Commitment to detail, showing up when promised, using great equipment and never leaving a job until it is done right have made Price’s Septic Tank Service a septic service success in Georgia.
Add in a healthy dose of honesty and you have a winning blueprint when it comes to pumping out grease traps and septic tanks. The company was founded in 1957 by Alfred “Fats” Gary, maternal grandfather of Shane Price, the current co-owner who says Fats stood 5 feet, 6 inches, and weighed about 420 pounds. Fats eventually sold it to his son-in-law, Harold Price.
Then bring in Harold’s son, Shane Price and Misty, Shane’s wife of 33 years. They bought the company from Harold in 2002 and have not looked back. “It’s grown every year,” Misty says. Now, it’s become a respected and well-known tank pumper in Jackson and Madison counties.
It continues to be a family business. The fourth generation is Cody, the only child of Shane and Misty, and an important employee who one day will run the business, but that day is long off. Shane and Misty, both 52 years young, are happy to be working and not throwing in the towel yet.
For many, spouses working together may sound like a challenge, but it works for Shane and Misty, who were high school sweethearts.
“It’s tough sometimes, but we’ve done it together since July 2002. We work it out. We’re not argumentative people. We’ll talk it out and if it doesn’t work, we’ll put it on the backburner for a different time,” Misty says.
“Everything we buy we think it through. Shane will think it through 15 times,” says Misty. “Me? I’m ‘Oh, it will be cool, let’s get it.’ Shane will review it. He will ponder buying a truck six months to a year, and we have our trucks built.”
The company has come a long way in their 23 years of ownership, Misty says. “We used to work with no jetters. No freshwater. No good probers. No good shovels. We didn’t have all the things we have now,” she says.
Shane says working with family creates a sense of pride: “Everyone cares more because our name is on the trucks. ... If one fails, everyone fails. So, everyone tries.”
Path to growth
Misty recalls that early on, Shane told her if he ever becomes successful enough to afford the things that he wants, every one of his trucks will work the way he wants them to. He’d say, “All my guys aren’t going to do [the work] the way I had to do it, or the way my daddy had to do.”
And that’s how it goes with Price’s Septic Tank Service. Each truck in the fleet has been built to the specifics Shane laid out. For example, he made sure the trucks have been fitted with hydraulic lifts to make it easier to unload contents.
Equipment
“We started out with Internationals. Small. Single axles. We built up the fleet now getting bigger and bigger through the years,” Misty says.
The company has a 2024 Peterbilt, a 548 model, that is equipped with a 4,000-gallon tank. Of that, 3,500 is reserved for waste and 500 is for freshwater. Pik-Rite built that truck per Shane’s specs.
“Then we have Cody’s truck, a 2018 Peterbilt. It’s a 348, the same truck, they just changed the model number. His has a 3,500-gallon tank with 3,300 for waste and 200 gallons for freshwater,” Misty says.
A 2007 Kenworth is a T-800 model, equipped with a 4,000-gallon tank of which 3,500 is for waste and 500 for freshwater.
Toting freshwater is a must for the company that offers jetting as part of its services. “The freshwater in a separate compartment runs our jetter. If a tank is really bad, it works like a garden hose. We pump the water and flush it out.
“A lot of people don’t do that. It costs a little more, but it’s so convenient. You don’t have to look for a water source. Some people don’t have a spigot outside,” Misty says.
Commercial accounts like car washes make freshwater essential. “Those bays that are in the floor hold all the trash and dirt. The water drains out. What’s left is compacted like concrete.
“Shane’s daddy used to pump them years ago and climb into the truck to shovel it out. Shane said ‘If I ever get to where I can buy a truck that dumps, I’m going to have them build me one with a hoist.’ Here we are,” she says.
Shane prefers using NVE 4310 blower pumps that use air instead of oil. “The standard pump uses oil and it smokes. I’ve seen sometimes where the oil will slip out,” he says. “So, if you’re at a nice home, you stain the concrete slab. Changing over, you will spend more upfront but I would spend it over and over and over.
