Allow me to explain to you something you will not hear from nearly all septic companies: I’ve actually been buried in raw sewage since I was a preteen years old. Sounds glamorous, right? Back in the summer of ’98, my brothers and I thought our folks had lost their minds. Instead of enrolling us for little league like regular kids, we were digging trenches for our family’s new septic system under the scorching Washington sun. Who knew those calluses would transform into our blueprint.

Let me share the dirty truth most companies won’t admit: Septic work is not just about equipment. It is about understanding what goes on underground after the machinery leaves. Most folks enter this business through maintenance vans. We? We started with implements in our hands and mud up to our knees.

I’m never forget the day our installer, old Gus Petrovich, tossed me a level and barked, “Young man, if you are unable to lay pipe straight, you will drown somebody’s lawn in sewage by Tuesday.” He wasn’t wrong. We spent three days that July battling with a challenging clay bed near Redmond—digging, measuring, cursing, repeat. But this is the twist: Gus kept taking us to jobs all over Snohomish County. By 15, website I could identify a failing drain field from 50 yards.

This is the DNA of Septic Solutions LLC. While others were focused on buying fancy trucks, we were discovering why systems truly fail. Like that nightmare project in ’03 where we witnessed a “professional” crew install a tank with absolutely no regard for soil percolation. Three months later? Property looked like a wetland. We swore then: No shortcuts. Not once.

Skip ahead to 2009. My brother Art (you will see his name all over our permits) almost bankrupted us demanding on thoroughly testing every perc test. “Remember the swamp house,” he’d growl. We ate cheap food for six months. But when the recession hit? Our systems kept working while others broke down. All at once, “Nikolin boys” turned into a thing shared between contractors.

This is where we are different: We create systems like we will have to fix them ourselves. Because guess what? We typically do. Last Thanksgiving, Mrs. Callahan in Woodinville called in crisis about a holiday overflow. Art rushed out in his turkey-stained shirt. Apparently her “no-service” system installed in 2015 had a filter not a soul told her about. We never just solve it—we instructed her grandson how to clean it.

You believe that is standard? Wrong. Nearly all companies push you on a $200/month maintenance plan. We rather you comprehend your system. Like that time we mapped out drainage diagrams on Dave Miller’s kitchen table in Everett while his kids added crayon clouds. Why? Because when Dave’s willow tree roots attacked his leach field last spring, he caught the wet grass before it became a disaster.

Our magic formula? It is not secret at all. It’s in the blisters. In the way Art still picks up the phone at (425) 553-3422 directly. In the Instagram reel where my nephew cringes at a DIYer’s “stone-less drain field masterpiece” (@septic_solutionsllc—subscribe for laughs and real tips). You’ll see it in the YouTube video where we compressed a 72-hour install in pouring Kirkland rain (@septicsolutionsllc).

But this is the real magic: We’ve turned each mistake into your gain. That green disaster in Bothell? Made us to add root barriers automatically. The “mysterious backup” mystery in Sammamish? Now we install effluent filters on each job. Even our tanks are unique—we spec thicker concrete after witnessing how Pacific Northwest winters damage cheaper models.

Do not just take my statement for it. Ask the former Boeing engineer who challenged us to handle his sloping lot in Duvall. “Impossible,” said three companies. We constructed him a pressurized system which has outlasted two of his cars. Or the young family in Monroe whose developer installed an too-small tank—we redesigned their complete layout during a winter storm without breaking their budget.

This is not corporate fluff. This is 25 years of frozen fingers, misread soil reports, and stubborn pride in doing it right. We cried over failed trenches in January storms. High-fived when our sand-filter system rescued a historic Carnation farmhouse. Even interred our favorite shovel (RIP #3) with Viking funeral honors after it broke during an legendary granite battle.

So if you’re scrolling through septic companies wondering who isn’t going to disappear after the check clears? Think about 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 cultivated it from the ground up, one real hole at a time.

Your turn. Tell me what your system hiding?