TL;DR
A perc test is the soil percolation evaluation that measures how quickly water drains through excavated holes at a proposed septic drainfield, expressed in minutes per inch of drop. Health departments use the rate, alongside soil profile observations, to approve the site and size the system — slow soils need bigger fields or engineered alternatives, and failing rates can render a lot unbuildable.
What it means
A perc test is the soil percolation evaluation that measures how quickly water drains through excavated holes at a proposed septic drainfield, expressed in minutes per inch of drop. Health departments use the rate, alongside soil profile observations, to approve the site and size the system — slow soils need bigger fields or engineered alternatives, and failing rates can render a lot unbuildable. Buyers of rural land routinely make purchase contingent on passing results.
Where it sits in the glossary
Perc test is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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