I need to explain something most septic companies won’t: there are two kinds of people in this life. Those who assume septic systems are merely “underground boxes for waste,” and those who have had raw sewage erupting into their yard at midnight. I learned this distinction the hard way in 2005—knee-deep in muck, shivering in a Washington downpour, as my siblings and I assisted a weathered installer repair our family’s failed system. I was a teenager. My hands blistered. My jeans were ruined. But that moment, something clicked: This isn’t just digging. It’s families’ lives we’re preserving.

Nearly all companies kick off by maintaining tanks. We launched by creating them—actually. Back in the beginning of the 2000s, when most kids were glued to Xbox, Art Nikolin (our lead guy) and his siblings were excavating trenches under the experienced eye of a septic veteran their father hired. Day after day, that installer saw something in us. Possibly it was our relentless refusal to walk away when a PVC pipe exploded at 9 PM. Or how we’d sit and argue about soil absorption rates like kids debate pizza toppings. By 2008, we were not just laborers—we were certified installers. But this is the kicker: we learned this craft from the ground up.

See, 90% of septic operations begin with service. They know how to pump a tank but couldn’t tell you why the drain field collapsed three years after setup. We got our hands muddy from the foundation. No joke. I remember this one hellish summer—2006, I believe—when we installed 17 systems across Snohomish County. One client’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 dawn. We wrapped up by noon. That system? Still working without issue 18 years later.

Fast forward to 2023. We get a phone call from a terrified homeowner in Woodinville. Their fresh septic system—put in by a “cheap” crew—went belly-up during Thanksgiving dinner. Raw sewage oozed into their yard. The company abandoned them. We got there at 10 PM. Art took one peek at the tank positioning and groaned. “They put it uphill the house? Gravity doesn’t work that way, folks.” By morning, we’d redesigned the whole layout. Protected them $20K in landscaping restoration too.

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

Let me get real—septic work is not pretty. But there is an art to it. In 2015, we took on a horror show job near Lake Stevens. Rocky terrain. Tight budget. Three other companies insisted it could not be done without dynamite. We put in a week carefully digging around rocks, fine-tuning the drain field inch by inch. The client teared up when we wrapped up. Not because it was cheap—but because we had saved her century-old oak tree.

Our secret? We are not just installers. We’ve become historians of soil. We know which brands of PVC fail in Washington’s winter cycles (avoid the blue-striped material). We memorized which counties have clay that’ll choke a drain field in 5 years. Heck, we even redesigned our tank baffles in 2019 after noticing how grease buildup destroys pumps. Minor tweak. Massive impact. Maintenance guys love us for it.

You need stats? Fine. Since 2010, 92% of our systems have gone 10+ years without major issues. But numbers do not stink when things go wrong. Ask Mrs. Henderson from Monroe. Her former installer used cheap aggregate that turned her leach line into a cement-like tomb. We spent New Year’s Day 2021 demolishing it out. She sent us cookies for a year.

Here’s the harsh truth: nearly all septic failures occur because someone missed a step. Failed to test the soil correctly. Used cheap tanks. Got wrong the water table. We’ve fixed countless of these messes. And every time, we record another lesson. Like in 2022, when we decided on adding dual-access risers to every installation. Why? Because Randy, our head tech, got tired of watching homeowners ruin their lawns during maintenance. Now maintenance is a 15-minute job.

I won’t lie—this work wears on you. Art’s got a snapshot from our initial commercial job in 2009. We seem like kids playing in Tonka trucks. Today, web page we have wrinkles from studying at soil reports and laugh lines from clients who are now friends. Like the elderly couple in Bothell who demand we stay for lemonade after all service calls. Or the brewery in Everett whose tank we upgraded last fall—they branded a beer “Septic Solutions Sour.” (It is… an unique taste.)

So yes, we’re not the most affordable. Or the flashiest. But when a storm cuts power and your tank’s flooding? You aren’t going to care about deals. You will want the crew that have been there, done that, and still smell like faint regret. The team that picks up at 2 AM because we have all been that homeowner standing ankle-deep in crisis.

Looking back, it seems funny. That installer who trained us as kids? He quit years ago. But his voice still resonate in our heads each time we break ground. “Push deeper,” he’d say. “Future you will thank past you.” Apparently, he wasn’t just talking about septic tanks.