Old terracotta pipe found


  #1  
Old 02-06-15, 02:43 PM
N
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Old terracotta pipe found

I live in a house that is a hundred years old and in the country. The old owner had a sump pump setup in the basement at the middle of the front wall of the house. Recently I redug the sump pump pit and installed a new sump pump. While digging I found an old four inch terracotta pipe that came under the foundation of the house and into the basement and was filled with cement.

Unfortunately while digging out the pit I disturbed the terracotta pipe and now it has a slow leak to it. My question is what would this pipe have been to a hundred years ago when the house was built? The pipe is located pretty much under the front door area of my house not in a close proximity to my bathroom or kitchen pipping. I thought about it maybe being an old septic pipe but again the house piping is in a different location not even close. Also if it went to an old septic system it would be in my front yard where the well is for water in the house. I am not sure if it was common practice to put a septic system on top of your drinking well back in the day?
Any insight would be much appreciated. Unfortunately I am probably going to have to redig out the pit, cut the pipe, and fill it up with fresh cement
 
  #2  
Old 02-06-15, 03:42 PM
P
Temporarily Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 10,265
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
If the pipe is filled with cement, what's leaking out of it? Is there a floor drain, in the cellar or even a patch where it might have been?
 
  #3  
Old 02-06-15, 03:51 PM
N
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
There is water slowly leaking from the pipe. There is no floor drain In the area or a patch where one might have been
 
  #4  
Old 02-06-15, 04:00 PM
N
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
I didn't even think about a floor drain because I didn't even know they installed them that long ago
 
  #5  
Old 02-07-15, 08:56 AM
V
Vey
Vey is offline
Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Mid-Florida
Posts: 1,201
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
Does it run in the same direction as the slope of the land?
 
  #6  
Old 02-07-15, 10:04 AM
M
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 123
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
No, normally water well would be separate from and ABOVE the septic area - for at least 150 years ever since water-borne bacteria were definitively seen to cause disease.

I'm not sure there would even have been a septic system in the country that long ago - I grew up with an open sewer (ditch) that drained our house (now 110 years old) down into our woods, plus four younger houses... We played in that woods, someone fell in the stinky ditch every summer, somehow not one of us five kids ever caught hepatitis or typhoid. City sewer didn't reach us till 1960s.

Far out but maybe: would your house ever have been moved, relocated onto a farm field that previously had been tiled for drainage? In that case, the tile is still draining the soil above and around it, which is the "leak" you see. Mighty long survival for a terracotta tile!
 
  #7  
Old 02-09-15, 05:33 PM
A
Member
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 4,515
Upvotes: 0
Received 276 Upvotes on 252 Posts
Before you touched anything, were you getting water in the basement?

That 4 inch terra cotta pipe could have been the remains of a perimeter drain system, whose purpose is to combat basement flooding.

Typically a sump pump is installed together with a perimeter drain system and the intent is so the soil will dry out above the level of the basement floor and that water is collected in the pit and periodically pumped out to end up some distance from the house.
 
 

Thread Tools
Search this Thread
 
Ask a Question
Question Title:
Description:
Your question will be posted in: