In June we discovered that our septic tank was over flowing into our basement. Called Klines to be pumped out and a salesman came out to look at our situation and he determined that the problem was down stream from the septic tank. Because we lived in a well established neighborhood there was no where that Klines could access for his equipment to our back yard. Klines recommended Fins Environmental as a near by contractor that would probably have small enough equipment to get in our yard without cutting down any large trees. Jake from Fins came out that afternoon, we reviewed the situation and I authorized him to bring in a mini hoe and find the problem area. When the 4 inch diameter pipe exiting the tank was uncovered & removed we found that it was packed with waste material leaving a hole less than an inch in diameter for liquid to flow thru. I decided that as they were on site we should locate the distribution box and confirm its condition. After excavating about 20 feet with no sign of the D box Jake suggested sending a video camera down the pipe to unnecessary trenching. The camera revealed that the D box had apparently collapsed as the screen just went dark when the camera could go no further. We excavated at that spot and found that there was no D box, the drain line had been cut off and a small quantity of stone had been installed to act as a "French Drain".
Turns out the previous owners had installed an in ground swimming pool where the drain field had been.
Fins designed a new drain field, had it approved by the local codes official and I asked 4 contractors to bid on the work. Three of them turned in prices and Fins had the best price.
The price is higher than one might expect because the system was designed using the "Infiltrator" system. This system requires no crushed stone and produces very little excess soil that would have to be removed from the site. Installing a traditional drain field would have required many hours of skid loader work to both get the stone from the street to the drain field and an equal amount of time to removed the excess dirt. All things considered the Infiltrator system probably cost several thousand dollars less than a typical drain field and didn't do near the damage to the lawn.
All the prices included the entire septic system, fine grading and hydro seeding of the disturbed lawn and replacement of approximately 200 feet of side walk that we knew would be ruined by equipment.
We could not have been more satisfied with Fins. Their office communicated with us on a daily basis (remember, we had 17 inches of rain in September and 6 inches of snow in late October - not good weather for any site. The workers were very knowledgable, went about the work professionally, cleaned up before leaving for the day. They answered any questions and accomodated us in every way they could.
We are happy to give our unqualified endorsement of the work performed by Fins and would not consider calling any other contractor for future work of any kind.
