Palm329
New Member
1957 ranch-style house with basement. Original house plumbing is 3" main stack serving 2 upstairs bathrooms, and 2" second stack serving kitchen, as well as basement utility sink and floor drains. Sewer is public under street.
Around early 1960s previous owners partially furnished basement, and I believe basement bathroom was added at this time. That bathroom was functional until I removed it 2 years ago - was in horrible condition. I plugged the pipes after removing the fixtures, etc, but it was toilet, sink, and shower.
Anyway this week I started installing a interior perimeter drain & sump pump system to deal with water issues and of course I decided I'd start digging near the old bathroom, so I can pull out the old pipes and clean it all up when I re-cement the floor. This is what I've found and I'm trying to figure out how to continue.
Overview of the scene: (Street sewer is in the direction of the wall there with the water main entrance, main stack at left, old basement bathroom lav and vent pipes were located in the verticle line where the block wall was cut out at right)
Basement shower drain at bottom, then toilet drain, then lav towards top:
3" metal toilet pipe slopes down into some sort of squarish cement "box". 4" ring on top of cement box, with 1.5" metal pipe stuck into it. This 1.5" pipe then runs down and connects under shower drain using sanitary T. This T then heads down into the dirt even further - I haven't made it that far yet! Also, in front of and below cement box, is another buried cement structure. This structure has a 1" metal pipe coming off the top of it, then hooking to the side and turning down into the dirt further. What could this be??
View back towards 3" main stack:
My line diagram and questions:
Thanks so much for your assistance and any opinions on this. Should I call a professional immediately? I just intended to remove the unused pipes and cap things off, but I wasn't expecting to find cement boxes and strange pipes under here.
Around early 1960s previous owners partially furnished basement, and I believe basement bathroom was added at this time. That bathroom was functional until I removed it 2 years ago - was in horrible condition. I plugged the pipes after removing the fixtures, etc, but it was toilet, sink, and shower.
Anyway this week I started installing a interior perimeter drain & sump pump system to deal with water issues and of course I decided I'd start digging near the old bathroom, so I can pull out the old pipes and clean it all up when I re-cement the floor. This is what I've found and I'm trying to figure out how to continue.
Overview of the scene: (Street sewer is in the direction of the wall there with the water main entrance, main stack at left, old basement bathroom lav and vent pipes were located in the verticle line where the block wall was cut out at right)
Basement shower drain at bottom, then toilet drain, then lav towards top:
3" metal toilet pipe slopes down into some sort of squarish cement "box". 4" ring on top of cement box, with 1.5" metal pipe stuck into it. This 1.5" pipe then runs down and connects under shower drain using sanitary T. This T then heads down into the dirt even further - I haven't made it that far yet! Also, in front of and below cement box, is another buried cement structure. This structure has a 1" metal pipe coming off the top of it, then hooking to the side and turning down into the dirt further. What could this be??
View back towards 3" main stack:
My line diagram and questions:
Thanks so much for your assistance and any opinions on this. Should I call a professional immediately? I just intended to remove the unused pipes and cap things off, but I wasn't expecting to find cement boxes and strange pipes under here.
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