“Even though I’m in a kind of scummy workplace that can stink and be thought of as nasty, if your trucks are clean and shiny and smell good, you just stand out,” Shane says.
He calls the Price trucks “a signboard for us that’s up and down streets and on interstates.”
That’s why their trucks are cleaned weekly and a reason why Misty and Cody have both won Classy Truck of the Month awards over the years.
On the road
In the early years, she was on one truck and Shane was on the other. They did five jobs a week, but that’s grown to six to eight jobs each day.
Now, on a typical work day, the company has two to three trucks on jobs. Misty is in the office and Shane is making calls with Cody and Lamar Pritchett, a returned employee who came back to the company after 16 years working for the state.
“We do government jobs, commercial and residential. If we can legally pump it, we will,” Misty says. “People ask, ‘How far can you go?’ We say, ‘Wherever your checkbook is at.’”
The radius is about 35 miles. Of course, jobs farther away may have a bigger price tag as the trucks get five to six miles per gallon.
Grease traps
A large portion of the company business is cleaning grease traps at local restaurants. It’s a dirty job, but one that has to be done monthly, every other month or quarterly.
“Grease traps are easier if they’re kept up,” says Shane. “Most of the traps here have tops on them. So, you don’t have to find them. Or shovel. You just open the top, stir it up and clean it out.”
While he finds grease traps easier to work on, the smells are worse than septic. That’s because “it has everything in it.”
“Grease, food scraps, anything that falls on the floor that gets sprayed down every night, anything that’s spilled that you can’t sweep up,” Shane says. “It all goes into the trap.”
The crew
The company has seven employees. Shane, Misty, Cody and Lamar Pritchett; Anthony Adams and Dylan Gaddis, who ride along and help on jobs; and Cody’s wife Ashli, who answers the office phone.
Every time a truck goes out, there’s a driver and a rider and having Pritchett back in one of those trucks is a huge asset to the company.
“We’ve known him for 100 years,” Misty jokes about Pritchett, who they consider a rarity and whom they are glad to have back.
Finding workers is not too challenging for the company because many prefer working outdoors. However, retention is another story. “Nobody stays long because it is a tough job. It is physically demanding. You have to be strong,” Misty says.
With that in mind, she and Shane have a strict policy about working in the oppressive heat and humidity of a typical summer day in Georgia.
If someone calls at two in the afternoon and wants help now, Misty tells them a truck can be out there by six in the morning.
“We’re not working in 105-degree heat. I’m not going to let my boys have a heatstroke. You can put on clothes, but you can only get so naked,” Misty says. “We’d rather work from six to noon.”
Missed call, missed job
After 23 years, Misty is still no fan of 2 a.m. calls. But, she always answers the phone. After all, she notes, a missed call is a missed job and missed income.
That’s why she takes her company cellphone with her to the grocery store, on vacation and even to the doctor’s office.
Cody’s wife Ashli, a stay-at-home mom who is a hairdresser, sometimes takes calls to give Misty a break.
Word of mouth
“My husband is not a contract guy. He’s a shake your hand guy,” Misty says. “He’s old school. He’s 52 going on 75 and our son is the same way. He’s 33 going on 55. People love them because they’re honest and do great work.”
Price’s is often working in places like subdivisions where word of mouth can generate business quickly.
“If the old man there likes Shane or Cody and everybody in the subdivision likes the old man, people follow him,” Misty says. “We may cost higher, but we’re not like those guys who advertise half our price then say it’s five times the cost when they are done.”
Yes, there are other pumping companies in and around Athens and Commerce. “We just do the best we can do,” Misty says. “We don’t talk trash about anybody to the customers. That doesn’t look good.”
Memorable moment
Some moments in the business just stick with you. Misty will long remember the day she got a call from a fire department. He climbed down into the well to dig out silt, but soon after he started shoveling, water began rapidly flowing in and trapped him.
“He actually got stuck in that silt and he couldn’t get out,” she recalls. “And the fire department couldn’t get him out because the water was coming in too fast.
“When we got there, the water was up to his chin. But we pumped it out until the fire department could shimmy down there and get him out. He had broken bones, but we pumped a man out of a well,” she says.
