1xadviceplz
Junior Member
(VA)Beginning of August I had a plumbing company come and replace my septic pump tank after it had collapsed. It's part two of a two tank system. The first being the actual septic tank. Both tanks are concrete. When the digging began I was shown my septic tank had some cracks aswell. Only 5% or so of the tank was exposed and the rest still buried. As digging continued near the tank, I watched as friction between the dirt and the back hoes shovelhead lifted the tank up and it fell back down. Just a few inches travel.
As digging continued, the diggers support legs began to sink into my yard and has since been a puddle. My yard is perpetually wet in that area. Obviously to me it was damaged and now leaking.
For months I have been dealing with the company either ignoring me or just brushing this off. Even tho I refuse to pay for the work that was completed til this is resolved. I emailed them a picture showing the back hoe, after digging for some time, was on solid and dry ground. Then explaining damage occurred and it began sinking into the yard. And another picture showing the puddle that remains.
To me this is all I really need to present that everything was fine until the digging damaged my other tank. I do have other pictures as well from my insurance showing a nice dry yard. And photos of all the dirt they dug up. My sis is a soil scientist and explained if the area had been like it is now then the dirt would be gray from contamination. It wasn't.
I finally get the workers and the owner out to my property today and they argued with me they couldn't have lifted the tank. It's to heavy and the yard was like that when they got there. The pictures I have showing it wasn't didn't change there tune. They refuse to accept something happened.
I need advice now because their best idea was to come and pump the tank, dig down to it, and climb down in there to check for damage. That if it was lifted and damaged then it will show from inside.
The kicker is, if they show me it isn't damaged then I have to pay for the work. I don't believe that's right. I believe I have enough evidence already that they should stop arguing and just fix it. I also know I was shown it had some cracks but I know my yard and it was never like this before the digging.
They went $1500 over the base proposal for the job anyway, I can't afford to pay them to check out their mistakes.
And that's another thing, they never had anyone out to survey the job. Just a proposal from their office after seeing some pictures. I tried to tell them if they had come out in first place and looked at my yard we wouldn't even be having a disagreement. They would know it was fine before.
I had contacted another contracter previously and first thing they did was have the health department and an electrician come out and see the area. To bad I shopped around
I plan on contacting the health department for additional pics and hopefully some soil samples I'm told they will have.
I want to go along with them to resolve this, but i don't believe they will want to admit fault and correct there mistakes. I don't think they have any procedure in place to deal with this type of issue. That's my impression so far at least.
As digging continued, the diggers support legs began to sink into my yard and has since been a puddle. My yard is perpetually wet in that area. Obviously to me it was damaged and now leaking.
For months I have been dealing with the company either ignoring me or just brushing this off. Even tho I refuse to pay for the work that was completed til this is resolved. I emailed them a picture showing the back hoe, after digging for some time, was on solid and dry ground. Then explaining damage occurred and it began sinking into the yard. And another picture showing the puddle that remains.
To me this is all I really need to present that everything was fine until the digging damaged my other tank. I do have other pictures as well from my insurance showing a nice dry yard. And photos of all the dirt they dug up. My sis is a soil scientist and explained if the area had been like it is now then the dirt would be gray from contamination. It wasn't.
I finally get the workers and the owner out to my property today and they argued with me they couldn't have lifted the tank. It's to heavy and the yard was like that when they got there. The pictures I have showing it wasn't didn't change there tune. They refuse to accept something happened.
I need advice now because their best idea was to come and pump the tank, dig down to it, and climb down in there to check for damage. That if it was lifted and damaged then it will show from inside.
The kicker is, if they show me it isn't damaged then I have to pay for the work. I don't believe that's right. I believe I have enough evidence already that they should stop arguing and just fix it. I also know I was shown it had some cracks but I know my yard and it was never like this before the digging.
They went $1500 over the base proposal for the job anyway, I can't afford to pay them to check out their mistakes.
And that's another thing, they never had anyone out to survey the job. Just a proposal from their office after seeing some pictures. I tried to tell them if they had come out in first place and looked at my yard we wouldn't even be having a disagreement. They would know it was fine before.
I had contacted another contracter previously and first thing they did was have the health department and an electrician come out and see the area. To bad I shopped around
I plan on contacting the health department for additional pics and hopefully some soil samples I'm told they will have.
I want to go along with them to resolve this, but i don't believe they will want to admit fault and correct there mistakes. I don't think they have any procedure in place to deal with this type of issue. That's my impression so far at least.
