What Lenoir County, NC's soil rates for a septic system

Very limited

78.2% of Lenoir 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. Lenoir County covers 399.087 square miles and counts 55,332 residents.

This is a county figure, not a parcel figure

Nothing about Lenoir 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 Lenoir County.

System cost, conventional vs. engineered

Given Lenoir 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.

Lenoir County's rank among North Carolina counties

Nationally, Lenoir County, NC is the 2,128-most-constrained of 3,058 rated counties for septic soil. Within North Carolina alone it ranks 41 of 97.

Before you act on this

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