How to get a septic installer's license in Georgia

Georgia does not issue a septic installer's license through a licensing board. The Department of Public Health certifies you, and the certification is what makes the work legal.

The distinction matters when you go looking for it, because searching for a contractor license number gets you into the wrong system entirely. What you want is DPH Environmental Health, on-site sewage certification, under Chapter 511-3-1.

The short version

Pass the residential installer exam with at least 70 per cent. Submit your application. Be employed by a DPH-certified septic tank company that is in good standing and current on its fees. Renew every two years with continuing education.

That is the whole path. There is no apprenticeship requirement and no mandatory classroom hours before you sit the exam, which surprises people coming from states that require both.

Step one: study the manual

Everything on the exam comes out of the DPH Manual for On-Site Sewage Management Systems. It runs close to 290 pages, and it is free to download from the DPH site.

You do not need all of it. For the installer exam, the sections that matter are Section A on rules and regulations, Section D on pretreatment, Section E on effluent distribution and dosing devices, and Section F on dispersal. If you are also going to pump tanks, Section I covers removal and disposal.

Georgia does not require you to take a course first. Some people take one anyway, and a few schools in and around the state run installer training. Whether that is worth it depends on how much field time you already have. If you have spent five years on a crew setting tanks, the manual and a few evenings will get you there. If you have never seen a drain field trench, sit in a class.

Step two: pass the exams

You contact your County Environmental Health office to schedule. Bring the completed application with you to the exam.

The residential exam is the one that lets you install. Seventy points pass. Additional exams cover commercial systems, subsurface drip and mounds, so if you intend to install drip dispersal, you sit that exam too. Pumping septic tanks requires the separate pumper exam.

There is a $50 examination fee and a $100 certification fee for the individual, whether you are certifying as an installer or a pumper.

Step three: the company requirement

This is the part that catches people out.

An individual certification does not let you trade. You have to be employed by a DPH-certified septic tank company that has paid its fees, filed its documents and is in good standing. So you either join an existing certified company, or you certify your own.

Company certification runs $400 for installing, $400 for pumping, or $800 for both. Portable sanitation only is $300. Register a new company in an odd-numbered year, and the fee is prorated by half, which is a small thing worth knowing if you are choosing when to start.

Do not submit the company application or pay the company fee until you have passed the exam and you are actually ready to start operating. Once the certification clock starts, it runs.

State law also requires installers to file a bond with the probate court in the county where they do business. Check the current amount and the filing procedure with your county before you assume anything, because this one varies in how it gets handled locally.

Step four: renewals and continuing education

Company certifications expire on 28 February of even-numbered years and renew on a two-year cycle.

Continuing education runs eight hours per cycle, or six if you got certified in an odd-numbered year, and it has to come from an approved provider. The Georgia Onsite Wastewater Association runs courses around the state. North Georgia Technical College runs wastewater workshops. There are approved online options as well.

Renewing, you are attesting that neither you nor your employees have violated the onsite sewage rules during the renewal period, and that nobody has picked up a criminal conviction or pending charge related to on-site services. The company is held accountable for what its employees do.

If your certification lapsed less than two years ago, you renew without retesting. More than two years, you reapply and retest.

Certified in another state does not carry over. You certify in Georgia to work in Georgia.

If you are a homeowner reading this

You are probably here because you are trying to work out whether the person quoting your septic job is legitimate. Ask for their certification and the name of the certified company they work under, then confirm it with your County Environmental Health office. It takes one phone call.

An uncertified installer cannot pull your permit. Without a permit, there is no inspection, and without an inspection, you have an unpermitted system that will surface as a problem the day you try to sell.

Working in Middle Georgia

Area Solutions is a certified septic installer serving Baldwin, Putnam, Jones, Wilkinson and the surrounding counties, alongside grading, land clearing and site development.

If you need a system installed, repaired or evaluated,

call Owen at (478) 251-5800.