YOU STAND TO WASTE A LOT OF MONEY WITH THIS COMPANY
I just wrote an initial review yesterday, in which I explained that although Skips does a good job (this is not rocket science, after all), I was troubled with one aspect of their doing business. I allowed three stars because they did a good job, but after further investigating the business aspect today, I decided to drop to one with reason I will explain. Unfortunately, the way it is set up to update a review here, it is not clear whether my initial review will remain accessible, so I will repeat parts of what I said just to assure the comments I make today are in context. I am sorry if it is all redundant.
To put it simply, I have owned, including my current house, four houses, of course all of which required septic services. I have received good service in all of them, so to me the idea of giving five stars is a bit of a stretch here, but we get so used to doing that. The thing is, this is a sort of work, where if you do it, you probably do a pretty good job of it. It's just not hard to do, and with competition as in any business, they all appear prone to show up on time and behave professionally and personably. That has been my experience and expectation with all four houses, and I don't think it is something to rave about when a business does what they should.
Anyway, my prior houses were occupied by from two to five people. Despite those numbers, the most frequent septic pump out rate ever recommended to me was every three years. That worked out fine, as I never had any problem with any of the septic systems with that frequency of service. I currently live alone in a house designed for 5 people (long story), with a 1,500 gallon septic tank and a 1/2 acre leach field, and when I first bought the house, Skips did the pump out and evaluation that were part of the pre-closing inspection and informed me that with that system and my living alone, I would be fine going five years between pump outs. That made perfect sense to me.
I had a second pump out a year early 2 years ago because I feared there might be a problem with the system. It turned out to be fine, and I expected to go another 5 years, or 3 from now, until it would need to be pumped again. To my surprise, instead though, a few days ago Skips sent me an email explaining it was time to schedule my "2 year" pump out. It explained that they recommend a pump out to everyone every 1 to 2 years, "to avoid damage to the system." I was dumbfounded, because this was contrary to any prior experience I've had or even to Skips' own recommendation to me just 6 years ago, and it was a huge difference, going from every 5 years to every 2. That would have me paying on average nearly $900 in the time that I had previously paid $350!
I looked online and found the US Environmental Protection Agency recommends that most people will require a pump out every 3 to 5 years, consistent with all my prior experience and understanding, and here is Skips telling me they recommend 1 to 2 years to everyone. Those 2 ranges don't even intersect! I presumed for the change to be legitimate, they must have some new scientific evidence on which to base such a drastic increase, contrary even to the recommendations of the EPA, so I sent an email requesting information that explained the change.
I got a wise guy response from the president of Skips, informing me that for the $350 dollars paid for a pump out, they couldn't afford the time to give me an explanation. If I couldn't find the info I needed on their website (which offers no useful information of any sort other than their address and phone and how wonderful they think they are), he recommended I call another septic company or the public health department for information on the topic.
So here comes the change from my review of yesterday. It is Monday, so I could call another local septic service company this morning, and I took him up on it. I described my septic system and my living alone, and the agent offered that five years would be the ordinary recommended frequency for me to get pumped out. I then informed her of the context of my question, and she laughed. She couldn't believe it. Of course, it is not true that everyone should be cleaning their septic tank on a yearly or biyearly basis! While doing so will not likely hurt your system, the only one that will truly benefit from it is Skips, by generating considerably extra unnecessary and unwarranted business and income for themselves. I dropped my evaluation to 1 star because they lie to customers and present themselves as the professionals best able, "after 60 years experience," to assess how often you need a pump out and then just seek to cheat their customers by setting up this every 1 to 2 year thing that is excessive, costly, and contrary to any standards. I will not use them again, even though their work had been perfectly adequate. read more