News from Colorado

Amanda and I have been in Colorado for most of this week, meeting with our friends and co-workers in the engineering and onsite profession. 

As you can imagine, Colorado is beautiful this time of year, the snow is still deep on the highest peaks and I don't know if the valleys and lower elevations have ever been so green.



We visited several jobs that have been recently completed and a few that are ongoing.

Red Sky Ranch

We have been working with Vail Resorts Development Company for about 12 years and have completed several cluster systems and many individual onsite systems.  These photos show an individual system being installed. The owner decided to use Front Range Precast tanks (one tank for the septic tank and one tank for the Eliminite) for this installation.  Discharge is to a pressurized bed absorption field.  Thanks to Don O Dell for this efficient design and expert installation.

State Bridge
Ask anyone who knows State Bridge and you will hear things like, "That place is awesome!"  An outdoor music venue destroyed by a catastrophic fire in 2007, State Bridge has risen from the ashes and is once again drawing large crowds to hear bands play in their amphitheater on the Colorado River.  Led by a dedicated team of music lovers, State Bridge provides tepees, cabins and yurts for people to rent.

Eliminite is proud to be a part of State Bridge's rebirth and revival.  LKP Engineering and Pete Petrovski of Innovative Septic Technology  http://innovativeseptictech.com/, Edwards CO provided the design and installation of the 320C System. 































We are starting to see a real departure from the way the onsite industry here has been doing wastewater.  In the recent past, most people only knew of one brand of onsite system and that system dominated the market.  But, we have been meeting with regulators, engineers, builders and homeowners, and we are beginning to see a significant shift away from the big guys. 

I'm sure that price plays a major role in the initial decision; our estimates have been dramatically lower than the big guys' prices.  The interesting thing is, we have held our prices at a fair level and have not played games with the numbers.  We've just committed a lot of time, effort and consideration to keeping our prices reasonable; we work with local suppliers, we choose not to invest disproportionately in costly advertising and marketing campaigns, and we've steered clear of the common business model of using multiple middlemen, which quickly translates into big markups.  As an example, Eliminite and one of its primary competitors in CO--I'll call them "Brand X"--provided quotes for a 6 bedroom home in Colorado.  Our price for the entire system was literally half of the Brand X quote.  What happened on the next job quote is significant:

This time, Brand X (probably determined not to lose another job to us) dropped their price by $14,000!    In one step, they reduced the price they would have normally charged the consumer by $14,000.  There is a lot one can read into this tactic:

1) They have been severely overcharging their customers because they have enjoyed a near-monopoly for years. 
2) They are deeply concerned about Eliminite in Colorado.
3) They are pretty ticked off.  I mean, we forced them to walk away from a $14,000 gravy train that they have enjoyed at the expense of the consumer.

I predict there will be some concern and dissension at the Brand X offices because, suddenly, their blank check has been taken away and they will be forced to provide a fair job for a fair price...that is where the rub will be--fairness.  Today's economy is vastly different than the economy of years past.  Consumers are no longer willing to accept the first bid they receive from the most obvious source; they are doing their own research, and they know an unfair price when they see it.  When construction loans were flowing freely, consumers often overlooked unfair prices, trusting their contractor and engineer to find them the best deal.  Contractors and engineers often went with the most commonly known brand, because it's what they already knew...years of intense marketing, lobbying, networking and advertising efforts made Brand X the go-to brand for most onsite professionals.  It was easy, obvious, and cost wasn't much of an issue.  However, today's consumers are taking matters into their own hands because resources are more scarce.  When they receive a $40,000 bid for an onsite system for a modest home, they start looking for an alternative.  Eliminite is that alternative.

Even with Brand X's dramatic $14,000 price reduction, Eliminite's price is still lower, and its maintenance requirements are significantly less onerous.  So, cost savings are substantial, not only up front, but also long term.

My long-term goal is to move the discussion away from the fact that our prices are lower so that we can discuss results, reliability and design.  I have posted quite a few real-world, cold-weather results on this blog, and it is easy to see that Eliminite is not only a viable alternative to the Big Guys; Eliminite is, in many ways, the superior alternative. The treatment results are more consistent and reliable, the system is far less susceptible to upset, and the maintenance requirements are minimal.  Our more reasonable prices might be the first thing people notice about Eliminite, but it only gets better from there.  We're looking forward to another year of record growth.