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Underground orangeburgh pipe leading to storm sewer is blocked somewhere

10K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  flashme18 
#1 ·
Here is the deal. My parents had the landscaper tie the original sump pump pipe into a PVC pipe connected to one of the downspouts. So, essentially water from the roof and water from the sump pump are supposed to feed into the original orangeburgh pipe which leads out to the storm sewer.


The first sign of a problem was that water backs up out of the pvc pipe that connects to the downspout. This happens when the sump pump goes on. After digging everything up and dumping water into the sump pump, there are 2 areas where water leaks in addition to the initial downspout/pvc connector. One of the pvc joint connections and apparently a spot i hit with the shovel(ooops!)


So, after digging all this out and seeing what the landscapers had done a few years back, I decided to take a hose and spray water into the pvc/downspout pipe. My father stood out by the storm sewer for 2 minutes while I sprayed water into that downspout pipe. It never reached the street. It came out of the leaky pvc connection and the hole i made with the shovel.

I then sprayed water into another downspout on the other side of the house and the water made it to the storm sewer.


1)How do i find out where the clog is in the orangeburgh pipe
2)How do i go about changing the faulty connections in the pvc pipe.


here are pix and maybe you can understand what im talking about. one leak has a small garden spade marking it and another has a putty knife sticking out of the ground...

thanks for any help/replies and hope you all understand what im saying.
 

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#2 · (Edited)
Their was really no need to dig it up. Repair the damage to the pipe and get the line snaked out. The only way to determine where the clog is would be with a rotor rooter or a sewer camera.

On another note. You wouldn't hire your plumber to fertilize your lawn, why would you hire your landscaper to do your plumbing? I like how he used fencos because he couldn't figure out how to do it properly.
 
#4 ·
I wouldnt hire a landscaper either! But I am not my parents. I already saved them $10,000 by talking them out of having a waterproofing system installed in the basement. The problem was the storm water not having anywhere to go.

I didnt know what the issue was underground. I spend the time to make sure I dont get ripped off. So I dug it up and found the crappy landscaper work and that the pipe isnt graded properly. I also need to link the downspout from the backside of the house so the pipe had to be dug up.

I hope we can slove this problem with the snake and camera, etc. Snake has to go around two 90 degree turns and I have heard that can be an issue. Can I buy a roto rooter snake thing a ma bob at a plumbing suppy store and do it myself. I saw an ad for $200 to come out and take a look with the camera.

Also, I dont know how to attach the pipes myself, but want to learn and do it myself to save my parents money. How do i go about finding the info for something like that? Plumbing books?
 
#5 ·
PVC is pretty simple to work with. Check around on the interweb, I'm sure you can find some basic instructions.
Having the line checked with a camera will tell you whether it is collapsed or you just have an obstruction. It isn't absolutely necessary. As for a rotor rooter, you could buy one but one that will actually work on a 3 or 4in line starts around $1,500. The Home Depot here does rent them though. You need to be careful as it is possible to hurt yourself an/or your pipes with it.
 
#6 ·
If your lucky, its debris from the gutters, as I've said before, I respect the snake, I'd use a stiff garden hose and feed it into the line to try to clear out the pipe. If the orangeburgh pipe is old, a snake will crumble it anyway. Sounds like you want to do it yourself, good by me, chase the pipe, you can use a tape measure in the pipe, get a measurement and dig test holes. You mentioned that one downspout did make it to the sewer pipe. Without knowing the specifics, I don't know it you have the option of tying into that section. And just to keep things running smoothly while you are doing this project, you could connect a section of flex drain pipe to the sump pump outlet and downspout temperarily and run it away from the house.
 
#7 ·
my reply got gobbled up by gremlins....i basically said that i cant link the pictured pipe to the the one that works because it goes under the driveway.


I did find something interesting today. The pipe that is from the back corner of the house on the same side of the one i have pix of....i thought the pipe was collapsed beyond a section that i had removed that leads to the downspout...

i stuck the hose in it today and sprayed for 2 minutes..and every last drop flowed through. However, i have no clue where that water is going because it didn't exit at the storm sewer. Im wondering if it goes underground to another exit point under the street. The only way to find out where this pipe leads is to dig up the entire lawn following the pipe risk puncturing it with a shovel.

I was thinking of linking the front corner to the pipe that was originally laid for the back right side of the house. another issue is that i am going against grade and not sure if it would work.

any suggestions? is it possible that the pipe just empties into the soil somewhere its buried and the lawn is just soaking up the water?
 
#8 ·
I'm not sure how many pipes you have connected to the storm drain pipe, I wouldn't think the town would let you make to many connections to it. As for the water just going into the ground, if you have all these drain pipes, it wouldn't seem that one would just empty into the ground. Its times like this you wish for x-ray vision to see under the ground. Only you can make the decision to dig or not.
 
#9 ·
dude!! so me and my mom are checking to see if the water makes it to the storm sewer after checking another downspout pipe from the other side..we hear the water pouring out heavily into the storm sewer..we get all happy...sweet they laid two different sets of pipe...wrong!!

as we walked back to the front right corner of the house..a huge hole blasted out of the pit i had dug for the front right corner of the house and water was flowing into it!!

so i found out where the back right corner pipe leads to without digging LOL..what a clusterfudge

to top it all off , i walk down to the basement and into the furnace room to grab something and i step into a 1/2 inch of water...the Air Conditioning unit is hemorraghing water into the furnace room..so i spent 5 hours cleaning that out..i live in the basement..my world is upside down...

ive already ripped out half the finished basement cuz there was water seepage caused by the improper drainage of the downspout water..so H20 is kicking my ass!

looks like im back to square one and having a roto rooter guy come out and hopefully unclog that ****e..it better not be collapsed under the driveway! obi wan ..your our only hope..anybody know jedi pipe tricks?
 
#10 ·
I guess I am blind in one eye and cant see out of the other,,,all I am seeing is white PVC.

I had orgeburg once,,never again,,VERY poor and subject to crushing from soil weight,,,first kind of pipes,,,wish they had passed on THAT kind,,,dig them ALL up and replace them with hite PVC THICK wall stuff NOT the thin dwv junk. I dont see why it was plumbed THAT way out and around,would be closer and LESS fittings to go straight across???

ALL my orangeburg was solid BLACK pipe,yours is white?? Looked more like pressed cardboard.(and acted like that too) IF you dont replace it NOW,,,you will be digging constantly!! AND its NOT hard to wreck with a spade,,,the thick wall PVC isnt so fragile!! Its important to get level RIGHT. "MOST" orangeburg(was for me) was dug first with backhoe,,,dug unevenly,,,fill more some places than others,,,leads to settling and pipe laying,,,sloping,,,backwards when LOOSE dirt settles back down. I always replaced it using a spade and NOT digging too deep,leaving underside solid. Run the spade down the pipe along top and you dont ding it as bad as digging vertical to a horizontal pipe!! Throw it in the junk where it belongs
 
#11 ·
check your eyes 4just..and reread my first post..the pvc ties into the orangeburgh..the landscaper installed the pvc and its wack.

the orangeburgh is perpindicular to most of the white pvc u see..its the last pipe that disappears under the lawn...its black..trust me!!!

i will be cutting it tomorrow and trying to find where the clog is b4 a sewer company comes out ...

roto rooter told me there is a 50% chance the orangeburgh pipe will collapse when they snake it.
 
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