Septic Tank Installation & Repair in Honolulu & Oahu

Golden Penny Sanitation Inc. provides expert septic system installation and replacement services in Honolulu and across Oʻahu. Whether you’re building a new property or replacing a failing system, our licensed team ensures a safe, durable, and code-compliant installation built to last.

Most people calling about a septic problem want one question answered honestly: can this be fixed, or does the whole system have to go? The difference is thousands of dollars, so we look before we quote.

Plenty of failures are genuinely repairable — a cracked lid, a broken baffle, a blocked or crushed inlet line, a failed pump or float. Those are parts, not a new system. Replacement becomes the honest answer when the tank itself is failing, when the drain field is saturated and no longer absorbing, or when the system was undersized for the house from the start. We tell you which one you are looking at, and we will say "this can be repaired" when that is the truth.

On Oʻahu you cannot simply put a septic system in the ground. A new or replacement system needs Hawaiʻi Department of Health approval before any digging starts — the design is engineered and permitted first, then inspected once it is in. Golden Penny Sanitation Inc. is a licensed and insured Hawaiʻi sanitation contractor — Hawaiʻi License CT-39138 — so if you are looking for a licensed septic installer on Oʻahu, that is the number to check us against. We handle the whole sequence as one job. If the system you are replacing is a cesspool, that is a cesspool conversion — same crew, same permits, and the old cesspool is closed as part of the work.

This is worth caring about beyond the paperwork. An unpermitted system is the property owner's liability, not the installer's, and it surfaces at the worst possible moment — during a sale, a refinance, or a county inspection. Getting it permitted the first time costs less than explaining it later.

We install and replace septic systems across all of Oʻahu — Honolulu, Kailua, Kāneʻohe, Kapolei, ʻEwa Beach, Waipahu, Pearl City, Mililani, Waiʻanae, Wahiawā, Waimānalo, ʻAiea, Kalihi and the North Shore. Estimates are free. Call (808) 630-9966 and describe the property — we can usually tell you over the phone whether you are looking at a repair or a replacement.

Most septic systems going into the ground on Oʻahu are not new construction. They are replacements for cesspools, because Hawaiʻi banned new cesspools in 2016 and Act 125 requires every existing one — more than 11,000 on this island, according to the Department of Health — to be converted, upgraded or connected to sewer by January 1, 2050.

So if you are searching for septic installation because you have a cesspool, you are in the right place and this is the job we do most. The sequence is the same every time.

Our Hawaiʻi cesspool conversion guide covers the law, the options and the costs end to end. If you want the job itself scoped, that is cesspool conversion.

A conversion on Oʻahu typically runs $25,000 to $50,000, and the cost is the objection almost every time. Very few people argue with the 2050 deadline once they understand it — they argue with the price, and fairly.

Two things are worth knowing before you assume it is out of reach.

The application process has not been published yet, and neither has the agency that will administer it. What we can tell you is that any funding route will expect a system design for your specific property, and that design takes longer to produce than an application takes to fill in — so it is worth starting before the window opens rather than after. We wrote up where the funding actually stands in this post.

The assessment itself is free. We come out, look at what you have, and tell you what your lot can support before you spend anything on engineering.