I need to tell you something you will not hear from most septic companies: I’ve actually been elbow-deep in raw sewage since I was 12 years old. Sounds glamorous, right? Back in the heat of ’98, my siblings and website I thought our parents had gone and lost their minds. Instead of registering for little league like normal kids, we were digging trenches for our family’s new septic system under the blistering Washington sun. Little did we know those blisters would become our blueprint.

Here’s the dirty truth nearly all companies won’t admit: Septic work is not just about hardware. It’s really about grasping what goes on underground after the backhoe leaves. Nearly all folks enter this business through service vehicles. We? We launched with tools in our hands and muck up to our knees.

I’m never forget the day our installer, old Gus Petrovich, handed me a level and said, “Young man, if you can’t lay pipe straight, you’re gonna drown somebody’s lawn in crap by Tuesday.” He was not wrong. We dedicated three days that July wrestling with a challenging clay bed near Redmond—shoveling, measuring, swearing, repeat. But this is the kicker: Gus kept bringing us to jobs all over Snohomish County. By 15, I could spot a failing drain field from 50 yards.

That’s the DNA of Septic Solutions LLC. While rivals were occupied with buying flashy trucks, we were learning why systems really fail. Like that horror project in ’03 where we watched a “certified” crew install a tank with absolutely no regard for soil percolation. Three months later? Yard 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 requiring on thoroughly testing every perc test. “Remember the swamp house,” he would growl. We ate ramen for six months. But when the crash hit? Our systems kept operating while others broke down. Overnight, “Nikolin boys” turned into a thing shared between contractors.

This is where we’re different: We construct systems like we will have to repair them ourselves. Because guess what? We usually do. Last Thanksgiving, Mrs. Callahan in Woodinville phoned panicking about a holiday emergency. Art drove out in his turkey-stained shirt. Turned out her “self-maintaining” system installed in 2015 had a filter no one told her about. We didn’t just repair it—we taught her grandson how to clean it.

You assume that is standard? Think again. Most companies push you on a $200/month maintenance plan. We’d rather you know your system. Like that time we sketched drainage diagrams on Dave Miller’s kitchen table in Everett while his toddlers added crayon clouds. Why? Because when Dave’s willow tree roots invaded his leach field last spring, he noticed the wet grass before it turned into a disaster.

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

But here’s the actual magic: We’ve turned each mistake into your benefit. That overgrown disaster in Bothell? Made us to add root barriers by default. The “phantom flush” mystery in Sammamish? Now we install effluent filters on all job. Even our tanks are different—we spec heavier concrete after witnessing how Pacific Northwest winters destroy cheaper models.

Please don’t just take my statement for it. Ask the former Boeing engineer who challenged us to manage his sloping lot in Duvall. “No way,” said three companies. We created him a pressurized system that has outlasted two of his cars. Or the young family in Monroe whose developer installed an undersized tank—we reconfigured their entire layout during a winter storm without breaking their budget.

This isn’t marketing fluff. These are 25 years of frostbitten fingers, confusing soil reports, and fierce pride in doing it correctly. We have cried over collapsed trenches in January rains. Celebrated when our sand-filter system rescued a historic Carnation farmhouse. Even laid to rest our favorite shovel (RIP #3) with Viking funeral honors after it snapped during an brutal granite battle.

So if you find yourself scrolling through septic companies thinking who won’t evaporate after the check clears? Remember the boys who still remember their first lesson from Gus: “A decent system hides. A superior system works while hiding.” We did not just establish this business—we cultivated it from the ground up, one honest hole at a time.

Your turn. What’s your system hiding?