Allow me to explain something nearly all septic companies will not: there are two types of people in this reality. Those who think septic systems are just “subterranean tanks for waste,” and those who’ve had raw sewage bubbling into their backyard at the dead of night. I understood this reality the tough way in 2005—waist-deep in sludge, trembling in a Washington deluge, as my siblings and I helped a veteran installer fix our family’s collapsed system. I was fourteen. My hands ached. My pants were wrecked. But that night, something crystallized: This is not just manual labor. It’s folks’ lives that we’re preserving.

Nearly all companies start by servicing tanks. We started by building them—from scratch. Back in the early 2000s, when regular kids were gaming on Xbox, Art Nikolin (our operations head) and his siblings were excavating trenches under the experienced eye of a septic veteran their old man hired. Hour by hour, that installer saw something in us. Maybe it was our fierce refusal to quit when a PVC pipe failed at 9 PM. Or how we’d argue about soil drainage rates like kids debate pizza toppings. By 2008, we weren’t just laborers—we were certified installers. But here is the kicker: we learned this business from the ground up.

Understand, 90% of septic companies begin with service. They understand how to clean a tank but can’t tell you why the drain field failed three years after installation. We got our hands muddy from the bottom up. No joke. I remember this one hellish summer—2006, I recall—when we installed 17 systems across Snohomish County. One homeowner’s yard had soil like bedrock. The “professional” crew before us quit. But our teacher taught us a method: saturate the ground overnight, dig at first light. We completed by noon. That system? Still running without issue 18 years later.

Jump to 2023. We get a call from a terrified homeowner in Woodinville. Their brand-new septic system—installed by a “cheap” crew—went belly-up during Thanksgiving dinner. Raw sewage oozed into their landscaping. The company ghosted them. We got there at 10 PM. Art took one glance at the tank location and groaned. “They put it above the house? Gravity does not work that way, folks.” By morning, we redesigned the entire layout. Spared them $20K in landscaping damage too.

This is what makes Septic Solutions LLC unique: we build systems like we’re gonna maintain them. Because in a way, we did. That original tank we installed as teens? Our family depended on it for a decade. Every pipe we placed, every tank we positioned, had our reputation on the line. When you’ve actually eaten dinner 10 feet above a septic field you installed, you do not cut corners.

Let’s get straight with you—septic work isn’t pretty. But there’s an craft to it. In 2015, we took on a horror web site show job near Lake Stevens. Rocky terrain. Tight budget. Three other companies said it couldn’t be done without explosives. We put in a week hand-digging around stones, fine-tuning the drain field inch by inch. The client got emotional when we completed. Not because it was cheap—but because we’d saved her hundred-year-old oak tree.

Our secret? We are not just installers. We’re experts of soil. We know which brands of PVC break in Washington’s freeze-thaw cycles (skip the blue-striped brand). We memorized which counties have clay that’s gonna clog a drain field in 5 years. Heck, we even improved our tank baffles in 2019 after observing how grease buildup destroys pumps. Small tweak. Massive impact. Maintenance guys thank us for it.

You want stats? Fine. Since 2010, 92% of our systems have survived 10+ years without serious issues. But numbers don’t stink when things go wrong. Ask Mrs. Henderson from Monroe. Her previous installer used cheap aggregate that converted her leach line into a solid tomb. We spent New Year’s Day 2021 breaking it out. She sent us cookies for a whole year.

Let me share the harsh truth: the majority of septic failures happen because someone missed a step. Didn’t test the soil properly. Used cheap tanks. Misjudged the water table. We have fixed dozens of these messes. And each and every time, we remember another learning. Like in 2022, when we started adding double risers to each installation. Why? Because Randy, our lead tech, got frustrated of watching homeowners destroy their lawns during maintenance. Now maintenance is a 15-minute job.

I will not lie—this work takes a toll on you. Art’s got a picture from our earliest commercial job in 2009. We appear like youngsters playing in Tonka trucks. Now, we’ve developed wrinkles from peering at soil reports and laugh lines from clients who became friends. Like the elderly couple in Bothell who demand we stay for lemonade after every service calls. Or the brewery in Everett whose tank we replaced last fall—they called a beer “Septic Solutions Sour.” (It is… an acquired taste.)

So yeah, we aren’t not the most affordable. Or the fanciest. But when a storm knocks out power and your tank’s overflowing? You won’t care about coupons. You will want the crew who’ve been there, done that, and still smell like lingering regret. The team that responds at 2 AM because we have all been that homeowner trapped ankle-deep in crisis.

Looking back, it is funny. That installer who taught us as kids? He retired years ago. But his voice still resonate 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.