FloHawks

Brittney A.

I was a little wary of this company after reading the other reviews, but I had sh*t that needed to be taken care of! My septic tank alarm (if you don't have one get one!) went off in the late evening. I quickly called and scheduled for them to come the next afternoon. In the morning there have been a mixup from the scheduler and they were on their way, but with quick resolve they rescheduled for the afternoon as I had planned.

The service man that came was extremely thorough and worked efficiently without wasting time. Being a woman, I am always afraid of being ripped off and dismissed with my concerns and questions, this was never the case here. Every question I had was handled with care, he did not shy away from explaining how things worked either. He made the required repairs and cleaned up afterwards.

Now let's talk about cost. Yes, I was expensive. But there was no was in HELL I was going to muck about this household's feces! These men and women have a dirty job and should be compensated for it, not to mention the cost for safely disposing/cleaning up whatever materials they come across. If you're concerned about costs be sure to ask the scheduler what is typically charged and they will happily explain it to you. You will have to pay for their time, materials, and assessment of the issue.

I will be using this company again for my next service.

(4 stars instead of 5 because of the scheduling hiccup.)

John R.

Northwest Cascade/Flohawks Septic Field Complaint
We purchased our property on Fox Island, WA in December 2013. As a sale requirement, the previous owner was required to update the property's septic system and used Northwest Cascade as their septic contractor. Among other improvements, the company installed a drip system that was signed off by Pierce County. FloHawks, an offshoot of Northwest, has done yearly county inspections ever since.
During an extensive interior remodel of the property, which delayed our occupying the house, our contractor advised us that the septic field was extremely soggy. Between 5/1/14 and 8/25/14, I logged eleven calls to Northwest Cascade complaining about the problem. Dave Rink, FloHawks Customer Representative, and Tom Rogers, Northwest Cascade Residential Construction Manager, looked at the field, debated options, promised to return with the installer, but never did. I also made calls to their consultant, Ric Wilkerson of Wilkerson and Associates Inc, who promised to follow up on the problem. He wrote me saying he spoke with ""one of the premier experts on wastewater drip dispersal in the state"" who agreed to inspect the system when the immediate rainy weather improved. To my knowledge, that never happened. By now Adam Cushman, Northwest Residential Construction Manager, and Mike Kempf, Site Development Supervisor, were included in the communications. Kelvin Elbert, Customer Representative, had came out to examine a separate problem with tank flooding, but he, too, observed that the septic field was saturated and could be contributing to the flooding. Despite all these inspections and conversations, no action or follow-up occurred.
A number of serious personal health crises prevented me from taking any action in the intervening years but the soggy drain field continued unabated year-round. Our gardener complained that he could barely mow the field even in summer without leaving deep tracks in the mushy loam. So, I resumed reaching out to Northwest Cascade, the installing company, for help. After several phone calls, Ric Wilkerson and Adam Cushman came out on 9/17/20, agreed the field was quite soggy, and promised to take soil samples. Several calls were necessary to make this happen and to obtain the results. Mr. Cushman then informed me that the sandy loam of the soil was not draining and claimed that 4-6"" of poor soil had been imported over the drain field by someone else other than his company and speculated that this was the problem. He subsequently sent me a bid of $5,010.00 for replacing this soil at my expense with the caveat that the plan offered no guarantee of success. I asked whether the company had ever tested their drip system after installation but received no reply. Unfortunately, Matt Kewpf, who installed the system, no longer worked for Northwest Cascade but Mr. Cushman denied that the problem could be one of original workmanship.
On 5/22/20, Carl Evanson, a FloHawks employee, conducted the regular December inspection and informed me that the that the septic field was very soggy. Despite the fact it has been soggy since the start, no other yearly inspector had ever mentioned it to me. It appears that their inspectors had never inspected the drain field or considered it a problem which is curious because the saturation was always worse in the winter. I explained our long history of problems to Mr. Evanson, which he had never heard, and he promised to send out their trouble-shooter. I have yet to hear from anyone. Apparently Northwest Cascade and FloHawks do not communicate.
I next obtained second opinions from two other septic companies. Both suggested that new soil would only hide the problem and advised me that drip system like ours are installed because of poor soil so this could not have been new information to them. The impression I got from these consultations was that the system was improperly installed.

Conclusions: Our seriously saturated septic field has been a documented problem from the day we moved in in 2014. Despite an amazing number of calls, emails, conversations, inspections, and promises from Northwest Cascade, we have never received any believable findings or remediation. Lots of talk, no responsibility taken, blame the customer. As noted, Northwest Cascade's conclusions have also been seriously questioned by two independent septic installers. Northwest's president, Greg Potts, has reviewed this material and refused to take any responsibility or consider a compromise solution. Based on the above experience, I would strongly recommend not using Northwest Cascade for residential septic installation, inspection or management.

