About Septic Inspections
Across Comal, Kendall, Hays, and the unincorporated stretches of Bexar and Travis counties, on-site sewage facilities are the norm rather than the exception. They are also the single most expensive thing on a rural property that a suburban inspection checklist has no line for. A failed drain field is not a repair, it is a replacement, and in Hill Country rock a replacement gets expensive quickly.
The inspection covers what can be seen and what can be tested. Tank location and lid access. Visible tank, riser, and lid condition. Pump, float, and alarm operation on aerobic systems, along with spray heads and their coverage. Drain field siting and the surface indicators that give a failing field away: standing effluent, odor, ground that stays soft, and the unmistakable strip of grass growing greener than everything around it. Fixtures are run to see how the system responds under load, and the distance between the field and any well, structure, or property line is noted.
A working aerobic system in Texas is also required to be under a maintenance contract, and whether that contract has actually been kept up is worth knowing before you own it. The inspection notes what the records show.
This is a visual and functional inspection performed under the optional systems section of the TREC Standards of Practice. A full TCEQ-licensed OSSF evaluation, a tank pump-out, and laboratory effluent testing are separate specialties. Where the system needs one, the report says so directly instead of leaving you to work it out later.
