. Most houses are going to have a septic tank and if you’re not from an area that you don’t have septic tanks and you’re not familiar with it, it is a tank that’s buried in the ground around your house somewhere. Not around the entire house but in an area like the front yard or on the side and that’s where all the waste and water goes from your house. From your toilet, it collects the solids and then the water is leached out underneath your yard, into the drain field. That’s just the way it’s been done for many, many years and it’s still being done that way. There’s a bit of controversy around it but it still happens.

In construction, the one thing you want to make sure that you pay attention to is if you have a septic tank. Number one, you want a septic inspection when you’re purchasing a home. Number two, you want to make sure that you service it. It will need to be pumped out and it’s going to depend on the size of your family or the number of people living in your house using the facilities. I recommend it once every year and we recommend a guy by the name of Tommy Hinkle. It’s a necessity, you’ve got to have them when you’re building a house. I mean if you don’t have the ability to connect to the public system, you’re getting a septic tank you got to maintain. If you’re buying a resale make sure you get a septic inspection to make sure everything’s working properly. It can cost anywhere from four to ten Grand to replace or repair those. Take care of your septic system, you don’t want to flush weird things down the toilet, no feminine products. We’ve got plumber friends and they do not recommend having a garbage disposal. I mean we have one but we’re pretty careful about what goes down there. If you’re used to just throwing stuff down the garbage disposal, don’t do that here. Do you know what’s a really big thing that gets thrown down the garbage disposal that’s terrible? It’s eggshells, the plumbers have gone out many times to fix garbage disposals because of eggshells, it’s like a simple thing so don’t drop your eggshells down there. Throw them away, or put them in the garden, and don’t ever dump grease down your sink.

4. Storage

The number four thing you need to know before moving to Florida is storage can be an issue. It can be a major issue. Most of the houses here are built slab-on-grade. It means, it’s a concrete slab on dirt and below that dirt about three to maybe five to ten feet is water. It’s called a water table and you cannot build a basement here. So we don’t have a lot of places to put your stuff. This is a big deal so we use attics, attics are cool, well, no they’re not cool they’re hot they’re extremely hot, and if you have anything rubber or anything that’s going to disintegrate over time even plastic bags they just start to kind of disintegrate up there. The attic is not really the best place to leave your stuff, it’s where most people put their stuff. There’s a huge business in storage facilities here, so plan on putting some money into a storage facility if you hold on to your stuff if you need to have storage.

The newer homes put attic fans in there to try to help pull some of the heat out, so that’s kind of a cool feature, and if your house doesn’t have an attic fan you can certainly install one. For those of you who have more than one car because the typical two-car garage is really only gonna hold one car and then some boxes. The three-car garage is kind of a nice feature because you can put two cars in it and maybe some boxes or a golf cart. If you have toys like boats and RVs, side by side it’s going to be tough too. Most of the lots are going to be on quarter acre lots or maybe just a little slightly smaller than a quarter acre lot, depending on where you go and you can’t fit everything on there. Matter of fact we just saw somebody pouring a slab on the side of their house it’s a smaller house so they have the space to pour a little egg driveway on the side of their house and they’ll be able to park an extra car, or an RV, or a boat or something and that’s what we see a lot of folks doing. So storage can be an issue. Be prepared if you do decide to pour that extra driveway, you have to get it permitted if you go with concrete. If you do like a crushed shell or gravel, I don’t think that has to be permitted and double-checked.

5. What’s in Your Garage

Since we’re talking about garages, let’s talk about some stuff that you should have in your garage. You should probably get a generator, you should sell that snow blower, and buy a pressure washer. You don’t need the snow blower here so make sure you don’t put that on the moving truck because you’re not going to have much of a market for it here. If you have an oak tree nearby, you’ll need a blower.

We’re talking about some things you need to have in your garage, important things that you will always use. You know you may think I like to mow my lawn and buy a sitting lawn mower. I’m gonna just say no on the lawn mower because we talked about humidity. I think it’s probably not going to be very long until you realize it is no fun mowing your lawn during the summer months so you’re going to want to hire somebody.

It’s amazing, it’s so worth the cost to have someone mow your lawn for approximately a hundred dollars a month. In the summer they’re there once a week. They mow and edge and blow and the grass grows really fast. Then in the wintertime, they scale it back because the grass isn’t growing so fast, so if you’re trying to save a few bucks you can hire them for the summertime and then do it yourself in the wintertime. But it just means you’re going to have to have a lawn mower in your garage. So I recommend it. You may say, maybe you can do it yourself. It just depends on what you like, I mean you can also take care of your pool yourself. If you’re retired and you have the time and you may want a riding lawnmower too. Everybody’s going to have different circumstances, we’re talking about storage and the things you need to have in your garage so the generator, and when you do run that generator you know storm time you have to be smart about it you don’t want to run it in your home. You want it to be outside in a well-ventilated area. The pressure washer is a necessity because of the humidity and everything gets moldy.

