Verified as of September 16, 2026. We re-check these pages quarterly.
The rule
Florida requires an aerobic treatment unit to be under an active maintenance contract with an approved maintenance provider for the life of the system. Not for the warranty period, not until it settles down. For the life of the system. The operating permit and the service records sit behind that contract, and both are things a buyer's inspector will ask to see.
What the contract actually covers
- Scheduled service visits and the records that prove they happened
- Blower and air pump diagnosis, and replacement when they reach the end of their life
- Alarm response — a sounding or blinking alarm on these units almost always means the air has stopped
- The sampling and reporting the permit requires
What it does not cover
Pumping. This is the single most common misunderstanding about aerobic units. The maintenance visit is not a pump-out. Solids still accumulate in the tank exactly as they do in a conventional system, and they still have to be removed on a schedule. A unit that has never been pumped because "it is on a contract" is a unit that will eventually push solids where they do not belong.
Whatever the alarm is telling you, if you ignore it. When the blower stops, treatment reverts toward anaerobic within days. The system keeps flowing, the house works, and nothing outward changes — which is precisely why people leave it. Inside a priority focus area you are then running a conventional system on a permit that says otherwise.
What it costs to live with
Three numbers to budget against, all of them for this county:
- Pumping, same as any tank: $300–$550 for a standard 1,000-gallon tank
- Aerobic inspection: $350–$600, against $175–$550 for a conventional inspection
- The maintenance contract itself, quoted by the provider who holds it
We do not publish a figure for the contract, because it varies by provider, by unit and by what the permit demands, and a made-up range would be worse than no range at all. Ask for it as a number before you buy the machine, not after.
A worked example
A house inside the DeLeon Springs priority focus area upgrades to an aerobic unit quoted at $17,000, with the county grant taking $14,000 off and leaving $3,000 plus permit fees. That is the number everybody remembers.
The number to remember alongside it: from that day forward the property carries a maintenance contract, an operating permit, a pump-out at $300–$550 on the same schedule as before, and an aerobic inspection at $350–$600 whenever one is required — a sale, a refinance, or the permit cycle. None of that is a reason to avoid the upgrade. It is a reason to ask the biofilter question first, because a biofilter has no blower and no contract. See ATU or in-ground biofilter.
If you have inherited one
Find out who has been servicing it and when the blower was last replaced. Blowers do not last the life of the house. If nobody can tell you, assume the contract has lapsed, get the unit inspected, and get the records reconstructed before you need them for a sale.
Verified as of September 16, 2026. We re-check these pages quarterly. The maintenance-contract requirement is state law and has been stable; the inspection ranges are local market figures and move with demand, which in this county is rising. Confirm current availability before counting on a number.
All work is performed by local licensed, permitted Florida-registered septic tank contractors.