Jackson County, NC's soil, for a septic absorption field

Very limited

95.4% of Jackson County, NC's surveyed soil comes back "Very limited" in USDA's own SSURGO data, the county's dominant condition for a septic absorption field. A standard gravity system routinely fails on ground like this; the same share of the county falls in USDA's worst absorption-field bucket outright. Jackson County covers 491.137 square miles and counts 45,281 residents.

This is a county figure, not a parcel figure

Nothing about Jackson County, NC's SSURGO figure applies to a specific address - it's a county-wide average. A site-specific perc test, usually $750-$1,850, is what a health department will actually require before permitting a lot in Jackson County.

System cost, conventional vs. engineered

Given Jackson County's rating, plan for the engineered-system range rather than the conventional one. The engineered-system range, $10,000-$40,000 (mound or aerobic treatment), is the more realistic number to plan around, against $3,000-$8,000 for a conventional system on the rare lot that passes.

How Jackson County, NC compares

Nationally, Jackson County, NC is the 609-most-constrained of 3,058 rated counties for septic soil. Within North Carolina alone it ranks 4 of 97.

Before you act on this

How this rating is built, and its real limits · Conventional vs. engineered septic systems