The licence that allows pumping
7 Del. Admin. Code 7101 requires a DNREC licence to work on an on-site wastewater system in Delaware, and it issues that licence in eight classes. The distinction is the whole point of this page:
- Class F (Liquid Waste) — authorised to remove, transport and dispose of the contents of septic tanks, cesspools, grease traps, seepage pits, holding tanks and portable toilets. This is the pumping licence.
- Class E (System Contractor) — builds and repairs systems. Not licensed to pump your tank.
- Class H (Systems Inspector) and Class I — inspect systems and construction.
- Classes A–D — percolation testing, site evaluation and system design.
Only 259 of DNREC's 611 approved licensees hold Class F; the other 352 hold one of the classes that may not pump. So “we're DNREC-licensed” is not by itself an answer to “are you licensed to pump?” Every business in this directory holds Class F.
Delaware licenses the person, not the company
A Class F licence belongs to a qualified individual, so a firm appears on the register once for each licensed employee and carries several licence numbers. This directory groups those rows back into the business you would call and keeps every number, so a card showing four licences means four licensed pumpers work there — not four companies.
It also means the register can hold the same business twice under a variant name. Where two entries share a phone number and a street address they are treated as one business here, and the card names the other spelling rather than hiding it. 4 businesses are affected.
Verification steps
- Ask for the company name and its DNREC Class F licence number.
- Open the DNREC licensee register and search the licence number or company name.
- Confirm the licence class reads Class F (Liquid Waste), not Class E or any other class.
- Confirm the status is Approved.
- Confirm the business pumps household tanks at your address, then get a written quote.
The register is refreshed weekly, so it is one of the few state lists where the number on a card can be checked against something current rather than a yearly snapshot. It publishes no expiry date, so the status field is what tells you the licence is live.
Reading the county
DNREC publishes the company's address but no county, so the county on a card is derived: each city and ZIP is matched to a county using Census place and ZIP data. It is a business location, not a service area — a Class F licence is a state licence, so a business one county over may well cover your address, and in a state this size that is the norm rather than the exception.
Clayton, Milford and Smyrna each straddle a county line and their ZIPs do not settle which side an address sits on, so the 8 businesses in those towns appear on both county pages and the card says so rather than picking one silently.
28 businesses hold a current Delaware Class F licence from an address in Maryland, Pennsylvania or New Jersey — unsurprising on a peninsula this narrow. They are fully licensed for Delaware work, but they have no Delaware county to be filed under, so they are counted here and left off the county pages rather than assigned somewhere invented. 2 more are held because DNREC's register has a placeholder where their address should be.
What we publish
59 businesses across 3 of Delaware's 3 counties, drawn from the 259 approved Class F licensees on DNREC's register. Nothing is filtered out by name: this class is Delaware's septic pumping credential. Because portable-toilet, plumbing and grease-trap firms hold it too, the 43 businesses whose name does not say septic or sanitation carry a note asking you to confirm household work first. That note is not a suggestion the firm does no septic work.
Start with the Delaware county directory, then check the licence number and class on DNREC's own register.