Emergency septic service

What to do right now

• Stop running water. Every flush, shower and load of laundry adds to what is already backing up.
• Keep people and pets away from anything that has surfaced in the yard. Treat it as a health hazard, because it is.
• Do not pour drain cleaner into the system. It will not clear a full tank or a failed field, and it damages the bacteria the tank depends on.
• If sewage is inside the house, switch off power to that area at the breaker rather than wading in to do it at the outlet.
• Note whether it started after heavy rain. That tells us a great deal before we arrive.

How after-hours calls work

We work Monday to Friday, and that is when nearly all of this gets handled. We very rarely work after hours or at weekends. Someone answers after hours, so you will speak to a person rather than a machine, and you will get a straight answer about what happens next.

A genuine emergency outside working hours — sewage inside the house, not just a slow drain — is taken case by case. We will tell you on the phone what an out-of-hours visit involves. For most calls the honest answer is that first thing in the morning loses you nothing, and we would rather say so.

The other thing we will not do is tell you a pump-out fixed a drain field. If the field has stopped accepting water, pumping relieves the symptom and the problem is still there next week. You will hear that plainly rather than getting a bill and a surprise three weeks later.

Why it so often happens after rain

A wet-season water table in Northeast Florida can rise to the point where the drain field is saturated from below. A field that copes in May cannot discharge in September, and a system that was marginal starts backing up. If your backups track the weather, the field is the thing to look at, not the tank.

Where we do this work

We handle emergency service across Duval, Clay, Nassau, St. Johns, Putnam, Union and Baker counties. Each area page covers the local ground conditions and which office issues the permit there.

Jacksonville · St. Augustine · Orange Park · Middleburg · Green Cove Springs · Ponte Vedra Beach · Fernandina Beach · Yulee

See every area we serve, all septic services, or who issues your permit.