Buyers ask this in the car, usually somewhere on Route 288: is this area on public water and sewer, or is it wells and septic tanks out here? The answer is annoying, because utility service in this region follows utility service area boundaries, not neighborhood names. Two houses on the same road, in the same subdivision, can sit on opposite sides of a service line.
So this is a map of the pattern, locality by locality, grounded in what each utility publishes about its own system. It is not a substitute for checking your specific address. If you want the process guide instead, our complete buyer’s guide to well and septic in Richmond covers the inspections, water tests and drainfield questions. That post is the how. This one is the where. The areas below run roughly west to east and then out to the rural counties, which is geography, not a ranking.
First: check your actual address, in one phone call
- Chesterfield County. Water and wastewater availability line, 804-748-1864. Chesterfield Utilities tells you to call it before you even register in the county permitting portal.
- Henrico County. Henrico Public Utilities, 804-501-4275. The connection fee desk is 804-501-4517.
- Hanover County. Hanover Public Utilities asks you to contact them to determine service availability and infrastructure location. Customer service, 804-365-6024.
- Goochland County. The Tuckahoe Creek Service District FAQ is where the answer lives. Utilities, 804-556-5835.
- Powhatan County. Powhatan Public Utilities will give you an itemized cost breakdown for your address. 804-598-5764.
- City of Richmond. The city Department of Public Utilities serves gas, water, wastewater and stormwater to more than 500,000 customers. 804-646-4646.
We have not verified the utility status of any individual subdivision named below. Verify the parcel, not the neighborhood.
What each option actually costs
Public water and sewer is not free and a well is not free. The difference is when you pay.
| Locality | Water | Sewer or wastewater | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henrico, existing home converting off well or septic | $5,445 | $6,570 | $12,015 |
| Henrico, new home where service is available | $8,005 | $9,655 | $17,660 |
| Henrico, new home, developer installed lines | $5,110 | $6,180 | $11,290 |
| Chesterfield, capital cost recovery, 5/8 inch meter | $6,642 | $5,954 | $12,596 |
Sources: Henrico County Public Utilities water and sewer connection fees 2026/2027, and Chesterfield County Utilities FY27 rates and fees, effective for bills issued on and after July 1, 2026.
Then the bill arrives every two months. Henrico charges a bimonthly service charge of $20.95 for water and $42.30 for sewer, plus $4.82 and $5.10 per hundred cubic feet. Henrico’s own worked example, at 20 CCF, comes to $261.65 for the two months. Chesterfield adds a $12.12 customer cost charge, a bimonthly capacity charge of $18.08 water and $29.02 wastewater on a single family home, and commodity charges of $2.85 and $3.04 per hundred cubic feet. One CCF is roughly 748 gallons.
On a well and septic system the monthly bill is zero and the capital costs are yours: a failed pump, a pressure tank, filtration for iron or hardness, periodic bacteria testing, and pumping the tank on a schedule rather than waiting for a problem. Nobody invoices you until something breaks, which is what makes it easy to defer.
The part that shows up at resale and at the closing table
Two consequences, in the order they bite.
Financing and appraisal. A lender on a well and septic property generally wants documentation the system works, which means a water quality test and a septic inspection, and government-backed programs are stricter than conventional ones. Build that into the contract dates rather than discovering it in week three.
The buyer pool. A meaningful share of buyers will not look at a well property at all, fairly or not. That does not make the house worth less, but it does mean fewer showings and a longer marketing period.
Those effects sit on top of a market that already varies by locality:
| County | Closed sales | Median sold price | Median days on market | Months supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chesterfield County | 372 | $453,975 | 22 | 1.9 |
| Henrico County | 229 | $425,000 | 18 | 1.6 |
| Hanover County | 107 | $510,000 | 24 | 2.3 |
| Goochland County | 33 | $688,702 | 30 | 2.7 |
| Powhatan County | 24 | $551,975 | 19 | 3.5 |
| [DATA NEEDED: median price per square foot, August 2026, by area] | ||||
Source: Central Virginia Regional MLS, August 2026, via the Richmond Association of REALTORS monthly housing reports (current as of September 10, 2026). Single-family detached. Goochland County’s median rests on 33 closed sales and Powhatan County’s on 24, so treat both as indicative rather than precise.
