Finding a soakaway

[Bert Coules]

I should have said that I've discovered that the downpipe can be disconnected, so using a camera has become feasible.

Bert

[Tim Lamb]

My first soakaway was around 1972 and I have no recollection of using salt glaze pipe. No recollection of using plastic at that time either so no help really:-)

[charles]

I buit an extension in 1972 which needed modification to the drains. No sign of plastic; it was all Hepworth glazed pipe.

[Tony Bryer]

Marley PVC drainage was around when I was at uni 1971-74. Before PVC the alternative to clay was pitch-fibre pipes: OK until the rats started nibbling.

[Mark]

Are you sure it's a soakaway? IIRC storm drains were used mostly in those days.

If it is a soakaway it may not be able to cope with the additional water from another source.

[Bert Coules]

That's an interesting point. To be honest, I'm hazy on the difference. I must check.

Yes, that point was raised by someone else. Once I know exactly (or even approximately) what I'm dealing with, that's clearly a factor I'll have to consider.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Bert

[fredsmithdc]

Can you not tap into the existing pipework close to the house once you've h ad an exploratory dig to discover its direction. Alternatively once you know the direction run sewer rods up until they go n o further. When you pull out the rods leave them screwed together then lay them along the line of the direction you have established. This should give you some indication of the location of the soakaway

[Bert Coules]

That's not really practical, unfortunately, but thanks for the thought. Your other suggestion is a good one too.

Bert

[Bert Coules]

Though on reflection, doesn't a storm drain invariably have an open grating or similar at ground level? If that's the case then what I have isn't one.

Bert

[Mark]

IIRC normally there will be an inspection cover but it might be covered up or not on even on your property.

[robgraham]

Having a 1800's cottage probably updated in the 1920's with a septic tank a nd, I'm assuming, roof water soakaways, both of the latter having now becom e disfunctional, I would suggest that the OP may well find that trying to g et a camera down the pipes could be nigh impossible due to sediment build u p.

OK my original soakaways were some 80 years old, but the pipes were absolut ely blocked with muck, and new soakaways - oversize lemonade bottle crates

- have had to be installed. I've put in traps to try and reduce the muck c oncentration, though I'm not sure why as I will be shuffling off long befor e these 'soakaways' approach their life expectancy.

What I'm saying is that the OP should be aware that a soakaway built in the 60's might well be marginal now in capacity and that he may have to put in a new one.

[Bert Coules]

Rob, thanks for the warning. As it happens, my under-a-tenner USB camera arrived just a few minutes ago, so I'll give it a try today.

Bert

[Tim Watts]

If the end gets clagged with dirt, run a hose down it at the same time - I found that worked quite well :)

[Bert Coules]

Well, there's been progress of a sort. First, I excavated the house end of the pipework to try to determine the angle of the run. This was the result:

It doesn't show up well in the picture but the pipe is corrugated and looks as if it might be bendable. Certainly it seems to curve downwards away from the entry level. I can't determine what it's made of.

Next I tried the USB camera. The cable was too flexible to be used to feed the camera down the pipe, so I attached it to the end of an extending rule. I got almost exactly ten feet along the pipe before I reached what seemed to be a dead end. The camera did feed back a picture but it wasn't good enough (or perhaps wasn't well-lit enough) to see exactly what was going on.

So I laid a batten along what seemed to be the straight course of the pipe and dug down at the ten foot mark. And I found - earth. And a lot of stones, but that would be true wherever you dig in this garden.

Either I haven't dug deep enough, or the pipe is flexible and bends annoyingly off to one side or the other. If that's the case then it could go almost anywhere...

Bert

[Bert Coules]

Update:

I just dug down at the five feet mark along the same line. Nothing but earth and stones.

It's too hot for any more digging, so I'm giving up for today. Off now to play with the camera in a marginally less messy environment...

Bert

[RobertL]

Ah, but that's not a binary chop. for a binary chop you decide on two lim its where the soakaway can be and mark them: initially you put the the "far marker" at the end of the garden and the "near marker" at the place where you have exposed the pipe. You dig halfway between the markers. if you f ind pipe you move the 'far' marker to that point, if you don't find pipe yo u move the near marker to that point. Then you repeat, always digging half way between the current markers. This finds the soakaway with the minimum number of digs.

If you garden is, say, 32 metres long it will take at most 5 digs to get wi thin 1 metre of the soakaway.

Robert

[RobertL]

or just poke a rod along it.

Robert

t

[RobertL]

Could "earth and a lot of stones" be the soakaway?

Robert

[Bert Coules]

An appealing thought, but if you dig down *anywhere* in my garden you find earth and a lot of stones. Of course it could be that the entire garden is the soakaway...

Bert

[RobertL]

is the pipe perforated perhaps?

Robert