What to know about well and septic in Dickinson County

Once you leave Iron Mountain, Kingsford, and Norway, most of Dickinson County runs on private wells and septic systems. Municipal water and sewer don’t reach far out here. If you’re buying a home out in the townships, that’s something to look into before you sign.

Michigan has no single statewide code for residential septic systems. Instead, the rules are left to local health departments. Here, that’s the Dickinson-Iron District Health Department. It issues the permits for installing or replacing a septic system from its office in Kingsford. It works under an environmental health code shared across much of the Upper Peninsula. The department does not require a septic inspection when a property changes hands. Some Michigan communities do, but Dickinson County is not one of them. What it does offer is what it calls a mortgage evaluation: an inspection of the well and septic that some home loan programs require. You can request one through the department.

For a buyer, that means one simple thing: unless your lender insists, no one is going to check the septic system for you automatically. It’s well worth arranging your own inspection of the well and septic before closing — through the health department or a private inspector. That goes double on an older or seasonal property. You want to know what you’re getting before the money changes hands.