The database Entry no. 025
Four hundred thousand gallons
Kim Hatch's team completes 18 jobs a day and pumps up to 400,000 gallons a month. In peak season Turner Septic generates as much as $200,000 a month. In winter that falls to about $30,000, and managing the gap between those two numbers is the actual business.
If Dan Spracklin shows what buying a septic route looks like, Kim Hatch shows what operating one at full throttle looks like. Before any of it, she spent seven years as a police officer in a domestic violence unit, then lost the job and went through a divorce, and rebuilt around a pump truck. Turner Septic runs 18 jobs a day and pumps as much as 400,000 gallons a month, generating up to $200,000 in peak-season revenue, per her interview on the UpFlip podcast.
Her competitive edge is almost comically simple: she showed up with technology to a trade that had not. Starlink in the trucks, digital reporting software, iPads in the field, and detailed, photo-heavy invoices that explain what was found and what was done. In an industry where older competitors still hand over a carbon-copy receipt, sending a homeowner clear photographs of their own tank turns a grim service call into a five-star review and, more valuably, a standing referral from every real estate agent in the county.
Sending a customer detailed photographs of the inside of their septic tank is, improbably, a marketing strategy. The edge, summarized
The truck built for one problem
The second edge is physical. Turner Septic custom-built a 1,400-gallon four-wheel-drive mini truck to reach mountain-top properties that standard pump trucks cannot access. Those customers had, in practice, no other provider. It is the most literal moat in this database: a road nobody else can drive.
The winter problem, stated honestly
The figure that makes this entry worth publishing is not $200,000. It is $30,000, which is what a slow winter month looks like. A business swinging between those extremes has to keep crews on payroll through the trough or lose them before the peak, and Hatch is direct about that being the hard part of the job. Steve Hunsaker's holiday light season solves the same problem by treating the off-season as free; septic cannot, because the trucks and the technicians are the business. Anyone reading this category for the peak numbers should read for the trough instead.
Common questions
How much can a septic pumping company make per month?
Turner Septic reports up to $200,000 a month at peak and roughly $30,000 in the slowest winter months, on 18 jobs a day. The seasonal spread is the number most coverage omits, and it dictates how the business is staffed and financed.
How do septic companies compete with older established firms?
By being legible. Hatch's team uses Starlink, iPads, and digital reporting to send detailed, photo-heavy invoices, which in a trade where competitors still write carbon-copy receipts produces five-star reviews and steady referrals from real estate agents.
How do seasonal service businesses keep crews employed?
By treating winter payroll as the price of being ready in summer. Losing trained technicians during a $30,000 month means being short-handed during a $200,000 one, so the trough is financed deliberately rather than cut.
A note on the name
We first published this entry as "Kim Turner." The UpFlip podcast episode that is the source of every figure here names the operator as Kim Hatch, while separate press coverage of Turner Septic, based in Center Conway, New Hampshire and founded in 2019, names Kim Turner as its founder. We have corrected the entry to match our source and are noting the discrepancy rather than resolving it silently, which our methodology does not permit. If you can clarify, write to the desk.
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