Septic scope builder
Prepare one clear septic project request so every provider is responding to the same known facts, unresolved questions, and requested scope.
Why every fact carries a label
The single most useful thing you can hand a provider is not a list of symptoms — it is a list of symptoms where each item says how you know it. “I have seen standing water over the field” and “the permit says there is a distribution box” and “another company told me the drainfield has failed” are three completely different kinds of statement, and a provider who cannot tell them apart has to re-establish all three.
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| You observed this | Something you have seen at the property. A starting point for someone qualified to evaluate — not a finding about a component or a cause. |
| You know this from property records | Something a document tells you. That a record says it does not establish that it is still true of the system today. |
| Imported from your Ownership Record | Brought across from your own Ownership Record, at your choice. It carries the same standing it had there, and nothing more. |
| Reported by a source | Something a provider or other source told you. It stays attributed to them: SepticOwner has not verified it and neither adopts nor disputes it. |
| Unknown | Nobody has established this. Recording the gap is more useful to a provider than a guess. |
| Unresolved | Established enough to be in question but not settled. Unresolved is not the same as defective, and never becomes it. |
| For a provider to evaluate | Something you are asking a provider to look at. Asking is not a statement that anything is wrong, and it does not oblige anyone to perform it. |
| Needs clarification from a document or authority | Something only a document or the authority with jurisdiction can settle. |
The label travels onto the printed packet and stays with the fact. Something imported from the Second-Opinion Workspace arrives labelled reported by a source and keeps that label — it never quietly becomes something you established.
A selection is a question, not a specification
These are things you can ask a provider to address. They are not a required scope, not a specification, and not a design. Nothing here says a project needs excavation, engineering, a soil evaluation, a design, a permit, pumping or replacement — which of these apply depends on your property and on local requirements, and qualified providers and the relevant authority decide that, not SepticOwner.
This matters more than it sounds. A tidy list of ticked boxes looks exactly like a scope of work, and a homeowner who hands one over can find themselves having accidentally specified a project they do not understand. So every category on the packet is printed with a line saying what selecting it does not establish, and the words that would turn a request into a requirement are rejected by the packet’s own runtime guard.
The same applies to dependencies. Asking about excavation is not authorisation to excavate. Asking about a permit is not a statement that one applies. Asking whether an engineer is involved is not a determination that one is needed. Those are decided by qualified people and by the authority with jurisdiction — which is exactly why the packet asks rather than asserts.
Blank is never an accusation
When responses come back, some of what you asked for will not be addressed. That is normal: a provider may cover it separately, may not consider it relevant to your project, or may simply answer differently. It is not evidence of anything, and this tool will never describe it as an omission, a missing requirement or a red flag.
There is no universal checklist a proposal has to satisfy, and pretending otherwise would be the fastest way to make a homeowner distrust a perfectly reasonable provider. What the request gives you is consistency — the same questions to everyone — which is what makes answers comparable without anyone being scored.
Where this fits
- Second-opinion workspace — for understanding a recommendation you have already been given. Broad categories can be imported here at your choice, and stay labelled as source-reported.
- Ownership record — your permanent property history. Five broad categories can be imported; nothing is written back.
- Quote comparison worksheet — where the responses go once they arrive. Deliberately separate, and deliberately ephemeral.
- What should be in a septic work proposal — background on what providers usually put in writing.
- Questions to ask a septic contractor — the wider question set, before, during and after a visit.
- Septic permits and local rules — why permit questions belong with your local authority rather than here.
About this tool
Does this design my septic system or decide what work I need?
No, and it is built so that it cannot. It does not design anything, does not decide whether repair or replacement is needed, does not calculate capacity, and does not determine what your local authority requires. What it produces is a request — a list of what you know, where each fact came from, what is still open, and what you would like each provider to address.
If I tick a category, am I saying that work needs doing?
No. Every category is a conversation request, and every one carries a line saying what selecting it does not establish. Ticking "component replacement" records that you want replacement discussed. It does not record that replacement is needed, and nothing in the packet reads it that way.
Does it say a permit, an engineer or a soil evaluation is required?
Never. Those are listed as things that may need clarifying, with a note on who might be able to clarify them — usually the authority with jurisdiction. Requirements differ by state, by county and sometimes by parcel, and SepticOwner does not maintain them. An absent permit record is never treated as a violation.
What happens to facts I bring across from the Second-Opinion Workspace?
They stay labelled as reported by a source, permanently. That label travels onto the printed packet, so a provider reading it can see the difference between something you saw yourself, something a document says, and something another provider told you. SepticOwner has not verified any of it and does not adopt it.
Will it compare the proposals I get back?
That is the quote-comparison worksheet, which already exists and is deliberately separate. This tool prepares the request; that one records what each provider actually said, including the figures. Nothing is carried across automatically — the worksheet keeps nothing after you close it, which is the right behaviour for a page holding quoted prices.
Do I have to give my contact details?
No. You can build, save, review, print and delete a request without entering any contact information at all. If you later want help finding providers, that is a separate step at the end and you see the exact list of what would travel first — and depending on what you are asking for, the next useful conversation may be with an authority or a designer rather than a contractor.
Where is any of this stored?
In this browser, under its own key. Deleting a request here cannot touch your Ownership Record, your maintenance timeline, your document register, your second-opinion cases or the quote worksheet — they are separate keys and this tool holds no reference to them.