Bath is almost entirely owner-occupied single-family homes
Bath Township has the highest owner estimates of home value in this part of Summit County, about $474,200 at the median, and almost no rental housing. The Census Bureau’s 2020-2024 figures show 96% of occupied homes are owner-occupied and 98% of homes are single-family detached.
The township’s roughly 4,000 homes have a median build year of 1972. Only about 8% date from 1939 or earlier. In practice that means a lot of 1960s and 1970s houses on wooded lots, with newer construction mixed in.
Here is the honest read for Bath:
- An updated house with no deadline is usually worth listing. Bath buyers pay for condition, schools and land.
- A direct sale fits better when the house is an estate full of belongings, needs a roof, kitchen and baths all at once, has a septic or well problem, or when you’d rather not have showings.
How Wheatfield and Hammondsburgh became Bath
Bath took its name in 1818, when it fully separated from Richfield Township. Before that it was surveyed as Number 3, Range 12, of the Western Reserve. After an 1808 survey it was called Wheatfield, and then Hammondsburgh, after Jason Hammond, who settled in 1810.
Jonathan Hale, a Connecticut farmer who also arrived in 1810, objected to the Hammondsburgh name, and Bath was adopted instead. His homestead is now Hale Farm & Village, a Western Reserve Historical Society site inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The Hale House was built in 1825 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Bath has kept a lot of open land. The township bought the 404-acre Bath Nature Preserve, a former Firestone property, in 1997-1998, and the University of Akron uses it as a research station.
Septic systems, wells and stream setbacks in Bath
Many Bath homes rely on a private septic system, a well, or both, and that adds a step to any sale. Summit County Public Health requires a registered contractor to inspect the septic system and test the well’s flow rate before the property transfers.
What to know before that inspection:
- Don’t pump the tank first. The county asks that tanks not be pumped before the inspection, and lids must be reachable.
- The inspection takes about 1-2 hours and the inspector needs access inside the house.
- The result does not block the transfer, but the county follows up with the owner when it finds significant problems.
- You may be exempt if the system was inspected or replaced within the last two years.
Bath’s own rules can also limit what a buyer can build. Summit County Public Health must approve new dwellings, additions and pools before the township issues zoning permits, and Bath adds setbacks near streams, wetlands and floodplains. The county also began issuing septic operation permits in 2015 to owners of systems that discharge treated effluent or were installed since 2007.
If the system has already failed, our page on selling a house with septic problems explains your options, and the Summit County septic and well guide covers the inspection in detail.
Revere schools, I-77 and Bath’s own services
Bath runs as an unincorporated township with a three-member board of trustees, an elected fiscal officer, and its own police and fire departments. Minor court cases go to Akron Municipal Court.
Schools: most of Bath is in the Revere Local School District. Voters approved consolidating the Bath and Richfield schools on October 11, 1949, and the district took the Revere name in 1967. Part of Bath is in the Copley-Fairlawn City School District.
Roads: Interstate 77 has two exits in Bath, a cloverleaf at State Route 18 shared with Copley and an exit at Ghent Road. Interstate 271 crosses the northwest corner with no exit. The Montrose-Ghent area in the south holds most of the commercial land, and in 1998 Bath formed a Joint Economic Development District with Akron and Fairlawn covering about 300 acres of it.
County-level steps such as probate and the conveyance fee are covered on our Summit County page. If you’d like a number for your Bath property first, you can request a written offer.