Odd sewer pipe configuration

jmr106 said:

Yeah, it didn't look right. But then again, I said to myself, "All of these people do that stuff every day. They use these same measurements to get what they need to fill in all sorts of things, so why wouldn't it work?"

One thing that I do find that is interesting...a lot of the companies say stuff like, "That's not very much..." when I ask for a quote. I know that thousands of people get small amounts like this delivered probably on a daily basis. I found one company that does $6.34/cubic yard plus whatever the delivery. Another company wanted $175 for 5.5 cubic yards of fill dirt and delivery. But even they say 8 yard or 16 yard deliveries. Hoping to get them to deliver less than that. I'll be calling them to see. So, like everything else...I'm finding that there are some that charge little and some charge a whole lot. Everybody only delivers in big tandems. Original plan was to have it dumped in the yard, but I don't want them backing off the side of the driveway trying to dump in the yard and cracking the driveway or something dumb like that. Sometimes it seems like if you start one project, getting what you need for that one project ends up causing you to have a few more projects. :rofl:

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Yup, it's nuts, after you figure how much you need , remember the guy filling the truck is more or less guessing and then they might weigh it and you get a bill for so many tons and up here it really goes wild with meters and tones.

I suggested bobcat guys because they often haul the machine with a 6 yd dump trailer, you might try landscapers, they have the same equipment.
Sometimes these guys are just hauling stuff away and want to be rid of it.

Gravel suppliers and the like will have one or two trucks that they own and then they have a list of truckers, the better price will come from the independent driver if you can find one.

I had a company drop 6 yards of dirt on a big tarp in the driveway yesterday. The receptionist messed up the order at first, so they ended up being later than planned. I have been using the cart that I posted before and it works quite well. I can take about 400+ pounds right to the edge of the hole and dump it in directly. I've filled the tank to within about a foot of the opening and will finish today. It took about 6 hours yesterday. I gave up on the Bobcat thing. The companies and contractors in the local area (most of which are foreign-owned) are so wishy-washy for everything that I just decided to forget it.

That lid was about 350 pounds at least. I could physically lift it, but not enough to flip it onto the top of the tank on either side. Used a lot of pry bars to try to leverage it, but it eventually fell into the hole and was left there. That whole lid could have gone poof at any time. It was barely teetering on the edge on each side and big chunks were breaking off from it as I was trying to pry it.

With the lid gone, more light could get in. A curious amount of dirt was already in the bottom of the tank. It has little channels on either side next to the wall, as if water has cut a path between the wall and dirt on each side and going all the way around.





Possibly a little damage to the wall on the side close to the house, but can't really tell:







The pipe seems to be full of dirt, so they may not have capped it off at all. Probably just cut it and left it there for water to flow into the open hole from the surrounding ground. Actually, I can't even tell what they did. That looks like some kind of metallic pipe slipped inside of the clay pipe or something. I presume that the mole crickets see there must have gotten inside when the small opening was open for a week or so. Curious looking part of the wall right below that pipe. This is roughly 8 feet or so from the house and approximately in the said area where the possibly water flow channel is in the crawlspace. It looks deceiving. The above is a photo taken with flash.


This is video grab of that same hole, with continuous lighting.It looks like a big open hole under the pipe. The above photo shows that maybe the wall is cracked and/or some dirt from outside has gotten into the hole and is visible from inside of the tank. The wall of the tank is probably a good 4" to 5" thick.






Granted, this pipe is about a foot down from the roof of the tank on the side towards the house. What are the chances that when it is raining a lot for 2-3 days that water is flowing in through the uncapped pipes and old/damaged parts of the wall, filling up to the top of this about 4 feet deep and exiting through this potential hole and going through a little channel of this size into the crawlspace? Apparently the tank could hold something like 1,200 or so gallons of water if it fill up completely. Now, on the other side of this wall is where I was digging up the area for the city sewer pipes and such. So any "channel" area that was there...I've likely dug it up and interrupted it, filling that portion of it when I covered that area back over. I'm going to poke around just outside of the tank and under this pipe and see if this little opening extends just outside of the wall of the tank in the area where I haven't dug yet. If it does, this may have been the problem of the water flow for all of those years. Granted, I have now fill the hole with dirt and there wouldn't be much room for water to get in there, even soaking into the dirt that I've put inside. I'm still thinking of capping that pipe if it is open, just to make sure. Water probably seeps into that hole from everywhere when it rains, anyway...the walls are likely all bad and certainly not waterproof.

