Allow me to explain something nearly all septic companies won’t: there are two kinds of people in this life. Those who believe septic systems are just “buried containers for waste,” and those who have had raw sewage gurgling into their backyard at 2 AM. I learned this difference the hard way in 2005—standing in muck, shivering in a Washington deluge, as my siblings and I assisted a grizzled installer repair our family’s failed system. I was 14. My hands were raw. My clothes were wrecked. But that moment, something changed: This ain’t just manual labor. It’s folks’ lives we’re protecting.

The majority of companies start by maintaining tanks. We launched by building them—from scratch. Back in the early 2000s, when other kids were playing Xbox, Art Nikolin (our ops manager) and his family were digging trenches under the experienced eye of a septic veteran their dad hired. Hour by hour, that installer saw something in us. Perhaps it was our stubborn refusal to quit when a PVC pipe exploded at 9 PM. Or how we’d argue about soil percolation rates like kids argue about pizza toppings. By 2008, we were no longer just helpers—we were licensed installers. But here is the twist: we learned this trade from the ground up.

Look, 90% of septic operations start with pumping. They get how to clean a tank but can’t tell you why the absorption area failed three years after installation. We got our hands muddy from the foundation. No joke. I think back to this one hellish summer—2006, I believe—when we installed 17 systems across Snohomish County. One customer’s yard had soil like granite. The “expert” crew before us quit. But our teacher taught us a technique: saturate the ground overnight, dig at sunrise. We completed by noon. That system? Still operating perfectly 18 years later.

Jump to 2023. We get a phone call from a desperate homeowner in Woodinville. Their fresh septic system—installed by a “budget” crew—went belly-up during Thanksgiving dinner. Raw sewage leaked into their yard. The company ghosted them. We arrived at 10 PM. Art took one glance at the tank positioning and shook his head. “They put it higher than the house? Gravity ain’t gonna work that way, people.” By dawn, we had redesigned the entire layout. Spared them $20K in landscaping damage too.

This is what puts Septic Solutions LLC unique: we create systems like we’re the ones gonna depend on them. Because in a way, we did. That first tank we put in as kids? Our family relied on it for a long time. Every pipe we laid, every tank we set, had personal stakes. When you’ve actually eaten dinner 10 feet above a septic field you installed, you never cut corners.

Let’s get honest—septic work isn’t pretty. But there is an art to it. In 2015, we took on a nightmare job near Lake Stevens. Boulder-filled terrain. Shoestring budget. Three other companies said it was impossible to be done without dynamite. We spent a week manually excavating around boulders, adjusting the drain field precisely. The client teared up when we completed. Not because it was affordable—but because we had saved her ancient oak tree.

Our edge? We’re not just installers. We’re historians of soil. We understand which brands of PVC crack in Washington’s freeze-thaw cycles (avoid the blue-striped brand). We memorized which counties have clay that’s gonna choke a drain field in 5 years. Heck, we even improved our tank baffles in 2019 after observing how grease buildup cripples pumps. Tiny tweak. Major impact. Maintenance teams thank us for it.

You need stats? Okay. Since 2010, 92% of our systems have gone 10+ years without serious issues. But data do not stink when things go bad. Ask Mrs. Henderson from Monroe. Her previous installer used substandard aggregate that turned her leach line into a cement-like tomb. We spent New Year’s Day 2021 jackhammering it out. She mailed us cookies for a twelve months.

Here’s the ugly truth: nearly all septic failures take place because someone ignored a step. Failed to test the soil thoroughly. Used substandard tanks. Miscalculated the water table. We’ve personally fixed hundreds of these messes. And each and webpage every time, we file away another lesson. Like in 2022, when we began adding double risers to every job. Why? Because Randy, our head tech, got frustrated of watching homeowners ruin their lawns during maintenance. Now maintenance is a brief job.

I won’t lie—this work takes a toll on you. Art’s got a photo from our initial commercial job in 2009. We appear like kids playing in Tonka trucks. Now, we’ve developed crow’s feet from squinting at soil reports and laugh lines from clients who are now friends. Like the senior couple in Bothell who require we stay for lemonade after each service calls. Or the brewery in Everett whose tank we improved last fall—they named a beer “Septic Solutions Sour.” (It is… an interesting taste.)

So yeah, we’re not the lowest priced. Or the flashiest. But when a storm knocks out power and your tank’s backing up? You will not care about discounts. You will want the crew who’ve been there, done that, and still smell like faint regret. The team that answers at 2 AM because we’ve all been that homeowner standing ankle-deep in disaster.

Thinking back, it’s funny. That installer who mentored us as kids? He quit years ago. But his voice still ring in our heads every single time we break ground. “Go deeper,” he would say. “Future you will thank past you.” As it happens, he wasn’t just talking about septic tanks.