SepticRecord

Cumberland County

Septic services in Pleasant Hill, Tennessee

Operators based within 12 miles of Pleasant Hill

Listed by where the business is, not by who it says it serves. Every operator here holds a current state permit, and the address it is placed by comes from the state's own published list — so this is a checkable claim rather than a service-area promise. A Tennessee installer permit is valid statewide, so operators further out can work here too; these are simply the ones closest to you.

Cox Backhoe

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

GERRY COX

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Lewis Neal

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Robert Foltx

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Roger Baker

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Roger Qualls

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Soil and septic suitability around Pleasant Hill

The USDA has already rated this ground for exactly one use: a septic tank absorption field. Within 4 miles of Pleasant Hill — 32,011 acres across 47 soil map units — it rates 94% of the land very limited for that use and 4.8% somewhat limited, and almost none with no limitation at all.

What the limitation actually is

A rating on its own tells you nothing you can act on. The reasons do, and around Pleasant Hill the leading one is depth to bedrock on 77.7% of the mapped area, followed by seepage, bottom layer on 70%. In full:

Limiting featureShare of areaWhat it means on site
Depth to bedrock77.7%Bedrock is too shallow to fit a trench above it
Seepage, bottom layer70%The layer beneath the trench is porous enough that effluent could reach groundwater without being filtered
Slope50%The ground is too steep for a conventional field
Slow water movement1.9%Water moves through the soil too slowly for a drain field to keep up
Flooding0.7%The site floods often enough to matter

Shares overlap: most soils here are limited for more than one reason at once, so these do not sum to 98.8%.

The soils themselves

The named soils and land types that make up most of the ground around Pleasant Hill. Lily alone accounts for 42.4% of it.

Soil or land typeShareDrainageSlopeDepth to bedrockSeptic rating
Lily42.4% Well drained 2 to 60% 27 in Very limited
Jefferson13% Well drained 5 to 60% None in profile Very limited
Ramsey12.9% Somewhat excessively drained 2 to 60% 16 in Very limited
Gilpin10.9% Well drained 2 to 60% 25 in Very limited
Shelocta10.5% Well drained 5 to 60% 50 in Very limited

“None in profile” means SSURGO records no bedrock or other restrictive layer within the depth it describes, not that none exists.

What that means if you are building or repairing here

Shallow bedrock

This is limestone country, and around Pleasant Hill the rock is close enough to the surface to be the governing constraint. A drain field is a shallow excavation: the trench has to sit in natural soil, with room beneath it for effluent to move down and be treated. Rock under the trench does not treat anything, and it cannot be solved by digging deeper or by blasting — breaking rock produces a hole, not a soil profile. What a shallow site usually means in practice is a shallow-placement or low-pressure pipe design, imported fill, or a field sited well away from the house on whatever part of the lot runs deepest — which is why a soil map is worth having before you decide where the house goes.

Karst, and why fast soil is not good soil

Part of the ground around Pleasant Hill is limited not because water moves too slowly but because it moves too freely: fractured limestone beneath the trench that carries effluent down to groundwater before the soil has treated it. Much of Tennessee's limestone country is karst — sinkholes, solution channels, springs — and a great many households here draw drinking water from private wells. A site that percolates beautifully can still be refused for exactly that reason, and the separation distances between a field, a sinkhole and a well are among the things a soil consultant is actually looking for.

Steep ground

A drain field has to be close to level. Effluent is distributed along a trench by gravity or by pump, and on a grade it runs to the low end, overloads it, and surfaces there. Around Pleasant Hill enough of the ground is steep that field placement tends to decide house placement rather than the other way round — the usable field area is often a bench or a shoulder some distance from the best building site, and the connection between them is a cost. It is worth knowing which part of a lot is the field before you fall in love with a view.

Area of interest: a 4-mile radius around the USGS Geographic Names centre point for Pleasant Hill (GNIS 1297846, 35.9765, -85.1939), chosen because five of this state's communities are unincorporated and have no boundary to use, and because the lots that need a septic permit are in the ring around a town rather than inside it. Soil from USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO interpretation “ENG - Septic Tank Absorption Fields”, area-weighted by mapped acreage and by each component's share of its map unit. Survey areas: Cumberland County, Tennessee (2025-09-02), White County Area and Van Buren County, Tennessee (2025-09-02), Putnam County and Parts of White County, Tennessee (2025-09-02). Retrieved 2026-09-09.

This is a survey, not a soil map for your lot. A permit needs a high-intensity map of the specific parcel, produced by a TDEC-approved soil consultant — see soil map vs perc test.

By service

Permitting in Cumberland County

Septic permitting in Cumberland County is administered by the State of Tennessee, not the county health department. See the Cumberland County detail →