So this 1941 house keeps giving me puzzles to solve. I found something again in my yard...

So I am redoing my driveway with concrete pavers. The old driveway is asphalt, so there was a backhoe here earlier in the week removing the old cracked asphalt. As the backhoe removed the asphalt going back and forth it hit something, and it is an old pipe. Here is a picture of the yard, and the pipe is found where the red arrow is.





As you can tell it is in the middle of the yard, there is no structure anywhere near it.

So I dug around the pipe with a narrow shovel and the pipe goes down quite deep. 24" down and it's still not yielding.



It looks like a cast iron pipe to me. Buried almost vertically. It has an OD around 1-3/4" and ID 1-1/2".



32" down I the soil is wet, I think this is the water table.





A couple more inches the pipe started to yield and I was able to pull it out. The total length I pulled out is about 42". The last 8 to 10" is very corroded.



I am not sure if this is the end of this pipe, or if I broke it off where the pipe is severely corroded.



Anyone care to take a guess as to what this is doing there? In the middle of the yard for so many years?

Is it a drain of some sort?

Any chance I have a septic tank 42" below?

or this is just some random trash buried in dirt? A few months ago I dug up my main sewer drain to repair tree root intrusion and I found a 4'X2' 4" deep slab buried in the yard.

Some of you may remember I found a mystery hole in my yard some time back which i documented in this thread:

[www.plbg.com]

This is at the same property in the same side yard. That tank is over ten feet away from this pipe though.



Edited 1 times.

It appears to be an old 1 1/2" copper pipe. It is not Cast Iron because it does not bend.

the ID appears to be 1-1/2

the OD appears tp be 1-5/8




yep, coper tube


? why it is there ?

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638

I doubt it is copper, it is 1/4" thick, even type K copper is not this thick.

As I dug down deeper and deeper, the soil I excavated became more and more reddish orange, this is consistent with cast iron pipe corrosive color, never seen copper pipe do that.

The bent can possibly be explained by the backhoe hitting it. That's a lot of force, or years ago something rolled over it when compacting the crushed stone base for the asphalt driveway.

But my main concern is whether it is broken off of something it's connected to, can a septic tank be 42" below? Do septic tanks have vents?

Cast iron would break before it bent. The top end appears to have been driven in with a sledge hammer. Probably a piece of 1 1/2" galvanized pipe used as a guy wire anchor for a TV tower or a clothesline post.

Every Plumber should carry a Magnet on their key chain, No stickie it's non-ferrous metal. (Copper, brass etc.)

I agree I think it is an old fence post for a clothesline

Nice fence. are you going to stain it? clear?

your water table is ridiculously high. You are lucky there are no earthquakes in Florida - just the hurricanes and alligators.

Sum wrote:
>Some of you may remember I found a mystery hole in my yard some time back which i documented in this thread:

Sum, did you ever determine what that rectangular underground chamber was?

Here is a picture with the dirt I dug up next to this pipe.



I don't think copper will stain the dirt like that. This is from something ferrous.



Edited 1 times.

I never did find out what that rectangular thing was. I end up measuring it's size and location then filled it in entirely.

Some thought it may have been a cistern, some thought it may have been a gray water dry well for a washing machine, some thought it may have been a home made rectangular riser with a septic tank below.