Where do I get a perc test in Carroll County?

The address is the Carroll County Health Department, 605-15 Pine Street, Hillsville, VA 24343, phone (276) 730-3180. It carries the county's name, but it is part of the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), and that is the first thing to get straight.

Office

Carroll County Health Department

Address

605-15 Pine Street, Hillsville, VA 24343

Phone

(276) 730-3180

Part of

VDH's Mount Rogers Health District, whose offices also include the Galax City, Grayson County and Wythe County health departments

Its role

Takes the application, reviews the private sector soil work and design, and acts on the request

Sewage disposal construction permits are issued by the State Health Commissioner, but every request goes first to the district or local health department, which implements and enforces the regulations. In Carroll County that local office is on Pine Street, and the county's own land offices, with their numbers, are listed on the Hillsville page. Call the number above before driving over with paperwork.

The health department on Pine Street reviews soil work. Outside a narrow petition route, it does not perform it.

Beginning August 11, 2019, every application for an onsite sewage system or a private well has had to be accompanied by supporting work from a private sector consultant licensed through the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation (DPOR). VDH offers evaluation and design services only to owners who petition and meet its means test or its hardship guidelines. The Mount Rogers Health District says designs are submitted by the private sector for its staff to review in all its localities except Wythe and Smyth Counties, where it provides direct design services, and that it is a provider of last resort everywhere. Carroll County is on the private sector side of that line; the Wythe County side is covered on the Austinville page.

• A licensed onsite soil evaluator is authorized to evaluate soils and soil properties as locations for onsite sewage systems, and VDH accepts private evaluations for septic permit applications only from licensed onsite soil evaluators.
• VDH does not endorse or recommend any septic or well service provider, and it points owners to the DPOR website to search licensed onsite soil evaluators, engineers, installers and well drillers.

Who places the order, whose signature goes on the application and who pays are separate questions, answered under who orders the perc test, buyer or seller.

The same office handles a subdivision, but the county's own ordinance adds a requirement of its own.

Carroll County's subdivision ordinance, in the April 14, 2014 text posted on the county's site, requires developers to use an authorized onsite soil evaluator for each lot's soil evaluation, layout and sewage design. It also gives each drainfield a septic reserve area equal to 50 percent of the drainfield, on which no structure may be built. So a tract headed for division is not one perc test; it is one soil evaluation and one sewage design per lot. That ordinance covers land outside the incorporated towns; a division inside the Hillsville town limits goes through the Town's own subdivision rules.

Land across a county line goes to a different office entirely. Which health district and which planning office answer for each of the other counties and the City of Galax is set out on the six counties and the City of Galax.