How we research, write and check what we publish
Septic pages make claims about money, permits and public health. This is how we decide what a page may say, who writes it, and what happens when we are wrong.
Who writes and who reviews
Pages are written by the SepticMatch editorial team, and each one shows who wrote it, the date it was last reviewed and, where it quotes a price, the date the price is as of. We have not yet named an individual author.
A reviewer slot exists on every page. It stays hidden until a real, licensed reviewer has checked the page, and no page shows an invented reviewer name. Until then, no page on this site claims to be expert reviewed.
What counts as a source
Every number, rule, date, fee and program on a page traces to a government, university, standards body, utility or federal agency page, or to the company's own site. We do not cite third-party cost guides on a page and never show their figures as prices; they are inputs to the estimate model described under how we estimate costs.
Each source carries a confidence tier in our records. A fact read on the primary page is used freely. A fact we have only secondhand, or could not check against its own source page, is used only with the caveat written into the sentence, or left out. A fact we have no source for is left out, and the page says once that it is unconfirmed and whom to ask.
Where the numbers come from
| Number | Source type |
|---|---|
| Years between pumpings | University extension tables and federal guidance, cited by name on each page |
| Permit and evaluation fees | County and district health department fee schedules, with the year shown |
| What septic workers are paid | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, labeled as pay and not as a price |
| Population and housing age | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey five-year estimates |
| Repair and replacement ranges | Federal and state environmental agencies, labeled as national or undated where they are |
| Estimated ranges | A model built from published national ranges and the state's wage ratio to the US, labeled as an estimate |
How we estimate costs
The ranges on this site are estimates, not quotes. Each is a model: it takes one or two published national ranges for the job, adjusts them by the state's wage ratio to the US for the nearest federal occupation, and shows the result as an Estimated range row at the top of each cost table. Where a job has only one such range, the band is widened 15 percent each side. We add no permit or evaluation fee: the published county fee schedules appear in their own rows, as printed. A wage row is what workers are paid, not what customers are charged. The national ranges come from a third-party cost guide that we have not verified, which is an input and is not cited or shown as a price, and from federal and state government figures where they exist. We have not collected quotes from septic companies, and the few company prices we found were too few to call a range. Prices from septic companies will be added as we collect them, and each such row will say so. Always get written quotes.
The rules every page follows
- 1A fact we cannot source is left out. A fact we have only secondhand is used with its caveat.
- 2Prices are estimates and carry their date. We say plainly when we publish no estimate.
- 3No rankings, no reviews, no promised results, no invented counts of requests and no claim that any company is license-checked.
- 4Where a rule differs by county, the page names the county and the source, and says when a county's rule is unconfirmed.
- 5When a bill or rule is pending, we state its status and date and never predict an outcome.
Corrections
If something on this site is wrong, tell us which page, which number or rule, and what you saw instead, through the contact page. We check it against the source. If you are right we fix the page and write the date of the fix at the foot of it.
- EPA: Why Maintain Your Septic System Read Oct 19, 2026.