Routine
- Septic tank pumping — every 3–5 years; $300–$550 for a standard 1,000-gallon tank
- Septic tank cleaning — for a tank five years past its last visit, where a pump-out alone leaves the compacted layer in place
- Septic inspections — $175–$550; ATU inspections $350–$600, same-day report — and the quickest way to learn which rule applies to the property
- Tank locating & risers — a fixed price, quoted up front — worth it on any lot where the cover has not been seen this decade
Repair & replace
- Drain field repair — soggy yard, slow drains, gurgling — diagnosed before anyone pulls a construction permit
- Drain field replacement — $5,000–$15,000; mound or elevated fields at the top of that range, unless the lot is an acre or less inside DeLeon, Volusia Blue or Gemini, where replacement means nitrogen-reducing
- New septic system installation — priced per site; new systems in the lagoon area have been nitrogen-reducing since January 1, 2024
- Aerobic treatment unit (ATU) service — $10,000–$20,000 installed, before any grant, with up to $14,000 back inside the DeLeon Springs priority focus area
Right now
- Emergency septic service — backups, overflows and sewage in the yard — wet-season calls run June to October on the southeast side
- Commercial & lift stations — restaurant grease traps, and the lift stations that serve them
On the west side, the repair permit is the replacement permit
Since June 27, 2025, any construction permit to repair, modify or replace an existing septic system inside the DeLeon, Volusia Blue or Gemini springs priority focus areas — on a lot of one acre or less — requires a system achieving at least 65 percent nitrogen reduction, unless a sewer connection is already planned and funded for the property. That is not a deadline you can plan around. It fires the moment a permit is pulled. The Volusia Blue priority focus area covers about 44,000 acres and reaches DeLand, Orange City, Deltona and DeBary; the DeLeon area covers about 24,000 acres and reaches DeLeon Springs and Glenwood. Check whether your address sits inside one.
In practice a $5,000–$15,000; mound or elevated fields at the top of that range job becomes a $10,000–$20,000 installed, before any grant job on the strength of a parcel boundary and a lot size. Inside the DeLeon Springs priority focus area the county's Septic Upgrade Incentive Program pays up to $14,000 toward a nitrogen-reducing aerobic treatment unit, or up to $8,000 toward an in-ground nitrogen-reducing biofilter. How a repair turns into an upgrade, which unit the grant favors, and the DeLeon Springs grant itself.
On the southeast side, it is a date
Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach and Oak Hill sit in the Mosquito Lagoon and North Indian River Lagoon areas, where every property with an existing system must connect to sewer if available or reach 65 percent nitrogen reduction by July 1, 2030. New systems inside that area have had to be nitrogen-reducing since January 1, 2024 regardless of lot size, and the county has ranked the canal subdivisions in Edgewater and Oak Hill as high priority for sewer retrofit in its own septic system reduction plan. Am I in the lagoon area? and the Edgewater canal neighborhoods.
Sand is the reason for both rules
West Volusia is sand over the Floridan aquifer, and DeLeon, Blue and Gemini are that aquifer returning to the surface. What a drain field releases into sand does not stay where it was released, which is why the state wrote rules around the springs rather than around a county line. On the southeast side the same sand sits over a water table that climbs from June to October, thinning the dry soil beneath a field until it stops accepting water. Both halves of the county arrive at the same question: what your system releases, and whether it is allowed to.
Not sure which rule reaches you? Send the street and we will tell you before anything is quoted.