An inspection answers a specific question: what shape is this system actually in. That matters most before a sale, after a backup, or when you have bought a property and nobody can tell you where the tank is or when it was last touched.
When to call
A lot of the 1980s-era tracts used materials that looked fine at the time and have not aged the way anyone hoped.
These are the symptoms that usually prompt the call. Any one of them is worth a conversation, and most of them get cheaper to deal with the earlier they are looked at.
Buying or selling a property on septic
A backup with no obvious cause
No records of the system and no idea where it is
Recurring problems that pumping keeps not fixing
Planning an addition that will add fixtures or bedrooms
Ignoring an early symptom does not save money. It moves the spending to a worse moment and adds restoration work to it.
Once we know what we are looking at, you get the options in plain language and the quote before anything starts.
Locate the system
Tank, lids and the run of the field. On a property with no records this is most of the work.
Open it up and measure
Sludge and scum depths, liquid level and the condition of both baffles.
Run a camera where it helps
The building sewer into the tank and the line out to the distribution box. A camera is the only way to see an offset or a root intrusion for what it is.
Load the system and watch it
Running water tells you whether the field accepts flow or backs the level up. A static tank can look fine and still be sitting on a dead field.
Put it in writing
Condition, what needs doing now, what can wait, and a pumping interval. Something you can hand to a buyer or a lender.
There is no upselling here. We tell you the options and the trade-offs and you pick the one that suits your situation.
An inspection before a sale is worth more than the fee twice over, and it is worth doing before the property is listed rather than during escrow. Found early, a failed baffle or a distribution box out of level is a repair you schedule. Found in escrow, the same fault becomes a negotiation with a deadline attached, and the number that comes off the price is rarely the number the repair would have cost. If you are selling a septic property here, know what you have before a buyer tells you.
The camera is the single most useful thing we own. It converts an argument about what might be wrong into a picture of what is.
We work a wide area because the customers spread out over forty-four years, and people keep calling the number they know. If you are outside the usual radius, call and ask. We cover more ground than most shops our size.
Once we know what we are looking at, you get the options in plain language and the quote before anything starts.
Ignoring an early symptom does not save money. It moves the spending to a worse moment and adds restoration work to it.
For commercial property, a maintenance schedule on drains and interceptors costs a fraction of emergency response, and it is the difference between planned work and a closure.
Look behind and under appliances once in a while. Washing machine hoses, dishwasher connections and ice-maker lines are common leak sources and they are all hidden from normal view.
The cheapest plumbing is the kind that gets looked at before it fails. An annual walk of the visible plumbing, checking under sinks, around the water heater and at any exposed pipe, catches most problems while they are still small and dry.
Wipes should not go down any drain, whether the packet says flushable or not. They do not break down, and they are behind a large share of the main line blockages we clear.
Emergency work does not wait behind routine work. We keep the schedule loose enough to absorb the calls that cannot wait.
Family-run since 1982, veteran-founded, and still working out of Yucaipa. Almost nothing about how this shop operates has changed, which is the point.
We carry the classifications that let us handle the whole system: the plumbing inside, the sanitation side, and the engineering work that underground repairs require.
We are licensed for plumbing, for sanitation and septic systems, and as a general engineering contractor, so one shop can take the whole job.
Big Mike's · Yucaipa, California
If yours is not here, call and ask. We would rather talk it through than have you guess.
Locating and opening the tank, measuring sludge and scum, checking both baffles and the structure, camera work on the lines where it helps, and a flow test on the drain field.
Buyers and lenders here routinely ask for one on a septic property, and finding out what the system needs before it is listed is better than finding out in escrow.
Yes. Locating it is part of the job and it is common on older parcels.
A camera shows the condition of the lines. A field that has stopped accepting flow shows up in the levels and in a loading test rather than on the screen, so we do both.
Usually a couple of hours if the lids are accessible. Longer if we are locating a system nobody has opened in twenty years.
Yes. We haul off whatever we replaced and put the area back. You should not be able to tell we were there except that it works.
Call and ask and we will tell you straight. You will know the cost before the work starts either way.
Know where your main water shutoff is and whether it turns. Clear access to the work area. If you smell gas, leave the building and call from outside.
Yes. We hold plumbing, sanitation and general engineering contractor licensing, which lets one shop handle work that runs from inside the house out to the septic field.
Properties on septic in this area range from carefully documented systems to ones nobody has looked at in thirty years. If records exist, county files usually have the original permit with tank size and location. If they do not, locating the components is straightforward work and worth doing before there is a problem rather than during one.
If the property is on septic and you know where the tank is, that saves locating it. If you do not, we will find it.
The service area reflects where our customers actually are. It has widened steadily since 1982 and it keeps widening for the same reason it always has.
Scheduled pump-outs and full cleaning.
Replacing failed pumps.
Failed lids, baffles and inlet lines.
Routine pump-outs and full tanks.
Sizing and setting a new interceptor.
The whole system from the tank to the field.
We run septic inspection out of Yucaipa across Perris, Lake Elsinore, Cathedral City, Beaumont, Highland, West Covina and Azusa, and the rest of San Bernardino, Riverside and the eastern edge of Los Angeles County.
Tell us what it is doing and we will tell you what it takes to fix it. Plain language, no sales pitch, and the number before we start.
Yucaipa, California · Serving San Bernardino, Riverside and eastern Los Angeles counties · Open 24 hours
