Sewer Queston

3Kings Plumbing

I went to an old house down town yesterday. I'll try to explain this as best as I can. All the drains go into the basement floor so I can't see where they go after that. But what has me in question is there is an pit in the back yard. (I thought it was an septic pit at first!) From where the pit is located a drain pipe runs from it into the main drain going into the basement floor. The HO had that pit pumped out. Him and the pumper guy seen the water run into it from the faucets inside the house.(this is what the HO told me) I've seen this twice so far and have no Idea what it is.

Anyone have a Idea what this is?

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KillerToiletSpider

Get some dye and pour it in the kitchen sink, and see if it shows up in the basin, my guess is it is a grease basin, they were quite common back in the pre fifties. More than likely the laundry is in the basement directly below the kitchen, and it also ties into the basin.

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Double-A

I'm not sure either. My first guess is 'dry well'.

Some older towns have mixed sewer systems, i.e., sanitary and storms sewer are interconnected. Some towns now prohibit this, but some older buildings have never had the plumbing updated to separate these two systems.

You might have all the leaders from the gutters going out to that dry well and overflowing back into the sanitary sewer in case of clog or silting or just being overloaded.

Water running into this dry well from the home could be accounted for by bad pluming updates, mixing up leaders from the roof/gutters with soil and waste stacks from the house, etc.

I'm afraid that tracing the lines out is the only way to tell if this is the case and how/where you can separate these two systems.

This might also be the old distribution box from a septic system that is no longer in use, and the sewer runs to it, as opposed to connecting to the building drain under the basement slab someplace, as it really should have done.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

3Kings Plumbing

I thought it might of been like a storm drain system. It's a pretty big grease basin if that is what it is. I just have to try the dye thing. The HO keeps getting clogged up drains. I don't know if this helps but it's a 4 unit apartment building built back in the early 1900's. Both lower units have drain issues. Toilet not flushing right. One time the sewage water backed up into the tub and toilet in the unit he lives in. The other main floor unit has trouble as well with the toilet not flushing at times.

The units dump into an 4" C/I pipe and in his unit the kitchen dumps into an 2" C/I pipe stack about 10' from 4" stack. His floor drains both has sewage backing up in them when I was there. I don't do the unclogging drain thing yet! Back to where I was going, his kitchen drain usually doesn't back up. He said it did once after he had the main drain snaked and that pit pumped out. The city has no record of it being on city sewers. but the house are 5" apart how in the heck can they put in an septic??

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Double-A

Believe it or not, I've seen older buildings built on top of septic tanks and leech fields. There's no telling with something this old. Its possible there was septic servicing another build this one was tied into or built on top of.

Its not likely, mind you, but its all possible.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

smellslike$tome

I live in a house that was built in 1948. It's not a basement but a crawl space.
My kitchen sink discharges to a grease pit which is roughly 1/2 the size of my septic tank. The septic receives discharge from 2 bathrooms. The washing machine discharges to it's own field line separate from everything else. The original owner, before she died, swore up and down that the second bathroom which also has the washing machine in it, is part of the original construction. The bathroom is set back from the rest of the house and covers approximately 1/2 of the grease pit leaving the other half exposed. It's very odd and I've always questioned whether this bathroom was original to the house and why in the world if it was did they locate the grease pit under part of the house.

Probably the only way you can know for certain is to get a camera with a locator out their and trace out the lines. I'm assuming you don't have a camera since you already indicated that you don't clean drains. Understand that running the camera down multiple lines will mean multiple dollars. This could get costly but you are probably only guessing without locating the lines.

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