We're digging footers for a guest house and came across this pipe. It's buried about 12" down, it's orange and about 1" diameter and has raised ridges running lengthwise (you can see them as black lines in the photo). The pipe had quite a bit of water in it that drained out, but nothing under pressure. We checked all the sprinkler systems zones (it's an older system) and it's not connected. I've never seen this kind of pipe before. It's an older property (main house is 150 years old) but this pipe is way away from the main house, near the property line, with no logical start or finish. Any ideas?
Plumbing – Can anyone ID this pipe
pipeplumbing
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I'm not sure who the idiot was who put this down that hole, but it was pretty firmly lodged in there. I cut off a bit more of the PVC and was able to get my trusty pry bar in the notch and turn it. After about three quarters of a turn the stupid thing came out. And sure enough, there was a regular stop and waste down there underneath whatever the heck this is.
Thanks everyone for the feedback and tips! Turns out I was able to get a clear answer by calling the sewer company:
1) They looked at their recent scopes and confirmed that our property does indeed have two sewer laterals. They also observed some corrosion and decided to come out and take a look.
2) They brought a truck out to our house and performed a sewer scope - entering from the manhole immediately downstream and running upstream to where our laterals connects to the main line.
3) They then had me run water from every fixture in the house, one after the other. Turns out that all fixtures run to one lateral, confirming that our basement pipes do indeed tie into it somewhere out in the yard. The sewer guys theorized that what the inspector mistook for an exterior cleanout was actually the basement pipes tying in! Our second lateral is "inactive," but is likely an old stormwater drain for our back patio...which may or may not be legal.
Thanks again for the suggestions. Glad we got this mystery figured out! Now to determine how old this place is (we have aerial photos proving the home was there prior to the build date on tax records)...
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Best Answer
It looks to me like ribbed HDPE conduit used in directional boring. Orange is the color that is traditionally used for telecom applications. I'm guessing that this is either a fiber-optic back haul cable or an area trunk line, and the water that leaked out was due to a bad conduit seal somewhere. Assuming that your phone is still working, I'd call either the "call before you dig" locator service that didn't flag it or local telecom utilities to see if it belongs to any of them.