Let me tell you something nearly all septic companies won’t: there are two types of people in this reality. Those who assume septic systems are simply “buried containers for waste,” and those who have had raw sewage erupting into their backyard at midnight. I understood this reality the tough way in 2005—knee-deep in muck, shivering in a Washington rainstorm, as my family and I assisted a grizzled installer fix our family’s collapsed system. I was a teenager. My hands were raw. My pants were wrecked. But that night, something changed: This is not just manual labor. It’s families’ lives that we’re preserving.

Nearly all companies start by pumping tanks. We began by building them—literally. Back in the early 2000s, when regular kids were gaming on Xbox, Art Nikolin (our operations head) and web site his family were excavating trenches under the careful eye of a septic pro their dad hired. Project by project, that installer saw something in us. Possibly it was our relentless refusal to quit when a PVC pipe exploded at 9 PM. Or how we’d argue about soil percolation rates like kids argue about pizza toppings. By 2008, we were no longer just laborers—we were qualified installers. But here is the kicker: we learned this business in reverse.

Look, 90% of septic companies launch with maintenance. They get how to pump a tank but can’t tell you why the absorption area failed three years after setup. We got our hands muddy from the foundation. No joke. I think back to this one brutal summer—2006, I believe—when we put in 17 systems across Snohomish County. One homeowner’s yard had soil like granite. The “expert” crew before us gave up. But our mentor taught us a technique: hydrate the ground overnight, dig at sunrise. We wrapped up by noon. That system? Still operating flawlessly 18 years later.

Jump to 2023. We get a frantic call from a terrified homeowner in Woodinville. Their brand-new septic system—constructed by a “discount” crew—went belly-up during Thanksgiving dinner. Raw sewage oozed into their yard. The company ghosted them. We got there at 10 PM. Art took one glance at the tank location and groaned. “They put it uphill the house? Gravity ain’t gonna work that way, friends.” By dawn, we’d redesigned the complete layout. Spared them $20K in landscaping restoration too.

This is what sets Septic Solutions LLC different: we build systems like we are gonna maintain them. Because truthfully, we did. That original tank we built as kids? Our family used it for a ten years. Every pipe we installed, every tank we set, had personal stakes. When you’ve actually eaten dinner 10 feet above a septic field you installed, you don’t cut corners.

I’ll get honest—septic work ain’t appealing. But there’s an skill to it. In 2015, we accepted a disaster job near Lake Stevens. Rocky terrain. Shoestring budget. Three other companies claimed it could not be done without blasting. We spent a week carefully digging around stones, fine-tuning the drain field precisely. The client teared up when we finished. Not because it was affordable—but because we’d saved her ancient oak tree.

Our secret? We aren’t not just installers. We’re historians of soil. We know which brands of PVC break in Washington’s winter cycles (stay away from the blue-striped brand). We have memorized which counties have clay that’s gonna destroy a drain field in 5 years. Shoot, we even redesigned our tank baffles in 2019 after observing how grease buildup ruins pumps. Small tweak. Major impact. Maintenance teams appreciate us for it.

You looking for stats? Okay. Since 2010, 92% of our systems have lasted 10+ years without serious issues. But statistics do not stink when things go wrong. Ask Mrs. Henderson from Monroe. Her previous installer used substandard aggregate that transformed her leach line into a cement-like tomb. We dedicated New Year’s Day 2021 demolishing it out. She mailed us cookies for a twelve months.

This is the ugly truth: nearly all septic failures occur because someone skipped a step. Failed to test the soil correctly. Used inferior tanks. Miscalculated the water table. We’ve fixed countless of these messes. And every time, we file away another learning. Like in 2022, when we started adding dual-access risers to all installation. Why? Because Randy, our lead tech, got sick 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 initial commercial job in 2009. We seem like babies playing in Tonka trucks. Today, we’ve developed laugh lines from squinting 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 improved last fall—they branded a beer “Septic Solutions Sour.” (That’s… an acquired taste.)

So absolutely, we are not the lowest priced. Or the showiest. But when a storm cuts power and your tank’s flooding? You will not care about deals. You’re going to want the team that have been there, done that, and still smell like faint regret. The team that responds at 2 AM because we’ve personally all been that homeowner trapped ankle-deep in disaster.

Thinking back, it seems funny. That installer who mentored us as kids? He quit years ago. But his voice still resonate in our heads every single time we open ground. “Go deeper,” he used to say. “Future you will thank past you.” Turns out, he was not just talking about septic tanks.