Septic · perc tests · leach fields · Bewick Township & the Merebrook shore
The best septic system is the one you never think about again.
Goodsoil Septic & Excavation designs and builds on-site systems the county approves the first time: perc tests read by a hand that has dug a thousand holes in this till, leach fields laid to the drawing, tanks set on beds that will not settle. Thirty-eight years, one shovel, and a pump-out card that arrives before the problem does.
Perc test $385 · conventional field from $8,900 · tank set from $2,150 · (555) 074-8823 · percs@goodsoilseptic.example
New-build designs filed inside seven days · replacements scheduled first, always · emergency calls go straight to the operator · (555) 074-8823 · percs@goodsoilseptic.example
The perc sheet · 2026
Perc test & test pits$385
Two holes, read the same day, filed on the county form
Conventional trench fieldfrom $8,900
Trenches to the drawing, washed stone, pipe on grade, loam and seed
Raised bed / mound systemfrom $14,600
Where the water table argues — sand fill, dosing, shaped and seeded
Tank set, 1,000–1,500 galfrom $2,150
Excavated, bedded in sand, set level, backfilled in compacted lifts
Field replacement, failed systemfrom $9,800
Old field abandoned to code, new one started clean on good ground
Pump chamber & dosing setfrom $3,400
Chamber, floats set to spec, alarm wired by our electrician partner
Maintenance visit & filter rinse$210
Effluent filter pulled and rinsed, levels read, tank condition noted
Services & rates
Priced by the hole, the foot and the gallon
Because that is how the county prices your permit, how the installer prices your field, and how the truck prices your tank — none of the three has ever once asked for a round number. The sheet is the one your neighbours were quoted from, and the office will read it to you over the phone, line by line, before anybody digs.
Reading the ground
The soil decides. We just translate.
A perc test is the soil being interviewed, and this till has been answering the same questions since the glacier left. Ribboning clay that holds water like a grudge; sand that takes it gladly; orange mottling two feet down that means the water table visits every April whether you are watching or not. We dig the holes ourselves, read them ourselves, and design to what they say — because the cheapest perc on the market is the most expensive line item on a failed field.
The perk
Two holes, a shovel and a watch — percolation measured the way the county form asks, plus test pits for depth to the water table and the till below it.
The drawing
System designed to your lot, your bedroom count and your soil, filed on the county form inside seven days, and back with an approval stamp in the county’s own time.
The set
Tank excavated, bedded in sand and set level — inlet and outlet checked with a level, never an eye — then backfilled in compacted lifts.
The field
Trenches or bed cut to the drawing, washed stone, pipe laid on grade, and the inspection called BEFORE the cover goes on, every time.
The cover
Loam, seed and the as-built drawing mailed to you — the map the next owner, and the next inspector, will be quietly grateful for.
The sequence
From first hole to first flush
Five stages, three of them paperwork pretending to be patience. A new build runs three to four weeks door to door, most of it waiting on stamps; a replacement field is usually one week of ground open. Either way the sequence is the county’s, the care is ours, and the inspection happens before the cover, not after the complaint.
The five-year clause
A field we design, build and cover is guaranteed against workmanship failure for five years — stone migration, pipe settlement, a bed that will not accept water. Pumping habits, what gets flushed and the roots you plant are yours; the ground we built is ours. In thirty-eight years the clause has been called on eleven times, and the dig was ours every time.
Maintenance
The three-year card
A tank that is pumped every three years is a field that lasts thirty; a tank that is ignored is a field that is counting. Our card arrives by mail the autumn you are due: the visit is $210, the filter gets pulled and rinsed, the levels get read, and you get a note on the tank’s condition that is written in plain words. Roots stay mowed, grease stays out, and the system over your leach field stays grass — that is the whole regimen, and it is not much to ask of a machine that will outlast the mortgage.
2025 — 2026
Fields we covered
We bought a seventies cottage on the Merebrook shore with a septic system older than we are, and every inspector said walk away. Goodsoil perked the lot, found four feet of good sand nobody knew was there, and replaced the whole system without losing a single willow. The county approved the filing the first time, and the pump-out card arrives every third autumn like a birthday we did not know we wanted.
Where we dig
Two townships, one shore, one shovel
Bewick and Harrow Mills townships, the Merebrook shore from the county line to the old ferry slip, and every gravel road between them that a tank truck can back down. If your address has a well and no sewer bill, the office already knows roughly what your soil is like — call and test us.
How long should a leach field actually last?
In this till, a well-built field under a pumped, unfattened tank is a twenty-five to forty-year machine. What kills them early is never geology — it is grease, a garbage disposal used as a second bin, roots planted for shade, and a decade of skipping the pump-out. The five-year clause covers what we build; the three-year card covers the part that is yours, and it costs about what a dinner out does.
Can I build or plant over the field?
Grass, and only grass — nothing with a root that goes woody, nothing with a load that compacts. No sheds, no driveways, no riding lawners heavier than the family sedan, and no vegetable garden, because the answer to “is it safe” and the answer to “is it good for the carrots” are different answers. The cover is shaped so the field breathes; a slight crown in the lawn that nobody but us notices is the system working.
Why a mound instead of trenches?
Because the soil voted first. Where the water table sits high or the till percolates at a crawl, trenches would drown; a raised bed lifts the treatment zone into sand the ground cannot offer, doses it evenly, and counts as engineered where the county says it must be. It costs more because it IS more — about forty additional truckloads of exactly the right sand — and a mound on the right plan beats a trench on a hopeful one every single season.
How often should the tank really be pumped?
Every three years for a typical household; annually if you run a business or a bunkhouse off it. The visit is $210 and the arithmetic is blunt: solids that stay in the tank until they overflow into your field are the cheapest material in construction and the most expensive once they land there. We keep the calendar so you do not have to — the card arrives before the problem does, which has been the whole slogan since 1988.
The four regulars
Asked at the kitchen table
The four every septic conversation reaches before the coffee cools. If yours is not here, the office answers seven to five, the operator answers after that, and both of them have stood in a hole in your township.
Send the lot, get the drawing
The address, the age of what is there now, and what the yard does in a wet spring. The perc is booked off one phone call, the design is filed inside seven days of a signed sheet, and the as-built arrives with the invoice. percs@goodsoilseptic.example
Emergency calls go straight to the operator, seven days