I need to tell you something most septic companies refuse to: there are two types of people in this world. Those who believe septic systems are simply “buried containers for waste,” and those who’ve had raw sewage erupting into their yard at midnight. I discovered this reality the hard way in 2005—standing in mud, shivering in a Washington deluge, as my family and I assisted a grizzled installer restore our family’s collapsed system. I was 14. My hands ached. My clothes were ruined. But that night, something crystallized: This isn’t just manual labor. It’s folks’ lives we’re protecting.

Most companies kick off by servicing tanks. We started by constructing them—literally. Back in the early 2000s, when most kids were playing Xbox, Art Nikolin (our ops manager) and his family were carving out trenches under the watchful eye of a septic pro their dad hired. Project by project, that installer saw something in us. Possibly it was our stubborn refusal to quit when a PVC pipe failed at 9 PM. Or how we would argue about soil percolation rates like kids argue about pizza toppings. By 2008, we weren’t just assistants—we were licensed installers. But here is the twist: we learned this business from the ground up.

See, 90% of septic businesses begin with pumping. They understand how to pump a tank but couldn’t tell you why the absorption area failed three years after construction. We got our hands filthy from the ground up. Literally. I remember this one hellish summer—2006, I think—when we put in 17 systems across Snohomish County. One homeowner’s yard had soil like bedrock. The “pro” crew before us quit. But our teacher taught us a trick: soak the ground overnight, dig at sunrise. We finished by noon. That system? Still working flawlessly 18 years later.

Skip ahead to 2023. We get a phone call from a panicked homeowner in Woodinville. Their fresh septic system—put in by a “discount” crew—collapsed during Thanksgiving dinner. Raw sewage oozed into their landscaping. The company abandoned them. We showed up at 10 PM. Art took one peek at the tank placement and sighed. “They put it uphill the house? Gravity does not work that way, friends.” By sunrise, we had redesigned the entire layout. Spared them $20K in landscaping damage too.

This is what makes Septic Solutions LLC unique: we create systems like we’re the ones gonna live with them. Because actually, we did. That initial tank we installed as kids? Our family relied on it for a ten years. Every pipe we installed, every tank we positioned, had skin in the game. When you’ve actually eaten dinner 10 feet above a septic field you built, you never cut corners.

Let me get straight with you—septic work ain’t pretty. But there’s an skill to it. In 2015, we tackled a nightmare job near Lake Stevens. Stone-riddled terrain. Limited budget. Three other companies insisted it could not be done without blasting. We put in a week manually excavating around boulders, fine-tuning the drain field precisely. The client cried when we finished. Not because it was affordable—but because we saved her ancient oak tree.

Our advantage? We aren’t not just installers. We are experts of soil. We recognize which brands of PVC fail in Washington’s winter cycles (stay away from the blue-striped stuff). We have memorized which counties have clay that’ll choke a drain field in 5 years. Hell, we even improved our tank baffles in 2019 after noticing how grease buildup ruins pumps. Small tweak. Huge impact. Maintenance teams appreciate us for it.

You want stats? Fine. Since 2010, 92% of our systems have lasted 10+ years without major issues. But numbers don’t stink when things go south. Ask Mrs. Henderson from Monroe. Her former installer used inferior aggregate that turned her leach line into a solid tomb. We used New Year’s Day 2021 demolishing it out. She delivered us cookies for a twelve months.

Let me share the brutal truth: nearly all septic failures take place because someone ignored a step. Didn’t test the soil correctly. Used cheap tanks. Misjudged the water table. We’ve personally fixed dozens of these disasters. And each and every time, we file away another insight. Like in 2022, when we started adding double risers to every job. Why? Because Randy, our head tech, got tired 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 snapshot from our initial commercial job in 2009. We appear like babies playing in Tonka trucks. Now, we’ve wrinkles from peering at soil reports and laugh lines from clients who became friends. Like the retired couple in Bothell who require we stay for lemonade after every service calls. Or the brewery in Everett whose tank we upgraded last fall—they branded a beer “Septic Solutions Sour.” (That’s… an interesting taste.)

So yes, we are not the cheapest. Or the flashiest. But when a storm cuts power and webpage your tank’s backing up? You won’t care about deals. You will want the team who have been there, done that, and still smell like faint regret. The team that answers at 2 AM because we’ve personally all been that homeowner standing ankle-deep in catastrophe.

Thinking back, it seems funny. That installer who taught us as kids? He quit years ago. But his lessons still ring in our heads every time we open ground. “Go deeper,” he’d say. “Future you will thank past you.” Apparently, he was not just talking about septic tanks.