Sewer Fun

First Ricky wanted to figure out what the "Mystery tube" in the backyard was.

He dug it down pretty deep. About 3'. Then it started to open up down there. So we're guessing it's an old cistern or septic tank that was filled in.

Doesn't look easy to remove...guess I'll just have to till around it when I reseed the yard.

This is the start of the 3rd hole. 1st hole was just investigating the mystery tube. 2nd hole located the sewer coming out of the house...this one we were aiming for the junction of the RV dump, outside kitchen and main sewer expecting to find roots in the connections. Instead we found the roots invading this grey conduit that wasn't even coupled which has 3 irrigation lines inside of it.

There were some serious thick roots attacking this.

But since it's just irrigation lines I'm not really worried about it.

Heck one of those lines actually feeds the spigot for the tree I'm worried is getting into the sewer.

Bit more digging and we found the gas line so we knew we were getting close.

Gotta be careful around that gas line!

Hole was getting pretty big...we mis-estimated how much the sewer angled and really came at it from a few feet away..which ended up giving us extra room to work. Note the last line of bricks I removed - they were all in a row and didn't follow the pattern. Turns out the junction was right below that anomaly - probably a sign from the previous owner.

Started to find ABS from the RV dump...wondered why it made such odd bends.

Just didn't make sense...until we realized it was done to help it clear the gas line and still maintain it's drop.

The ABS looked good. The spot where it tied into the cast iron sewer though the dirt was damp.

Damp dirt...connections...tree roots...thought we had probably found the problem at this point.

That big root looked it it was going right for the coupler.

But digging more revealed the root went under the sewer and all of the couplers were still connected and no roots were getting into them.

The funky bends again.

More pipes.

All exposed...no leaks...but we figured we'd open this section up and see if we could find a blockage.

The part removed is what couples the backyard drains to the main sewer. No roots in there and the backyard drains all flow fine so we suspect the blockage is between here and the house.

What an excavation this turned into.

We used a mirror and some flashlights to look up the line. Was able to look up it quite aways and it was clear the whole way...just a few bits of TP stuck to the sides. No signs of roots even though this is the section immediately under the Ficus tree.

Ricky in the hole gives a better impression of just how big of a hole this is.