SepticRecord

Washington County

Septic services in Jonesborough, Tennessee

Operators based within 12 miles of Jonesborough

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.

AKR Rice

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

GCS, Inc.

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Heath Broyles

Verified against state license roster

Septic Installation · Septic System Repair

Website
none

Soil and septic suitability around Jonesborough

The USDA has already rated this ground for exactly one use: a septic tank absorption field. Within 4 miles of Jonesborough — 32,014 acres across 34 soil map units — it rates 57.2% of the land very limited for that use and 33.5% 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 Jonesborough the leading one is slope on 47.2% of the mapped area, followed by slow water movement on 24%. In full:

Limiting featureShare of areaWhat it means on site
Slope47.2%The ground is too steep for a conventional field
Slow water movement24%Water moves through the soil too slowly for a drain field to keep up
Depth to saturated zone8.7%A seasonal water table sits too close to the surface
Depth to bedrock8.2%Bedrock is too shallow to fit a trench above it
Flooding4.6%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 90.7%.

The soils themselves

The named soils and land types that make up most of the ground around Jonesborough. Dewey alone accounts for 46.7% of it.

Soil or land typeShareDrainageSlopeDepth to bedrockSeptic rating
Dewey46.7% Well drained 2 to 40% None in profile Somewhat limited
Collegedale14.5% Well drained 6 to 80% None in profile Very limited
Greendale5.4% Well drained 0 to 6% None in profile Somewhat limited
Montevallo5.3% Well drained 5 to 80% 18 in Very limited
Etowah5% Well drained 2 to 80% None in profile Somewhat 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

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 Jonesborough 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 Jonesborough (GNIS 1328594, 36.2943, -82.4735), 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: Washington County, Tennessee (2025-08-29). 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 Washington County

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