Let me explain to you something you will not hear from the majority of septic companies: I have been buried in raw sewage since I was twelve years old. Looks appealing, right? Back in the summer of ’98, my siblings and I thought our parents had lost their minds. Instead of registering for little league like normal kids, we were excavating trenches for our family’s new septic system under the brutal Washington sun. Little did we know those calluses would turn into our blueprint.

This is the dirty truth nearly all companies will not admit: Septic work is not just about pipes and pumps. It is about knowing what happens underground after the backhoe leaves. The majority of folks get into this business through maintenance vans. We? We began with shovels in our hands and muck up to our knees.

I’ll never forget the day our installer, old Gus Petrovich, handed me a level and barked, “Kid, if you cannot lay pipe straight, you will drown somebody’s lawn in crap by Tuesday.” He wasn’t wrong. We dedicated three days that July battling with a stubborn clay bed near Redmond—digging, measuring, cursing, repeat. But here comes the surprise: Gus kept inviting us to jobs all over Snohomish County. By 15, I could identify a dying drain field from 50 yards.

This is the DNA of Septic Solutions LLC. While rivals were busy buying expensive trucks, we were learning why systems actually fail. Like that nightmare project in ’03 where we watched a “expert” crew install a tank with absolutely no regard for soil percolation. Three months later? Yard looked like a marsh. We vowed then: No compromises. Not once.

Jump to 2009. My brother Art (you’ll see his name all over our permits) practically bankrupted us demanding on thoroughly testing every perc test. “Remember the swamp house,” he used to growl. We ate ramen for six months. But when the crash hit? Our systems kept operating while others broke down. All at once, “Nikolin boys” turned into a thing whispered between contractors.

Here’s where we are different: We create systems like we will have to repair them ourselves. Because guess what? We typically do. Last Thanksgiving, homepage Mrs. Callahan in Woodinville rang in crisis about a holiday emergency. Art rushed out in his turkey-stained shirt. Apparently her “no-service” system installed in 2015 had a filter nobody told her about. We never just solve it—we instructed her grandson how to clean it.

You believe that is standard? Not a chance. The majority of companies want you on a $200/month care plan. We’d rather you understand your system. Like that time we drew drainage diagrams on Dave Miller’s kitchen table in Everett while his children added crayon clouds. Why? Because when Dave’s willow tree roots invaded his leach field last spring, he noticed the waterlogged grass before it developed into a disaster.

Our special ingredient? It ain’t not secret at all. You’ll find it in the calluses. In the way Art still answers the phone at (425) 553-3422 himself. In the Instagram reel where my nephew cringes at a DIYer’s “stone-less drain field masterpiece” (@septic_solutionsllc—follow for laughs and real tips). It’s in the YouTube video where we compressed a 72-hour install in relentless Kirkland rain (@septicsolutionsllc).

But this is the actual magic: We’ve turned each mistake into your gain. That mossy disaster in Bothell? Made us to add root barriers automatically. The “phantom flush” mystery in Sammamish? Now we install effluent filters on all job. Even our tanks are special—we spec stronger concrete after witnessing how Pacific Northwest winters damage cheaper models.

Please don’t just take my word for it. Ask the retired Boeing engineer who tested us to handle his sloping lot in Duvall. “Impossible,” said three companies. We built him a pressurized system which has outlasted two of his cars. Or the young family in Monroe whose builder installed an too-small tank—we rebuilt their entire layout during a winter storm without breaking their budget.

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

So if you’re scrolling through septic companies thinking who won’t vanish after the check clears? Remember the boys who still know their first lesson from Gus: “A solid system hides. A great system works while hiding.” We never just build this business—we cultivated it from the ground up, one genuine hole at a time.

Your turn. What is your system hiding?