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How an Alabama Onsite Permit Actually Works

Nothing in this process is optional, and nothing in it is quick.

the Cullman County Health Department is the local health department that issues the permit and makes the site determinations, applying the rules the Alabama Department of Public Health writes for the whole state. The rules it applies are Alabama Administrative Code Chapter 420-3-1, administered by the Alabama Department of Public Health.

The permit process as a sequence of gates Each stage of the on-site sewage permit in order along a track, with the stages that legally stop work until they are cleared marked as gates. The permit track, in order APPLICATION TO THE COUNTY LHD SOIL + SITE EVAL BORINGS, NOT AUGERS ASHES CALL DEPTH TO SATURATION DESIGN + REDF FIELD AND RESERVE LHD REVIEW COUNTY HEALTH DEPT PERMIT ISSUED TO CONSTRUCT LICENSED INSTALL AOWB LICENSED INSPECTION BEFORE COVER APPROVAL YOU MAY USE IT A GATE. WORK MAY NOT LAWFULLY CONTINUE PAST IT UNTIL IT IS SIGNED OFF.
Nothing here is optional and nothing here is quick. The stages marked as gates are the ones that hold up a closing or a build, and every one of them is waiting on somebody else's calendar rather than on you.

The four things that go wrong

  1. The 300 ft sinkhole setback is the largest number in the Alabama table

    A field must be 300 ft from a cave, sinkhole or similar depression, and the tank 50 ft. On a karst lot that single rule can take more ground out of play than every other setback combined. A geologist can reduce it, but only with written documentation of a real geological investigation.

  2. Alabama makes you set aside a second field you will probably never use

    The REDF, or Replacement Effluent Disposal Field, is a defined and documented area kept separate from the working field in case it ever has to be replaced. It is real ground you cannot build on, pave or plant over, and on a tight lot it is often the constraint that decides what system you end up with.

  3. A power auger cannot be used for the soil evaluation

    The rules ban anything working on the Archimedes screw principle, because it destroys the soil structure the evaluator is there to judge. Borings are a minimum of three inches across and laid out in natural order; observation pits are at least three feet wide and sixty inches deep unless rock stops them.

  4. ASHES is the number the whole design hangs on

    Average Seasonal High Extended Saturation: a zone six inches or more thick that saturates in most years for twenty consecutive or thirty cumulative days. It is read off grey mottling at chroma 2 or less across two percent or more of the soil volume, and trench bottoms may not be installed below it.

  5. An older lot may get relief on the well setback

    The field normally has to sit 100 ft from a well or potable spring. For large-flow development lots recorded before 18 October 1978, and other lots established before 18 March 1982, that drops to 50 ft, with every effort still to be made to exceed it. If your lot is old, it is worth establishing exactly when it was recorded.

Who to contact

the Cullman County Health Department

Official guidance and forms

We are not affiliated with them. Verify anything on this page against their own current documents before you act on it.

Want somebody to handle the paperwork?

A licensed site evaluator has to answer that with a soil test; nobody can tell from a map. Send us your address and we will have local licensed pros quote the evaluation and the install. Request free quotes →

Last reviewed September 28, 2026 against the Cullman County Health Department and the Alabama Department of Public Health published rules. How we research this site.