Washington requires an inspection when a property on septic changes hands. In Gig Harbor that means a Report of System Status, usually shortened to RSS, issued by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. It is an inspection with all tanks pumped, followed by the department's sign-off. An RSS is valid for one year and cannot be renewed, so it is worth booking against your actual closing date rather than doing it well in advance.
We are a certified operation-and-maintenance firm in both King and Pierce County, so an inspection we carry out in Gig Harbor is one that can be filed. If it finds a problem, the technician who found it will set out your options and what each one costs before you decide anything, which is the part that matters when there is a closing date attached.
Sale inspections are filed with the county health department, so the record for Gig Harbor is close to a complete count rather than a sample. Between 2015 and 2025, 9,512 sale inspections were filed here and 13.4% of them found a problem. Across Pierce County, 15.0% of sale inspections filed between 2015 and 2025 found a problem. That puts Gig Harbor lower than the county as a whole.
| Sale inspections in Gig Harbor, 2015 to 2025 | Figure |
|---|---|
| Sale inspections filed | 9,512 |
| Found a problem | 13.4% |
| Could not be completed | 10.5% |
The second figure is about access rather than condition. 10.5% of sale inspections in Gig Harbor could not be completed, because a lid, a tank or part of the drainfield could not be reached and had to be recorded as not evaluated. That is low by regional standards, but it is still worth avoiding: across both counties, inspections that cannot see everything fail more than twice as often as ones that can.
Having the lids located and exposed before the inspector arrives is the simplest way to make sure the report reflects your whole system.
The single most useful thing a seller can do is book early. Of sale inspections that failed across the two counties, about a third were resolved within 30 days and the median took around eight weeks, which is longer than most closing windows. A problem found before you list is a repair. The same problem found once you are under contract is a negotiation, and sometimes a collapsed sale.
Call (253) 364-7416 to book a sale inspection in Gig Harbor, or to ask which report your address needs.
The full regional picture, including how long a failed inspection holds up a sale and which towns fare worst, is on our property sale inspections and RSS filings page. For everything else we do in Gig Harbor, see our Gig Harbor page.
A Gig Harbor homeowner trying us after being let down by their previous company. Routine pumping plus an O&M inspection: approximately 500 gallons from the trash tank, a gap found where the mainline enters it, and a two-amp fuse that blew again as soon as it was replaced — an electrical fault still to be traced.
A high-level alarm at a Gig Harbor property with the pump tank flooded. We pumped the pump tank and about 1,125 gallons from the septic tank, and the inspection found a pump that would not activate, an unsealed junction box, root intrusion and lid damage.
A camera inspection checked the drain field against the property's as-built drawing, confirming five lateral lines running almost to the fence. We opened the valves for even dispersal, pumped the tank and pump basin, and replaced the tank lids.
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