Jim K.

Do your homework, this is not the company to use. This was our first time having our tank pumped, we are new to being on a septic. I had the tank lid and an access uncovered thinking I was ready for him to show up and complete the job. The tech showed up and within minutes informed us that there is a second covering that had to be accessed, my 55 yr old wife started scrapping the dirt away and showed the tech the other hole just had about 2"" of dirt and was removing it, he stood there and watched and made a comment about he's going to have to charge her for digging it out as she is digging it out. I had just pulled up and went out back to see Gilbert standing over my wife, I asked what's going on and the tech informed me that there is a second hole that needs to be accessed and I point to the one that my wife just uncovered, he said he now has to leave and charge me 155 trip charge because we were not ready, now understand he was there for less than 5 minutes and he was 4 hours late. I told him by the time he parked his truck and got his hoses out we would be ready. He insisted on me paying the trip charge and he would send another tech out tonight at 9pm. We invited the tech to leave and will never do business with them again. Yes, I get it there are a lot of positive reviews but try changing your search to view the bad ones first and ask yourself are you prepared to be ripped off and treated poorly.

Janice B.

Trustworthy, honest, timely, professional, informative, and I could go on.

**LOVE them** We cannot say enough positive things about FloHawks. Our realtor had used Hemleys for the inspection/pumping, and that shady company was saying things that didn't make sense. FloHawks responded immediately, got all the necessary paperwork completed so that the property could close on time. They were patient with all of our questions, and constant phone calls (we were stressed about the property closing on time) You cannot go wrong with using this reputable company.

Kristen A.

I needed help. Today! My moms toilet was backing up and I wasn't able to rush to help her. I called flowhawks because I knew they could pump the septic if needed (didn't think that was the issue) work on or replace the pump or handle whatever plumbing related issue might be the cause. Their tech arrived quickly, within two hours of my call and was very good at explaining things to her. Turns out the line was clogged about 56' down. He had to remove her toilet and clear it out, which he did. He also totally cleaned up after himself. You couldn't even tell he was there. They may not be the cheapest but I didn't have time to shop around, I needed the issues fixed today and they totally came through for me.

C W.

Wow. What a great experience. They put a manager on the phone and saved me the service call. Can't say enough about a company and staff that treat customers like they do.

Catherine P.

I can't comment on service because I never received service. However, I can comment on scheduling and customer service. I made an appointment for a routine septic clean out. They gave me a time window of 0800 - 1200. After waiting half the day, I got a call they were running ""a little bit"" late and they would arrive shortly after 1200. After waiting 1.5 hours longer, I called back. I was told the technician was still at another job and they had no idea how long it would take them to get to my home. I made the following suggestion to the customer service representative, ""It would be nice to receive a call in the morning letting me know I was the 1st, 2nd or 3rd job of the day. Instead of wasting most of the day, I could run errands and wait for a call telling me when the technician is actually on the way."" The phone rep became very defensive and actually rudely augmentative. So I cancelled the service with Flowhawks and scheduled a new appointment with a competitor for the first appointment the following day ..... and even saved $100!!

Julie H.

FloHawks showed up on time and even sent me a picture of the technician before he got here! Ken was professional and got right to work. He had to clear a major clog at the septic tank, and also did some digging. He explained what he was going to do and kept me apprised throughout the service. He completed everything in good time and explained how I might avoid such clogs in the future. He patiently answered all my questions and gave me some suggestions for optimal use. Fee was very reasonable. My plumber had recommended this company and I was not disappointed. If you can be happy about needing such a service, this came mighty close.

Les R.

$200 for the first half an hour, then $200 an hour to go get needed parts from their supplier. They would have made their low paid worker drive an hour further to their vendor had I not called local Home Depot and confirmed availability then insisted he shop there. Then the parts were marked UP. Very expensive intervention by a very nice underpaid 'not a plumber' worker. Leaking pipe total cost, $640!! : ((

PetiteGoldens K.

Don't hire these people if you're pumping a septic to sell a house.
They seem unconcerned that they didn't keep their promise to upload reports I needed and won't allow me to speak to a manager regarding my concerns(or he wouldn't identify a manager over the phone).
The employee who inspected my system seemed knowledgeable but he didn't know that I needed something for my service and I had to go looking for it.
Overall I think they are too big and busy to give the extra service required when you need to have inspection reports quickly and employees aren't as knowledgeable about new requirements(this is a requirement started in 2011).
I would definitely ask more questions when choosing a company when selling a home. I just contacted these people because they knew my area and I failed to ask the right questions.