About
Why this site exists
Most septic information online is written to capture a lead, not to answer a question. We wanted the version that just answers the question.
The problem
Search for what size septic tank you need and you will find a dozen pages telling you "1,000 gallons for three bedrooms" with no mention of which state that applies to. In Ohio it is 1,500. In Massachusetts it is 1,500. In Tennessee the code floor is 900. The advice is not wrong exactly — it is just not about you.
Search for what a septic system costs and you get a range so wide it is useless, usually followed by a form. The form is the point.
What we built instead
7 calculators that run instantly, in your browser, with nothing to fill in first — and every one of them answers with a real number before a single line of JavaScript has run. 50 state pages built by reading each state's own code and citing it. 13 guides written for someone who has just been told they need a new system and does not know what any of the words mean. 8 pages pricing the individual jobs, and 8 organised by symptom, because that is how people actually arrive.
Every calculator shows its working: which rule governs, what design flow it used, what loading rate it assumed. That matters because the point of knowing your numbers is being able to use them — to check a quote, to ask a contractor a real question, to know whether a bid that is $8,000 cheaper is a bargain or a smaller system.
Who it is for
- Homeowners facing a failed system and a set of quotes they cannot compare.
- Buyers looking at a rural property and trying to work out what they are taking on.
- People building who have just learned their lot does not have sewer.
- Anyone who has been handed a soil report and does not know what a loading rate is.
How we stay independent
We do not sell tanks, systems, or installation. We do not take contractor referral fees and we do not run a lead marketplace. Nothing on this site is gated behind an email address.
That independence is the whole product. The moment a page's recommendation is shaped by who pays for the click, the numbers stop being useful.
Accuracy and limits
All 50 states were researched against primary sources, and every state page lists the documents it was built from with the date they were checked. Where a state publishes its tables only as a scanned image we could not read, the page says so rather than filling the gap with a plausible guess.
Codes change. County rules are frequently stricter than state rules. A site evaluation can change every number on a page. Treat this as a well-sourced starting point, not as a permit.
Found something wrong?
If a figure here does not match what your health department told you, they are right and we want to know. Get in touch.