6. Molds

You will know when it gets moldy and when you’ve got to pressure wash the driveway and the pool deck. It just kind of really depends also, you know, if you have a lot of shade coverage and it’s moist, you know that’s a perfect moldy breeding area. So that brings us to the next thing that you should know because we are mentioning mold, that there’s a lot of mold here in Florida because it’s humid and hot. If you combine the hot heat and humidity and even cool air, it can create mold and algae, specifically in the Northern exposure parts of your house where you’re not getting a lot of sun. So you’re just kind of moist on the Northern parts and that’s why you want to have a pressure washer because it will be a regular deal where you’re going to want to go out and pressure wash things. Maybe once every six months just to keep it clean and non-moldy but fresh looking. That’s a short one it does get moldy but uh if you have that pressure washer you’ll be able to take care of it it’s easy to keep up with and you know hey if you’re retired and you don’t want to pressure wash, hire it out there are tons of pressure washing companies. We’ve got a lot of service people that can do stuff like that.

6. Grass

So since we were talking about mowing the grass, I figured we can talk about the grass. Let’s do it right, so there are different types of grass here, mainly two types that are different: Bahia and Saint Augustine. Each one of them requires different levels of care. Tell us about it, Tonya, you know about this stuff. So Bahia is super low maintenance and very drought tolerant so you really don’t need to have a sprinkler system for Bahia. It will look like it dies off in the wintertime because we’re not getting much rain, it’s cold and all dry so it does look like it dies back, but it really comes back as soon as it gets rained on. It’s very hardy and then you have St Augustine which is thicker and more lush-looking grass. It’s a darker green and it’s really smooth and it’s kind of tight grass. It grows really tight, that’s a higher maintenance grass, it does require regular watering, and if you don’t keep it watered it will die and it doesn’t come back. It does spread but St Augustine is expensive so you really don’t want it to die. Yeah, I recommend if you’re going to have St Augustine that you have a working or an operable sprinkler system, preferably on a well. If you’re using county or city water your bill is going to be a little bit higher because you’re watering your grass with that water. If you have a well, then it’s just electricity and it doesn’t use the pump and it doesn’t use that much electricity totally so when you do purchase a home and you’ve got St Augustine grass make sure that it’s got a sprinkler system that works and if it doesn’t work you’re going to want to get that fixed right away or that grass is going to die.

7. Pest Control

Pest Control, while we’re on the subject of all these services and things that you have to do and grass you got to take care of, you know there are bugs. There are bugs in Florida, that’s no surprise and they’ll get into your house unless you have Pest Control. You can do this, again, this is one of those things you can do yourself. But you know before you know it, you’re gonna have a full-time job taking care of your house with all these services that you could hire out, and instead you could be out playing golf or being on the beach and have this stuff taken care of for you. Pest Control is another thing that you need to do because it’s like monthly or quarterly service and we’ve got cockroaches, ants, lots of ants, little crazy ants they run around, and they like sugar. You’re gonna have to put your things away in your house. Put a cover on your sugar. Wrap up your food cereal. Regular preventative maintenance really is your best bet for dealing with them, if you’re like doing damage control you might need to bug bomb the house. My grandparents used to do that all the time but you might have to hit it hard.

You might have to call the Professionals in if you’ve got ants and they might just need to really do a full extermination and treat the house. I’m not talking about tenting the house, that’s for termites and that’s a whole other ball game, that’s a whole different animal. It’s another ball of wax and that’s a serious deal and it can happen. There’s also termite prevention and I think we’ve talked about this in one of our last videos. Just because you have a concrete block home doesn’t mean you are exempt from getting termites. There are actually termites called super termites or something that will spit acid that eats through concrete. So there are bugs here in Florida as we’re at the point I’m trying to make not to freak you out because I truly haven’t encountered any of those termites but you know they do exist. So with the bugs, you just have to take care of them, just hire a service and you don’t worry about it. There are companies like Massey and Stark and Pelican, Sandpiper locally and they’ll give you warranties and guarantees that you won’t have any bug intrusion. I would recommend you just hire out because there are bugs.

8. Air Conditioning

Another actionable item or the higher-out item is the air conditioning service. Keeping with the service themes and the things that you need to have when you live in Florida so you’ve got to have an air conditioner. I mean unless you’re one of those people who can open the windows and they’re good with 85 degrees in their house. Most people are not so you’re going to be running that air conditioner most of the year. They’re only going to be a few times of the year when you just open up your windows and you let it all flow but even during the daytime, noon it gets a little bit warm even during the winter time so you’ll be running that air conditioner. It’s going to take a lot of work, it’s going to affect your electrical bill definitely and it’s going to need service. And you want to maintain that because it’s a key element of your home comfort.

