Ohio issues no state septic installer license. There is no state licensing board for this trade
to find: the word license does not attach to this trade anywhere in ORC chapter 3718 or OAC
chapter 3701-29. The rule titled for designers creates no credential either. What Ohio has instead is a register, issued by your local board of
health, and the rule states its own effect in terms — “only persons registered by the board of
health as an installer, septage hauler, or service provider shall perform the duties defined in”
its three definition paragraphs. The counter is the board of health of the health district where
the work is performed.
That counter is not a single errand, because registration is per board of health and per
category: installers, septage haulers and service providers
register “with the board of health for each category of work prior to performing the duties
defined in” those same paragraphs, and “A registration shall not be transferable and shall expire
at the end of the calendar year.” A crew that installs, services and pumps holds three
registrations in every district it works — one trade in three districts is three registrations,
three trades in three districts is nine. Note the noun the statute uses: “Board of health” means
“the board of health of a city or general health district”. A general health district is
county-based, a city health district is not, and neither of them is the county government, so an
Ohio reader sent to a county office has been sent to the wrong counter.
The duty does not reach everyone on the site, and the rule says who it leaves out rather than
leaving that to inference. The supervised employee is outside it: “Registration is not required of
any person who performs labor or services as an employee under the direct supervision of a
registered contractor.” Two trades are outside it — the rule exempts subcontractors who perform
electrical or plumbing work under contract for a registered installer, septage hauler or service
provider. And one class of property is outside it: the owner of a licensed campground who collects
and transports domestic septage within the campground premises, on conditions the rule states,
among them that the septage is not transported across or on a public roadway and that the
equipment is designed and maintained to prevent spills and is available for inspection by the
board of health. What those three carve-outs do not do is soften anything for the contractor who
holds the work: the rule puts three classes outside the registration duty, and the operator who
signs the contract is not one of them.
One component of the credential is statewide, and it is the financial one. The statute directs
that “The rules shall establish uniform statewide bonding requirements or other financial security
requirements for installers, service providers, and septage haulers as a condition of registration
within any health district.” It also forbids a board of health to require a different or additional
bond on top. So the bond or approved financial assurance travels; the registration does not. The
same rule also names a liability limit — “Proof of no less than five hundred thousand dollars
general liability insurance coverage.” at OAC 3701-29-03(C)(4) — and provides that where a
contractor holds several of the three registrations, that coverage answers for the multiple
categories. It is proof a board of health checks as a condition of registration: a
regulatory floor, not a recommendation. The bond amount
moves with the category and with how many systems the contractor does in a year, which is a table
in the rule rather than a number that belongs in a sentence.
The last structural fact is the local-stringency direction: in Ohio it is a floor, not a ceiling,
and a board of health may be more stringent than the state rule. Subject
to the director’s review and approval, “a board of health may adopt rules necessary for the public
health providing for more stringent standards than those established in rules adopted by the
director under division (A) of this section”. That means a
detail compliant under the state rule can lawfully fail in the next district over. Ohio also
credentials nobody for two of the judgments on the job — it has no designer credential and no
septic inspector certification of any kind — while ORC 3718.02(A)(6) requires a board of health to
“inspect a sewage treatment system not later than twelve months after its installation to ensure
that the system is operating properly.” Each absence is an exposure rather than a
convenience: the design exposure commonly sits on the registered installer who builds the system,
and a public body re-inspects the finished work inside a year.
Almost none of that is an insurance requirement; the general liability proof on the registration
is the rare case where licensing and coverage meet in one clause.
Everywhere else the
credential question and the coverage question are separate, and the sections below set out each
one with the authority it rests on, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
