Peterborough Septic System: Installation, Permits and Costs (2026)

Peterborough septic system permits: who actually signs off now

If you read an older article that says Peterborough Public Health handles septic permits, it was right for about 40 years. It is not right anymore, and sending your application to the wrong office is a slow way to start a job.

In 2024 Peterborough Public Health handed its sewage system program to the local municipalities. Selwyn, Cavan Monaghan, Otonabee-South Monaghan and Trent Lakes took over new applications on April 1, 2024. Asphodel-Norwood, Havelock-Belmont-Methuen and the City of Peterborough took over in November 2024. Douro-Dummer and North Kawartha already ran their own programs, so nothing changed there. (Selwyn Township notice)

So the rule of thumb for any Peterborough septic system is simple: your septic permit now comes from the same building department that issues your house permit. If you pay your taxes to it, you apply to it.

This page covers Peterborough County and the City’s rural edge only. If your property is in the City of Kawartha Lakes (Lindsay, Bobcaygeon, Fenelon Falls, Omemee and the rest), that is a different authority with its own rules. Read our Kawartha Lakes septic guide instead. Systems over 10,000 litres a day are a different animal too: those go to the province (MECP) for an Environmental Compliance Approval, not the township.

Septic permits in Peterborough County: who reviews your application

A township building official reviews it, usually the Chief Building Official or a sewage system inspector. They check it. They don’t draw it for you. Otonabee-South Monaghan’s guide says it plainly: "A building inspector will not design a sewage system." The design comes from you (as the owner, on your own property), a qualified designer, an installer with design qualifications, or an engineer.

What stalls files is almost never a bad bed. It’s a missing page. Selwyn and Otonabee-South Monaghan publish nearly identical checklists, and the other townships ask for the same things under different names. A complete application contains:

What the ground is like around Peterborough

Peterborough County is really two countries with a chain of lakes down the middle, and your septic bill depends on which one you’re standing in.

South and centre: drumlins and till

Most of the county around the city sits in the Peterborough Drumlin Field: long glacial hills, steep on one end, that all point south-southwest. They are made of till, which is the glacier’s leftovers, soil and rock mixed together and dragged down from the north. Limestone sits underneath.

Till is honest about one thing only: it changes. One drumlin back drains nicely and takes a conventional bed. The low ground between two drumlins can sit wet every spring. It is normal for two test holes 30 metres apart to look like they came from different townships.

North: the Shield

Stony Lake straddles the boundary between the Canadian Shield and the lowlands. North of that line, through most of North Kawartha, northern Trent Lakes and parts of Havelock-Belmont-Methuen, you get granite with pockets of thin soil. When the test hole hits rock at two feet, the bed has to be built up on imported sand instead of dug down into native soil. Our shallow bedrock guide explains why.

The lakes

Chemong, Buckhorn, Stony, Lovesick, the Otonabee River and the north shore of Rice Lake hold a lot of small, old cottage lots with systems nobody has looked at in decades. If you’re on the south shore of Rice Lake, you’re in Northumberland County; see our Northumberland septic page.

Before you pay anybody, do this:

1. Walk the bed area in April, not August. Standing water and squishy grass in spring tell you more than a dry summer ever will.
2. Have the test holes dug where the bed will actually go, not wherever the excavator happened to park.
3. Find every well within 30 metres, including the neighbours’. Unknown wells are the most common surprise on small lots.
4. Ask the township for any old permit file on your property. It may show the original bed location and soil.

What systems get built here

There is no Peterborough standard system. Your test holes and your lot size decide. That said, the patterns are pretty steady:

The difference between a conventional bed and a raised bed is mostly trucks of sand. If you want the long version, read raised bed vs conventional.

What a Peterborough septic system costs in 2026

Here are the ranges we use for planning. They are not quotes. A Shield lot with water access only will beat the top of these numbers without trying.

What pushes Peterborough jobs up: trucking sand a long way up north, grading on a drumlin slope, removing trees on a treed cottage lot, and water-only access (a barge is not cheap, and neither is waiting for the lake to calm down). What brings them down: a clean test hole, room for the bed, and a design every quoting installer prices the same way.

Waterfront lots: conservation authorities, Parks Canada and inspections

On a lake lot the township is not the only office with a say. Three conservation authorities cover Peterborough County. Otonabee Conservation covers the central Otonabee River watershed. Kawartha Conservation counts Trent Lakes and Cavan Monaghan among its members. Crowe Valley covers Havelock-Belmont-Methuen and North Kawartha. If you work in or near a lake, stream, wetland or floodplain, you may need their permit under Ontario Regulation 41/24 as well. (Otonabee Conservation permits)

The Trent-Severn Waterway adds a twist. Below what Otonabee Conservation calls the Upper Controlled Navigation Limit, in-water and shoreline permits belong to Parks Canada, not the conservation authority. Ask both offices before you book a machine.

The Building Code floor is 15 metres from a lake, river or stream to the tank and to the distribution pipe, 15 metres from a well with a watertight casing at least 6 metres deep, and 30 metres from any other well. Zoning can ask for more. Our waterfront septic guide covers how that plays out on a 50-foot lot.

How to pick an installer around Peterborough

The installer signs Schedule 2 on your application, so pick one before you file, not after. A good one will also tell you, politely, when your bed location is a bad idea.

1. Ask for their BCIN registration and the name of the qualified person on the job. Here is what licensed means in Ontario.
2. Ask how many systems they put in in your township in the last two years. Local installers know the inspector and the soil.
3. Get two or three prices on the same design. Quotes on different designs can’t be compared, which is why they look so far apart.
4. Check what each quote includes: permit, design, test holes, decommissioning the old tank, sand, final grading, topsoil and seed.
5. Ask who books the inspections. The township wants to see the bed open before backfill, and a covered bed that missed its inspection gets uncovered.
6. Don’t hand over a big deposit before the permit is issued.

Sources: Selwyn Township, PPH program transfer; PTBOCanada, transfer timeline; Selwyn sewage system guide; Otonabee-South Monaghan septic forms; Douro-Dummer sewage permits; Havelock-Belmont-Methuen; North Kawartha; Trent Lakes; City of Peterborough; Otonabee Conservation; OBC Table 8.2.1.6.