We connect homeowners in Chattanooga, across Hamilton County and in Cleveland and Bradley County with independent local septic pumping, inspection and repair companies for free, no-obligation quotes.
Get a Free QuoteChattanooga has 185,783 residents, a 1976 median year built, 42.4% of its housing built before 1970 and 79,084 occupied units, 52.4% of them owner-occupied (ACS 2024 5-year). Most of the city drains to the Moccasin Bend Environmental Campus, which averages about 70 million gallons a day through more than 1,200 miles of pipe and 80 pump stations and also treats flow from nine jurisdictions outside the city limits, Collegedale among them. Outside the city, the Hamilton County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority (WWTA) runs sewer in the unincorporated county and in East Ridge, Lakesite, Lookout Mountain, Red Bank, Ridgeside, Signal Mountain and Soddy-Daisy, and reports “over 30,000 sewer customers.” Set against 154,181 occupied units countywide, that number shows how much of the county the WWTA lines do not reach, but it is not a septic count: WWTA customers are accounts rather than households, and Chattanooga’s own system serves most of the rest. In 2025 the unincorporated county was still described as “predominately” without sewers (WDEF). Chattanooga itself is covered on our home page.
Why this matters for septic: the valley floor east of the Tennessee River is limestone and shale residuum. NRCS describes the Talbott series as clayey residuum only 20 to 40 inches deep to bedrock with moderately slow permeability, and the Collegedale series, whose type location is in Hamilton County, as clay over limestone with the same moderately slow permeability. On Walden Ridge and Lookout Mountain the soils are thin over Pennsylvanian sandstone. Add rain: December through March brings about 19.6 inches (NOAA 1991–2020 normals, Lovell Field), and on August 12, 2025, 6.42 inches fell in a day, the second-wettest day since records began in 1879. Saturated clay is the common thread in local drain field trouble. Septic permits in Hamilton County come from the county’s Division of Groundwater Protection; in Bradley County they run through TDEC’s Chattanooga Environmental Field Office.
Each page covers local housing, sewer and soil facts, and what to ask before you hire. Population and housing figures on this page use ACS 2024 5-year data; Ooltewah and Hixson are ZIP code figures because neither is a city.
ZIP code 37363 holds 42,093 people and the county’s newest large housing stock: a 2003 median year built, 57.1% of units built in 2000 or later and 75.2% owner-occupied. Once the seat of James County, which went bankrupt in 1919 and was absorbed into Hamilton County, Ooltewah was the center of the 2018–19 WWTA tie-in moratorium, and Wolftever Creek reached 1,650 cubic feet per second there on August 12, 2025.
Ooltewah details →ZIP code 37343 has 45,101 people, a 1983 median year built and 76.0% owner-occupancy. Annexed Hixson sits on Chattanooga’s sewer system, while Middle Valley to the north (12,187 people, 1980 median year built, 49.0% of homes from 1970–1999) is WWTA or septic. North Chickamauga Creek runs through both, and the 1973 flood forced evacuations in the Valleybrook and Adams Road areas.
Hixson details →Formed in 1969 by merging Soddy and Daisy along US 27, the city has 13,231 residents, a 1989 median year built, 43.2% of its homes from 1970–1999 and 75.7% owner-occupancy. It sits at the eastern foot of Walden Ridge beside a Chickamauga Lake inlet, with WWTA sewer in town and the 37379 ZIP reaching far up the ridge to Mowbray and Flat Top Mountain.
Soddy-Daisy details →Home to Southern Adventist University (3,008 undergraduates, fall 2025) and McKee Foods, Collegedale has 11,330 residents, the newest housing in the set (2005 median year built, 60.1% built 2000 or later) and a 56.0% renter share. The city runs its own sewer system of 32.2 miles and about 1,200 customer accounts against 4,304 occupied units. The Collegedale soil series, clay over limestone, is named for a site on Tallant Road.
Collegedale details →At 1,703 feet on the south end of Walden Ridge, Signal Mountain has 8,860 residents, a 1977 median year built, 40.3% of its homes built before 1970 and 87.9% owner-occupancy. The town is on WWTA sewer, which is converting about 350 homes to grinder pumps in a $40 million program; the neighboring Town of Walden (1,845 residents) is not on WWTA’s list. Soils here are thin over sandstone.
Signal Mountain details →Along Highway 58 on Chickamauga Lake, Harrison has 8,011 residents and the densest 1970s–1990s housing in the set: 61.4% of units were built in those three decades, with a 1979 median year built and 69.7% owner-occupancy. The county seat from 1840 to 1870, much of the old town was flooded by Chickamauga Dam in 1940; about a fifth of the CDP is water, and Harrison Bay was Tennessee’s first state park.
Harrison details →Apison is the most rural page in the set: 4,271 residents, 93.4% of them in areas the Census classes as rural, a 1998 median year built, 47.8% of homes built in 2000 or later and 83.4% owner-occupancy. As of June 2020 there was no sewer line at the East Brainerd Road and Bill Jones Road corner, and the Apison Pike widening is reshaping the corridor. The community borders north Georgia.
Apison details →An unincorporated community on US 27 between Chattanooga and Dayton, Sale Creek has 2,955 residents, all classed as rural, with the highest owner-occupancy in the set at 87.2%. The 1991 median year built hides a 10.3% share of pre-1940 farmhouses alongside 1990s lake homes on the Sale Creek embayment of Chickamauga Lake, at the foot of Walden Ridge.
Sale Creek details →The one page outside Hamilton County: Cleveland has 48,829 residents, a 1983 median year built, 43.3% of homes from 1970–1999 and a 52.0% renter share driven partly by Lee University (3,714 students, fall 2024). Cleveland Utilities sends city sewage to a plant on the Hiwassee River, and Bradley County septic permits go through TDEC’s Chattanooga field office rather than a county office.
Cleveland details →The process is the same wherever you live. Send a short request describing the system and what you are seeing, and independent companies that work in your area contact you about a visit and a written quote. You pick who to hire, or nobody. Read how septic pumping works and see typical prices in the cost guide.
The permits are the same across Hamilton County too, so the questions on our about page apply in every community: the TDEC Septic Tank Pumping Contractor permit and county pumper license for pumping, the TDEC installer permit and county installer license for repairs, your own $40 repair permit from Hamilton County Groundwater Protection, and where the septage is taken. In Cleveland and the rest of Bradley County the state permits are the same, but the local office is TDEC’s Chattanooga Environmental Field Office. We cover Tennessee only; Georgia uses a different regulator and credential.
Not sure what you need? Start with the service pages: septic tank pumping, septic inspection, drain field repair, septic repair, grease trap pumping and emergency septic service.
Free, no-pressure quotes across Chattanooga, Ooltewah, Soddy-Daisy, Signal Mountain and Hamilton County.