Should I bother with putting anything else but dirt (thick piece of steel, etc.) over where the now missing concrete lid was? Or just leave it all dirt? I know that the inside may pack down a little over time.

The hole under the pipe is because they put that pipe in before they pored the concrete and it didn't flow all the way around..
We always just broke the lids with a 10 lb hammer and let them fall in.
Dirt level will go down when it rains and compacts so mound it up 6 to 9 inches.
It would have been nice if it had rained while it was open and empty so you could have seen what was happening.
There was a drain field somewhere that might have been backing up into the tank, like maybe where you where pumping the water.

Best soil compaction occurs with each 'lift' being about 6", then compacted. For something like this I'd double that and compact at each foot of added soil. If you don't compact the soil as you go it may continue settling for a year or two based on what the soil is composed of, and it will be very soft when wet for a few months of more. Eventually it will find it's own level. Nature will compact most soils more than 6" below the surface in 30 years time to about 90% of what is possible and that is adequate for foundations to be placed directly on. Mounding over like Neal suggests will work, but compacting as you go along will nearly eliminate settling giving you a finished product faster.

Phil

nealtw said:

There was a drain field somewhere that might have been backing up into the tank, like maybe where you where pumping the water.

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Ive wondered about it, but to my understanding, the drain field should be somewhere towards the center of the yard and the pipe coming out of the back should angle down into the drain field with a vertical or angled drop. At least, if they did it right. The sump discharge spot is about 15 to 20 feet away diagonally from this spot.

As for the compacting...I'm going to mound it up a little in the area where the lid opening is and let it compact down when it rains. If over the time it compacts down some more, I'll just add more dirt on top until it stops. I presume that inside, this tank had a concrete floor that I just couldn't see because it was covered in dirt. The dirt that I put inside of the tank may compact down under the roof areas of the tank that I couldn't remove without breaking the roof. My main concern was that if the concrete roof of the tank broke, there was a good 4 to 4.5 foot drop. If it compacted down a foot or so in the tank and the lid collapsed someday...the 18 inches or so of dirt on top would fall down and there wouldn't be anywhere to fall but maybe a foot. The dirt from on top would kind of shield the fall, too. But a 4.5 foot fall would hurt a lot more. The other reason was because that whole thing probably does fill with water and may be going into the crawlspace. Now it doesn't have much room for water.

Most times those old drain fields were at the end of their life when they were disconnected but they were just 1 ft clay tiles laid in gravel so water could dissipate but if you want to drain a field you would do much the same set up..
Today we would expect the foundation would be dug out and a separate hole dug for the septic tank but back then they both may have been dug out with a bulldozer at the same time. In the fifties and the sixties we were installing perimeter drains at the footing. If you have that it would anybody's guess where they ran that too but if it is no longer draining water away it could be working against you.

I still think it is about ground water level and it was always below the dirt in the crawlspace and if you raise the furnace and tank and pump level the pump my only be need for the biggest storms.

I would still install a couple monitor stations for ground water to see what is happening in the dirt.

There are things you can set up with tech readers but cheap works just as good.
With a post hole digger dig a hole near the depth of the hole in the crawlspace.
drop in a 4" pvc drain pipe with holes in it cap that at ground level with a clean out that can be removed.
Back fill with gravel to keep the dirt out and a foot from the top a piece of poly and then dirt, that will keep the rain, surface water out.
Build a float out of a smaller piece of pvc with caps on both ends
At anytime you can remove the clean out cap and measure the depth.
A few of these some distance from the house and your water discharge.