Hillsborough County publishes a checklist for a residential demolition permit. It requires a recorded notice of commencement, a site plan drawn to scale, sign-offs from Tampa Electric, the county water utility, the gas provider, and the phone data provider.
The Septic System Is a Permit, and It Is Not the Building Department's
Florida rewrote its onsite sewage rules in June 2026, and abandoning a system now runs through a permit. The technical standard is a state rule; the permit is issued locally, and in Hillsborough County that means the county health department, on (813) 307-8059.
What the rule asks for
In outline, and the detail can move: the tank is pumped out by a permitted septage company, which issues a receipt. The tank is then opened, ruptured or collapsed so it can no longer hold water, filled with clean sand or other suitable material and covered with soil. Where it cannot be ruptured, flowable fill goes in instead. The alternative is to dig the tank out and scrap it.
Who is allowed to do it
The work belongs to a registered septic tank contractor, a master septic tank contractor, or a licensed plumber. Whether an owner may do it themselves on their own occupied property is a question for the health department, and the answer has moved with the rule. Polk Services is none of those trades, and Donny says so at the estimate.
What a demolition contractor actually contributes here
Knowing the step exists, raising it before you have a date, and keeping the machine off a tank whose lid is forty-year-old concrete somewhere under the grass. Where the tank sits is a question Donny asks on the walk, and where nobody knows, that is worth settling before anything heavy crosses the yard.
And the limit of what this page will claim
The state rule's own trigger language is written around connecting to a sewer or replacing one tank with another, so a site abandoned outright after a demolition is not squarely one of the two cases it names. What is clear is that the county's demolition packet sends you to the health department and the state governs the method once you are there. Ask them what applies to your parcel.
The Well Is the Stricter of the Two, and Most People Do Not Expect That
A private well on Lithia acreage is regulated by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and its rules are stricter than the septic rules in three ways.
Three counties in the District have local agencies that issue these permits instead, and Hillsborough is not among them. So a Lithia well abandonment requires a District permit, a District form, and a licensed water well contractor, and none of them run through the office that handles the septic.
Lithia also lies within the District's Southern Water Use Caution Area, which is why the District monitors groundwater here as closely as it does.
Six Questions From the CR-39 Corridor
Do I need a permit just to knock down an old trailer on my own land?
The unit is from the sixties. Does that change anything?
Is there an asbestos notification?
Who takes the power down?
The title is still in my father's name. Does that stop the demolition?
Where does the debris actually go?
Priced Off the Parcel, Because Acreage Is Not a Driveway
In scope: the structure, the additions and porches built onto it, the skirting, the steps, the tie-down anchors, the pad and piers, and the debris off the site. Routed elsewhere: the septic, the well, the service disconnection, and anything at house-built scale.
What moves the number on acreage
The length and surface of the drive, because a loaded trailer has to make the same trip the machine did. Whether the ground will carry a full-size machine or wants the smaller one. How much of the structure is original and how much was added later, since additions are usually stick-built and separate out differently. And whether the pad and piers come out or stay for whatever goes there next.
Quoted per project, on site, as a written number covering labor, equipment, and disposal. Hauling by volume starts at a $300 minimum for the first four cubic yards; heavy material such as concrete carries a $500 minimum for the same volume; machine work runs at $300 for the first hour or two and $100 an hour after.
The Polk Services Standard on every demolition
Donny walks the job with you before he leaves, rakes the work area clean before he drives off, texts you 30 minutes before arrival, and gives you both a verbal and a written quote up front. No sub-crews, no surprise pricing, and the site left ready for whatever comes next.
Payment and scheduling
Cash, check, card, and electronic payment accepted. No processing fee on cash or check; Donny states the card fee when he quotes. Donny books the machine once the permits are in hand, so the site is not opened up and then left waiting.
Four Offices, and Only One of Them Is the Building Department
Tampa Electric for the service. The county health department for the septic. The water management district for the well. Hillsborough Development Services for the demolition permit itself, which the county will not issue until the utility sign-offs are attached to it.
Those four do not talk to each other. Two of them carry their own contractor requirement, and a third is the utility doing its own work. That is what sets your date. The machine work is short, and the paperwork is the schedule. Send the address, say whether there is a septic tank and a well, and Donny will tell you which of the four to start with.
