Allow me to explain something nearly all septic companies won’t: there are two types of people in this reality. Those who believe septic systems are merely “subterranean tanks for waste,” and those who’ve had raw sewage erupting into their yard at the dead of night. I discovered this difference the difficult way in 2005—waist-deep in muck, shivering in a Washington downpour, as my brothers and I aided a grizzled installer restore our family’s broken system. I was 14. My hands blistered. My pants were destroyed. But that moment, something clicked: This isn’t just digging. It’s folks’ lives that we’re protecting.

The majority of companies start by pumping tanks. We started by building them—from scratch. Back in the early 2000s, when regular kids were gaming on Xbox, Art Nikolin (our operations head) and his brothers were excavating trenches under the careful eye of a septic expert their old man hired. Project by project, that installer noticed something in us. Possibly it was our relentless refusal to walk away when a PVC pipe burst at 9 PM. Or how we’d sit and argue about soil percolation rates like kids argue about pizza toppings. By 2008, we were not just helpers—we were qualified installers. But here is the kicker: we learned this trade in reverse.

Look, 90% of septic businesses begin with maintenance. They understand how to service a tank but could not tell you why the absorption area went bad three years after setup. We got our hands filthy from the ground up. No joke. I recall this one brutal summer—2006, I think—when we installed 17 systems across Snohomish County. One homeowner’s yard had soil like bedrock. The “expert” crew before us walked away. But our mentor taught us a technique: saturate the ground overnight, dig at dawn. We wrapped up by noon. That system? Still working flawlessly 18 years later.

Skip ahead to 2023. We get a call from a terrified homeowner in Woodinville. Their recently installed septic system—constructed by a “budget” crew—failed during Thanksgiving dinner. Raw sewage oozed into their garden. The company abandoned them. We arrived at 10 PM. Art took one peek at the tank positioning and shook his head. “They put it higher than the house? Gravity does not work that way, friends.” By morning, we’d redesigned the complete layout. Spared them $20K in landscaping restoration too.

This is what sets Septic Solutions LLC different: we create systems like we’re the ones gonna live with them. Because truthfully, we did. That first tank we built as youngsters? Our family used it for a ten years. Every pipe we placed, every tank we positioned, had skin in the game. When you’ve actually eaten dinner 10 feet above a septic field you installed, you do not cut corners.

I’ll get straight with you—septic work ain’t appealing. But there is an skill to it. In 2015, we tackled a disaster job near Lake Stevens. Boulder-filled terrain. Limited budget. Three other companies said it couldn’t be done without dynamite. We spent a week carefully digging around rocks, fine-tuning the drain field inch by inch. The client cried when we wrapped up. Not because it was affordable—but because we had saved her ancient oak tree.

Our advantage? We’re not just installers. We’re experts of soil. We understand which brands of PVC crack in Washington’s winter cycles (skip the blue-striped stuff). We have memorized which counties have clay that’s gonna choke a drain field in 5 years. Shoot, we even reworked our tank baffles in 2019 after seeing how grease buildup ruins pumps. Small tweak. Huge impact. Maintenance guys love us for it.

You need stats? Okay. Since 2010, 92% of our systems have survived 10+ years without significant issues. But data do not stink when things go wrong. Ask Mrs. Henderson from Monroe. Her former installer used substandard aggregate that converted her leach line into a cement-like tomb. We spent New Year’s Day 2021 breaking it out. She delivered us cookies for a whole year.

Here’s the brutal truth: nearly all septic failures take place because someone missed a step. Didn’t test the soil properly. Used substandard tanks. Got wrong the water table. We’ve fixed countless of these messes. And every time, we remember another lesson. Like in 2022, when we began adding double risers to every install. Why? Because Randy, our head tech, got tired of watching homeowners wreck their lawns during maintenance. Now maintenance is a 15-minute job.

I can’t lie—this work wears on you. Art’s got a photo from our initial commercial job in 2009. We seem like kids playing in Tonka trucks. These days, we have wrinkles from peering at soil reports and laugh lines from clients who turned into 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 named a beer “Septic Solutions Sour.” (It’s… an interesting taste.)

So yes, we are not the cheapest. Or the flashiest. But when a storm knocks out power and your tank’s overflowing? You aren’t going to care about deals. You’ll want the guys who’ve been there, webpage done that, and still smell like slight regret. The team that responds at 2 AM because we’ve personally all been that homeowner trapped ankle-deep in disaster.

In retrospect, it is funny. That installer who mentored us as kids? He quit years ago. But his voice still echo in our heads every time we break ground. “Push deeper,” he used to say. “Future you will thank past you.” Apparently, he was not just talking about septic tanks.