What a Colorado soil evaluation really costs
Nobody can quote “the” perc test price for Colorado honestly, because the modern evaluation is three separate line items — and two of them vary by county and terrain. Here’s the anatomy of the cost, so a quote makes sense when you get one.
The three line items
1. The excavator. Regulation 43’s baseline is two or more soil profile test pits — real trenches, dug to about 8 feet where conditions allow. That’s an excavator with an operator, priced by the hour plus travel. Remote parcels, steep access, and rock all move this number.
2. The evaluator. A professional engineer or county-recognized tester examines the pits, classifies the soil, and writes the report the county accepts. In Larimer this must be an engineer or someone under an engineer’s supervision; in El Paso, an EPCPH-designated competent technician. Engineering time is the professional-services component of the bill — and if your soils trip an engineered-design requirement (Larimer’s triggers include perc rates outside 5–60 minutes per inch, bedrock or groundwater within 4 feet, or slopes over 30%), design costs follow.
3. The county. Boards of health set their own fees for soil evaluations, percolation tests, and inspections — the regulations in Elbert and El Paso both say so explicitly, and the numbers live in each county’s current fee schedule, not the regulation. One documented example of how county practice moves your bill: Larimer inspects open test pits during the permit application at no extra charge — but if the pits were filled before you applied, a separate site evaluation with its own fee is required. The same dig, done in the wrong order, costs more.
What moves the total
- Access and terrain — the excavator’s hours are the swing factor.
- Season — Summit County generally issues no OWTS permits October–May; a winter deadline can force spring scheduling premiums or a redesign around assumed-high groundwater.
- Doing it twice — backfilling pits before the county looks, or using a tester the county won’t recognize, buys the same evaluation twice. The open-pit and who-may-perform rules on your county page are the cheapest reading you’ll do all build.
- A poor result — a limiting layer doesn’t usually mean unbuildable; it means an engineered system, which is a design-and-install cost question, not a testing one.
Getting a real number
The honest path to a price is one call to an evaluator who works your county: they know their excavator’s rates, the county’s current fees, and whether your soils look like standard or engineered territory from the soil survey before anyone digs. The form below sends your parcel’s details to exactly that kind of local professional.