About Whatcom Septic Pros

Almost everything outside Bellingham city limits is on septic, the ground is saturated for months at a time, and the county runs its own onsite sewage programme with real requirements attached. That combination produces a very specific kind of problem, and a very specific kind of bad advice.

The bad advice takes two forms.

The first is generic. National septic guidance is written for drier places. It tells people to pump every three years, warns about tree roots, and says nothing about a water table that comes up to meet the drain field every November. Applied here it produces homeowners who think their system has failed when it has not, and homeowners who think it is fine when it is not.

The second is the replacement quote with no diagnosis behind it. A drain field is the biggest bill in this trade and it is also the easiest thing to sell to someone standing in a soggy yard in February. Working out whether the field is clogged or simply drowned takes an hour and it is the difference between a few hundred dollars and a great deal more.

We built this around doing that hour of work first, and around writing things down properly afterwards, because in this county the paperwork is half the job.