Short Pump and the Broad Street corridor, Henrico
Short Pump sits in the densest part of Henrico’s network, and the county’s fee schedule tells you the development pattern. Henrico charges $11,290 for a new single family connection where the developer installed the lines, which is what happens in a planned subdivision, against $17,660 where the county has to make service available. Subdivisions built here in the last thirty years were designed around public lines from the plat stage.
Wrong for: anyone who wants a well for irrigation or no bimonthly utility bill. Lots here are not big enough to make a well sensible anyway.
Glen Allen and northwest Henrico
Glen Allen is the same story with a wider margin of error, because the older large parcels predate the subdivisions that filled in around them. An acre on a county road off Mountain Road is a different utility question from a house in a 1998 subdivision half a mile away.
Wrong for: buyers who assume a Glen Allen address means county water. It frequently does. Assume nothing on the older, larger parcels.
Varina and eastern Henrico
Here is the clearest proof that a county running a large public system still has plenty of houses on wells. Henrico’s 2026/2027 connection fee schedule carries its own line for existing single family dwellings served by an individual private well or septic system: $5,445 water plus $6,570 sewer, $12,015 to convert. A county does not publish a rate category for a situation that does not exist. Varina is where most of those parcels are.
Wrong for: a buyer on a tight closing timeline. If the listing says public water and the seller cannot produce a bill, ask the county before you remove contingencies, not after.
Midlothian and the Route 60 corridor, Chesterfield
Midlothian is the core of Chesterfield’s system. Chesterfield’s FY27 rate schedule, effective for bills issued on and after July 1, 2026, sets the capital cost recovery charge for a single family home on a 5/8 inch meter at $6,642 water and $5,954 wastewater. That is $12,596 to connect a house that is not already connected. The county maintains water lines to the meter and wastewater lines to the property line; everything past that is yours.
Wrong for: a buyer looking at an older parcel on a state road between subdivisions. The corridor filled in around those houses and some never converted.
Woodlake and the Swift Creek Reservoir area
Woodlake wraps the Swift Creek Reservoir, which Chesterfield Utilities runs as a drinking water source as well as a recreational amenity. The county monitors and treats it for algae and publishes the results.
Wrong for: buyers who dislike homeowner association rules stacked on top of county utility rules. Out here you get both.
Hanover: inside or outside the Suburban Service Area
Hanover draws the sharpest line of any locality here, and it names it. Public water and sewer extension is available within the Suburban Service Area. Outside it you are on a well and a septic system, and there is no realistic path to change that.
Hanover also publishes what the change costs inside the line. For an existing community on private wells and septic to retrofit, the county estimates each owner’s share of construction at $35,000 to $45,000 for sewer and $20,000 to $30,000 for water, assuming the neighborhood is close to the existing system. Add the capacity fee and a plumber. The county requires 80 percent support, creates a service district to finance it, and the assessment lands on your property tax bill for up to 20 years. It is the most concrete number any locality here publishes about the cost of leaving a well, so read it twice if you are looking at Hanover.
Wrong for: a buyer who wants acreage and county water. In Hanover those two mostly do not overlap.
Goochland: the Tuckahoe Creek district changes your tax bill
This is the most expensive thing a buyer can miss in this region, and it is entirely public. Goochland runs two systems: a courthouse system, and an eastern system including the Tuckahoe Creek Service District, created in 2002 and financed with bonds. Properties inside it pay an ad valorem tax of $0.32 per $100 of assessed value on top of the regular real estate tax, a rate the county reports has held since 2012. On Goochland’s own worked example, a parcel assessed at $100,000 pays $530 real estate tax plus $320 ad valorem, $850 total.
Three details catch people. You pay it whether or not you are connected. Only parcels inside the district can connect at all. And the county reports the debt will not be fully retired until 2042, though it is targeting roughly 2030 to 2031.
