It’s a dilemma: You’re there to keep your customer’s property from becoming a real mess from a backed-up septic tank, but sometimes to get to the tank you have to drive over their lawn with a heavy rig and maybe dig up the ground to gain access to pump or repair. What’s a conscientious pumper to do? The days of getting away with the old “suck and scram” are over. Homeowners are spending more time and money landscaping and making their properties look beautiful. It’s no surprise they’re becoming less tolerant of a contractor who comes in and leaves a big, ugly mess behind.
Savvy pumpers take a hard look at better ways to access septic tanks, stay off the drainfields with heavy equipment and generally be more sensitive to the aesthetics of a residential landscape. These three pumpers tell us what they’re doing to be part of the solution rather than part of a problem.
Dave Ritchie’s company installs, pumps and inspects septic systems in a suburb of Louisville, Ky. “We specialize pretty much in repair work, and a lot of time the pumping helps you get your foot in the door to do the repair,” says Ritchie. This is a strong business development tactic, he says, but to keep new customers satisfied and coming back means keeping them happy. And that means not messing up their property any more than necessary.
Ritchie says two factors figure most highly in keeping yard disruption to a minimum: your equipment and the people who use it. “I think it’s important that you train your personnel in the proper way to unload equipment at a residence, to use the right type of equipment. Preferably, what we use is small-tracked equipment. Mini excavators with rubber tracks are the most frequent things we use. Backhoes are not good for us in any method, because they’re heavy, and the metal tracks — and rubber tires from the trucks that pull them — leave a lot of ruts in the yard. Trackhoes are light, easy to manipulate in and out.”
Then there’s the importance of the post-digging activity in leaving the disrupted area as visually pleasing as possible. “We stress (to the customer, before the job starts) that we do a final finish grade on the yard — seed, straw, the whole deal — and we take a lot of pride in that. I think a lot of times in installation practices, you’re going to get settlement, so it’s a good idea to build into your initial (estimate) the concept that you’re going to have to go back. Trying to do compaction so that it’s not going to settle is not a good idea, because you will get natural settlement anyway … you’ll still have to go back.”
Ritchie says part of preparing the customer for the disruption is involving them in the decision to have to dig in the first place. “When we go out to troubleshoot a job, we recognize that the tank is overfull. So, if there’s not something happening with it being overfull, something’s going to happen in the near future. So you have to review that with the homeowner, if you can get them out near the tank. We can show them on the camera if a line has a bow in it, or it’s settled or has tree roots in it or whatever, and they understand what you have to do.”
But often, Ritchie says, it doesn’t take that much convincing. His company has been around a long time and has built up a trust with its customers. “A lot of times people will just open the door and say, ‘Fix it,’ whatever it takes.”
In far southeast Pennsylvania, just over the state line from Wilmington, Del., Pierson Environmental Services is gearing up to celebrate its 40th anniversary in the septic pumping, installation and repair business. Mark Pierson, who co-owns the firm with his father, Bob Pierson, explains the yard-saving tactics that have kept customers happy for so long.
“We try to make the pro-perty look better by the time we’re finished than it did when we went in there,” he says.
Equipment is chosen carefully for each lot and job, always opting for smaller, lighter machines when they’re capable of doing the work. “We use a rubber-track skid loader, a smaller excavator, and we grade everything off with a smaller dozer when we’re finished. We properly grade it to divert surface water away from the septic system like we’re supposed to.
“When we’re done with a job, we use a soil preparator, then seed, and blow on straw with a mulching machine,” Pierson continues. “We always go back about six weeks later to have a look. The best thing we can see is it all nice and green, and our customers come out to tell us they can’t even tell we were here. We like to hear that.”
Eric Stegbauer’s excavating firm installs and pumps commercial and residential on-lot systems in southwest Ohio. He knows that how he leaves a customer’s yard is going to be a constant reminder of the quality of his work, so it’s important to leave the best lingering impression as possible. “One thing I always stress is that after you put in or repair a septic system, you don’t want to grade it off right away, so you don’t have these huge bowls in their yard once it settles. So I work out a deal with (the property owners) about whether they want to hire a professional landscaper or hire me to come back four or five months later to dress it up after the proper settling time.”
Still, Stegbauer says, the customer needs to be prepared for the reality of a yard that looks less than great for the time it takes the rough grade to settle. “I always warn them it’ll have to be at least three months,” he explains. “Where we’re working in Ohio, we can usually only work from the first of April till about December before we have to deal with the frost line, dirt smearing and all that.” So late-season rough-grade jobs may sit for up to six months before Stegbauer can return for the finish grade. He stresses that it’s important that customers understand this so they don’t start worrying that the excavator has forgotten about them.
