Let me tell you something you will not hear from most septic companies: website I have been elbow-deep in raw sewage since I was 12 years old. Sounds attractive, right? Back in the heat of ’98, my family and I thought our mother and father had completely lost their minds. Instead of signing up for little league like normal kids, we were excavating trenches for our family’s new septic system under the scorching Washington sun. We had no idea those blisters would transform into our blueprint.

This is the ugly truth most companies won’t admit: Septic work isn’t just about pipes and pumps. It’s really about grasping what goes on underground after the machinery leaves. The majority of folks enter this business through pumping trucks. We? We began with tools in our hands and clay up to our knees.

I will never forget the day our installer, old Gus Petrovich, handed me a level and declared, “Kid, if you can’t lay pipe straight, you’re gonna drown somebody’s lawn in waste by Tuesday.” He wasn’t wrong. We spent three days that July wrestling with a difficult clay bed near Redmond—digging, measuring, cursing, repeat. But here’s the twist: Gus kept bringing us to jobs all over Snohomish County. By 15, I could identify a deteriorating drain field from 50 yards.

That’s the DNA of Septic Solutions LLC. While rivals were busy buying flashy trucks, we were learning why systems truly fail. Like that horror project in ’03 where we witnessed a “professional” crew install a tank with no regard for soil percolation. Three months later? Backyard looked like a swamp. We promised then: No half-measures. Ever.

Jump to 2009. My brother Art (you’re going to see his name all over our permits) almost bankrupted us demanding on thoroughly testing every perc test. “Don’t forget the swamp house,” he’d growl. We ate ramen for six months. But when the crash hit? Our systems kept functioning while others broke down. Overnight, “Nikolin boys” turned into a thing whispered between contractors.

This is where we are different: We create systems like we’re going to have to service them ourselves. Because here’s the thing? We often do. Last Thanksgiving, Mrs. Callahan in Woodinville called in crisis about a holiday overflow. Art went out in his dinner-soiled shirt. Turned out her “self-maintaining” system installed in 2015 had a filter nobody told her about. We didn’t just solve it—we instructed her grandson how to clean it.

You think this is standard? Not a chance. Nearly all companies push you on a $200/month service plan. We rather you comprehend your system. Like that time we sketched drainage diagrams on Dave Miller’s kitchen table in Everett while his kids added crayon clouds. Why? Because when Dave’s willow tree roots invaded his leach field last spring, he caught the soggy grass before it turned into a disaster.

Our special ingredient? It ain’t not secret at all. It is in the rough hands. In the way Art still answers the phone at (425) 553-3422 personally. In the Instagram reel where my nephew cringes at a DIYer’s “stone-less drain field masterpiece” (@septic_solutionsllc—follow for laughs and solid tips). You’ll see it in the YouTube video where we time-lapsed a 72-hour install in torrential Kirkland rain (@septicsolutionsllc).

But here’s the real magic: We turned every setback into your advantage. That overgrown disaster in Bothell? Taught us to add root barriers by default. The “ghost flush” mystery in Sammamish? Now we install effluent filters on every job. Even our tanks are special—we spec heavier concrete after seeing how Pacific Northwest winters damage cheaper models.

Do not just take my word for it. Ask the retired Boeing engineer who dared us to manage his sloping lot in Duvall. “Can’t be done,” said three companies. We constructed him a pressurized system which has outlasted two of his cars. Or the young family in Monroe whose builder installed an too-small tank—we rebuilt their complete layout during a blizzard without breaking their budget.

This is not business fluff. It’s 25 years of frozen fingers, confusing soil reports, and stubborn pride in doing it right. We cried over collapsed trenches in January downpours. Cheered when our sand-filter system rescued a historic Carnation farmhouse. Even buried our favorite shovel (RIP #3) with Viking funeral honors after it snapped during an epic granite battle.

So if you find yourself scrolling through septic companies questioning who isn’t going to evaporate after the check clears? Consider the boys who still recall their first lesson from Gus: “A decent system hides. A superior system works while hiding.” We never just create this business—we developed it from the ground up, one genuine hole at a time.

Your turn. Tell me what your system hiding?