There are some simple things that you can do to keep it running smoothly, there’s that little overflow drain, you want to pour a little vinegar in there periodically so that the mold and slime don’t build up. That’s a simple thing and I know the air conditioner guys get called out all the time for that. It’ll stop your air conditioner from working and it’s like a massive freakout session. It happened to us when you’re not at the house or you’re on vacation or something and the AC stops working and you’ve got someone staying at your house, taking care of your pets, sorry, Mom and Dad! Now, this is big for you guys too that are thinking about moving here and purchasing maybe an Airbnb, this is something you’re going to want to pay attention to all the serviceable items and air conditioning is going to be a big one you don’t want your guests or even your family who might be staying at the house to suffer a day without AC because it gets really hot and really humid inside your house quickly. So service your AC.

9. Plumbing

Let’s talk about plumbing and your pipes. If you buy a house it was built anywhere in the 80s or 90s more than likely it was built with copper pipes and copper pipes only last so long. The copper pipes have a reaction with the soil. I don’t know, they just deteriorate over time and they spring holes and you can have slab leaks. Most of these houses were built with the piping underneath the slab, then the concrete slabs poured on grade over top of all that stuff and so in these pipe busts the water will start to come up through your slab and it looks like your slab is seeping water and it will ruin your floors. It can ruin your cabinetry and your furniture so it can be a big deal. Your house will need to be re-piped, not only will you have insurance damage to your flooring and stuff but you’re gonna need to have your pipes redone. They usually will run it up through the Attic. They find the main manifold and they just basically cut all the pipes and then re-run everything up through the manifold, up through the wall, through the attic and you know through the manifold to your shower or toilet or whatever and that’s a pretty big expense. It’s actually so much easier than chipping up your concrete slab, wood, Tile, or carpet. This way they find the leak and re-plumb it.

If you buy a house that was built in the 80s or 90s you want to ask if the house has already been re-piped. If it hasn’t, don’t freak out but it is something to prepare for and plan. It just depends on your price range. There are plumbers and we know some great ones that know how to do this. They do this on a regular basis, you’re probably looking at anywhere between eight and twelve thousand dollars to have it re-piped so calculate that into your purchase and make sure that the home value is where you want it to be and just because one pipe leaks don’t assume that the entire house has been re-piped. Sometimes they just repair the one that’s leaking and that’s obviously going to cost you more cumulatively if you do it that way. Just get the whole thing done because it will eventually happen where you’re going to need the whole thing to get re-piped. Just think about that when you’re purchasing a home and whatever real estate agent you use should know this so make sure you ask this question and pay attention to what year the house is.

10. Roofs

Finally, we’re going to talk about roofs since we’re talking about things you have to pay attention to when purchasing a house. Pretty much the long and short of it is roofs are kind of an issue right now in the state of Florida. It’s hard to get insurance for a roof that’s 15 years or older, you’re gonna struggle either that or your insurance rates are going to be really expensive and insurance rates are going up right now. We’ve talked about this before several times in other videos so pay attention to it. It’s going to happen if you’re moving here from a high-tax state because now you’re going to be moving to a high-insurance state. So keep that in mind, we might have lower taxes than your state but most likely we’re going to have higher insurance rates and they’re not going to go down, keep that in mind. The roof is a big issue when it comes to that. We’re seeing a lot of roofs being replaced with standing seam metal roofs that are nice. You also want to have straps put on your roof, that’s going to be inside the Attic. So in your wind mitigation report that’s going to show whether or not you’ve got proper up-to-code straps that could cost you a few extra grand to get those installed, but it will impact your insurance rates.

11. Flood Zones

Finally, uh, flood zones. Well, it’s Florida people, it’s a flood zone. As we said, what’s the water table, three-five feet down depending on where you are? If you’re on a sand ridge, great, it’s like our equivalent of a mountain here in Florida. If you live in a flood zone you’re going to have to have flood insurance, it’s an extra add-on insurance policy you have to have if you’re going to get a loan. If you’ve got a mortgage you have to have flood insurance. If you live in a flood zone not everywhere is deemed a flood zone even though I just joke about that I mean it’s Florida it’s pretty much a flood zone. Most raw land is going to be designated a flood zone until it’s built up. Then you get an elevation certificate and that elevation certificate it’s going to determine whether or not your elevation is high enough to get you out of that flood zone. That’s if you’re building a new home. Most new builds generally are not going to be in a flood zone but it does depend on where you are. In Fellsmere, you’re going to be in a flood zone for most of that place and that’s why the homes are built up.

If you’ve never been here and you come here you’re going to notice that the homes are built upon like a berm, it’s lifted up and above ground level and that’s the reason why because we’re pretty much at sea level. If you want to live over on the Barrier Island, it’s considered a flood zone, fortunately, a lot of those places haven’t flooded. It’s extra insurance that you have to carry.

Also read: Four Things That Help Determine Your Mortgage Rate

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