Outside town, most St. Joseph County homes are on a well and septic — inspect before you buy

Sturgis, Three Rivers, and the village centers have city water and sewer. Across most of St. Joseph County’s townships, though, homes run on a private well for drinking water and a septic system for waste. If you’re moving from a city, that’s a real change. The well and the septic are yours to maintain. A failed septic drain field can cost many thousands of dollars to replace.

Here’s the part worth knowing. Michigan has no single statewide code for residential septic systems — the rules are set county by county. And St. Joseph County doesn’t require a well or septic inspection when a home is sold, even though some Michigan counties do. The Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency does offer a well-and-septic evaluation made for home sales, and it keeps the permit records. But nobody checks these systems for you at closing. So make your own well-water test and septic inspection part of your offer. Don’t assume the system is sound.