SepticRecord

Morgan County

Septic services in Sunbright, Tennessee

Operators based within 12 miles of Sunbright

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.

gary seiber

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

RS Excavating

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Soil and septic suitability around Sunbright

The USDA has already rated this ground for exactly one use: a septic tank absorption field. Within 4 miles of Sunbright — 32,013 acres across 31 soil map units — it rates 96.2% of the land very limited for that use and 0.4% 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 Sunbright the leading one is depth to bedrock on 89.1% of the mapped area, followed by slope on 65%. In full:

Limiting featureShare of areaWhat it means on site
Depth to bedrock89.1%Bedrock is too shallow to fit a trench above it
Slope65%The ground is too steep for a conventional field
Seepage, bottom layer21.7%The layer beneath the trench is porous enough that effluent could reach groundwater without being filtered
Slow water movement5.3%Water moves through the soil too slowly for a drain field to keep up
Flooding3.5%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 96.6%.

The soils themselves

The named soils and land types that make up most of the ground around Sunbright. Gilpin alone accounts for 38.9% of it.

Soil or land typeShareDrainageSlopeDepth to bedrockSeptic rating
Gilpin38.9% Well drained 2 to 80% 25 in Very limited
Lily16.2% Well drained 2 to 80% 27 in Very limited
Wernock15.2% Well drained 2 to 12% 30 in Very limited
Petros14% Excessively drained 20 to 80% 16 in Very limited
Sequoia3.2% Well drained 2 to 80% 34 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 Sunbright 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.

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 Sunbright 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 Sunbright (GNIS 1652468, 36.2434, -84.6699), 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: Scott County Area, Tennessee (2025-09-02), Morgan County Area, 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 Morgan County

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