The ground and the houses
Black clay, long yard lines and septic fields east of Georgetown
A railroad town that turned into a small city with acreage all around it.
Weir grew up around the rails. The Georgetown and Granger line came through in 1893, the Katy bought it in 1903, and the town was laid out that year. It only incorporated as a city in 1987, and the census count rose from 450 in 2010 to 699 in 2020.
Under nearly every house is Blackland Prairie clay, the shrink-swell soil that covers the county east of I-35. It swells after a wet spring and cracks open in August. A plastic service line buried in it gets pushed and pulled every season, and old glued joints and couplings are usually where it gives up.
Acreage homes out here commonly drain to an on-site septic system, so every toilet, tub and sink feeds a tank and a drain field in the yard. Newer subdivisions filling in toward the San Gabriel River add slab homes with builder-grade water heaters, and a tank heater typically lasts about 10 to 15 years.
Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 showed where rural plumbing is exposed. Think risers at the meter box, hose bibs on north walls and lines to barns. Those are still the first places to wrap before a hard freeze.
Local knowledge
From FM 971 to FM 1105: who handles what around Weir
Roads, rules and the jobs we see most on this side of the county.
FM 971 is the spine. TxDOT runs it from the north side of Georgetown east through town and on to SH 95 at Granger, and FM 1105 heads north toward Walburg. The San Gabriel River runs close by, and a 1913 flood wrecked the old Katy lake resort at Towns' Mill Dam.
Septic systems answer to the county rather than the city. The Williamson County Engineer's Office runs the on-site sewage facility program under TCEQ rules and takes applications online. A new or altered system needs its authorization to construct first.
The calls we get here follow the land. A soggy strip across the pasture from a leaking yard line. A drain that seems clogged but is really a full septic tank. A first water-heater swap in a 2000s house, or a new bath in a converted shop. Any trench starts with a Texas 811 locate request two business days ahead.
