So, OP - I worked for the Engineering department of the municipality I lived in up north. I'm not an engineer, but I was responsible for understanding terminology, signing off on building permits, checking fema maps, scheduling site inspections, checking photographs and CAD drawings and property renderings. I also worked for an architect for a year, and had to read the spec book and extract appropriate paragraphs from it to write specs for each project.
First and foremost, Florida is basically a huge mound of sand sitting on limestone. It is not a stable chunk of land. Think of it as an island that just hasn't yet broken off the mainland, but probably will some time within the next 10,000 years.
This is why rare and few homes have basements here. They'd collapse, because there's nothing solid surrounding them or beneath them. You're more likely to hit water before you get deep enough to pour a cement foundation in a basement in most of Florida.
The developers know this. The companies that lay sewer and irrigation pipe know this. The town and county engineers know this, and the architects know this. But they make GOOD money building. They are ALL making bank. The only people who lose out, are the homeowners. And who cares about them right? They already bought the property, they're locked into the responsibility.
Up north, we have EXTREMES of weather. Sub-zero temps and post-100 heat waves, brush fires and mirage-creating humidity. Flooding and multi-foot blizzards and ice and ice-melts. The ground is tortured seasonally up there. And yet - the pipes manage just fine for decades. The house I lived in growing up was on a street that flooded once. It was a weather issue - non-stop torrential rain for several days. People were paddling canoes down the street mostly for fun, since the schools were closed that week due to extreme weather. And yet - for over 50 years, the pipes didn't have to be replaced or repaired once.
Down here, if a gator sneezes three times in a row, somewhere in The Villages, a pipe will fail. Florida isn't THAT new of a state. It's been around for over 150 years. It's had a few minutes to figure stuff out. It has chosen not to.
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