The district is bounded east by the Henrico line, north by the Hanover line, west by portions of Route 623, Route 676 and Route 622, and south by State Route 6. Road-referenced boundaries are exactly why a Goochland subdivision name tells you nothing. Ask for the tax bill.
Wrong for: a buyer comparing monthly costs across counties on principal, interest, taxes and insurance alone. Here the tax line is structurally different and your lender escrows for it.
Powhatan: a narrow corridor, and wells everywhere else
Powhatan publishes its service area in one sentence: water and sanitary sewer run from the Chesterfield county line along the Route 60 corridor to Flat Rock, and sewer is available in the courthouse area extending to portions of Route 60. Two small wastewater plants serve it, Fighting Creek at 100,000 gallons per day and Dutoy Creek at 250,000. Those numbers tell you the shape of the county. Outside that corridor, Powhatan is well and septic and will stay that way.
Wrong for: anyone who treats a well as a defect. If you want land here, the well comes with it. Our guide to what to check before you build on acreage near Richmond covers the soil work that decides whether a septic system is permittable at all.
The City of Richmond
Inside the city limits the question mostly goes away. The city is served by its own utility, which also sells the gas. The questions that matter here are different: the age of the lateral running from the house to the main, and whether anyone has put a camera down it. That is not a standard inspection item, which surprises buyers. We cover it in what a Richmond home inspector will not cover.
Wrong for: a buyer who skips the sewer scope on a pre-1950 house to save a couple hundred dollars. A collapsed clay lateral under a mature street tree is a five figure surprise.
A saved search for these exact areas
Short Pump, Glen Allen, Varina, Midlothian, Woodlake, Hanover, Goochland and Powhatan are eight very different utility pictures. Tell us which you are weighing and we will set up a saved search that emails you new listings the day they post, filtered to the counties you actually want. If acreage is the point, we will aim it at Richmond homes with acreage, where most of the Powhatan and Goochland inventory lives.
Water and sewer questions we get asked in the car
How do I tell from a listing whether a house is on a well?
Do not trust the listing field alone. Look for a well head or pump house in the yard and a septic cleanout or a mounded drainfield. Ask the seller for two months of utility bills, which settles it instantly, then confirm the parcel with the locality before your contingency period runs out.
Who owns the pipe between my house and the street?
Less of it than you think. Chesterfield maintains water lines to the meter and wastewater lines to the property line. Henrico’s responsibility begins at the property line and runs out to the mains in the street. The lateral under your front yard is yours in both counties.
Can we get out of Goochland’s Tuckahoe Creek ad valorem tax?
Rarely, and the conditions are strict. Goochland’s Board considers removal requests only periodically, only for residential property not currently served by water or sewer, and only if the removal is offset by adding parcels of equal or greater assessed value. Commercial property is not eligible at all, and a removed parcel cannot rejoin for five years.
Can I keep a well for irrigation if the house is on public water?
Chesterfield publishes a residential irrigation meter category in its rate schedule, which is the county’s sanctioned answer to the same problem: a second meter that charges you for water without charging the wastewater volume rate on water that never reaches the plant. Ask the county before you dig anything.
Where does Goochland’s public water actually come from?
Henrico. Goochland holds an agreement with Henrico County for 5.25 million gallons per day, with contractual room to expand to 25 million. The separate courthouse system buys its capacity from the Department of Corrections and uses no Tuckahoe Creek infrastructure, which is why courthouse-area properties pay no ad valorem tax.
Is well water tested the way public water is?
No. Every public system here publishes an annual Consumer Confidence Report, and Goochland publishes two because it runs two systems. Chesterfield separately monitors and treats the Swift Creek Reservoir for algae and posts the results. On a private well nobody tests anything unless you pay for it.
There is no line in our street. Can we still connect?
Sometimes, entirely at your expense. Hanover’s process for a single property inside the Suburban Service Area runs: confirm availability, retain an engineer, obtain easements, submit plans for review, get environmental permits, hire a contractor, build it, get it approved, then pay the fees and connect. That is a project, not a phone call.
One search, the areas you picked
Send us the two or three areas you are actually choosing between and we will build the saved search for them, well and septic filtered in or out. How we work with buyers lays out the order we do things in.
