Home / Septic Systems
New installs, cesspool conversions, pool digs and pool demolition. Here is exactly how the job runs, what it costs, and what makes the number move.
The 2050 deadline
State law requires it, and the Department of Health lists Upcountry Maui as one of only two Priority 1 areas in the entire state — the ground where replacement matters most and happens first.
If you are on a cesspool Upcountry, this is not a maintenance question. It is a deadline with your address on it, and the work is easier to schedule now than in the rush later.
We walk the property to work out access and where the system can physically go. Free, and it is the visit everything else is built on.
An engineer runs the percolation test to see how your land drains, designs the system around that result, and submits the plans to the Department of Health.
Usually four to six weeks. No machine comes out until the plans clear, and nobody can shorten this part.
About two working weeks on average. Longer if the location, the soil, the rock or the size of the system says so.
Same build, plus the old cesspool has to be dealt with properly — pumped out, demolished and backfilled. That work is what adds the extra cost over a new install on bare ground.
Depends entirely where you are. In Kula blue rock is common; in Kihei and Wailea, especially farther south, we hit it on roughly nine pool or septic digs out of ten. In Kahului you are mostly in sand or old agricultural ground and it rarely comes up.
Because of that, there is a rock clause in every contract. If we hit rock the price goes up by $250 an hour — and only while the breaker is actually running. It is in the contract so it is never a surprise on the final invoice.
The same machines and the same excavation skill. We cut and form new pool excavations, and we demolish and backfill old ones. Where the ground is rock, the rock clause applies the same way.
Pool demolition — breaker working the deck.
Straight answer
They come from systems we have actually put in on this island. Your number comes out of the on-site check and the engineer's design — and you get it itemized, usually three to five days after we have walked the property.
No call center, no sales rep. Akua answers the phone, walks your property, and does the work.
