What is this pipe?

[tony2096]

I'm adding some additional drainage to try and avoid a repeat of the flooding we got 18 months ago.
I've come across a clay pipe and I'm puzzled as to its purpose - can anyone help?
In the attached pictures, you can see a brown terracotta pipe coming in at an angle from the council strip. Now I thought initially it was an old drainage pipe but the strange thing is that
(a) it's sloping down as in enters my property, which seems wrong as I'd have thought you'd want to get rid of water rather than bringing it in.
(b) it's right at the corner of my block and at the highest point so again, I can't work out its purpose.
Any ideas?
529606 529607
I tried digging a bit of the council strip up to see if I could find the end but it carried on for a while so I gave up.
(The house was built in the 1950s, if that helps)

[droog]

Could be a charged system, as long as the entry is higher than the exit in the street pour enough water in and it will end up out in the street.
Age of the service could also have been affected by subsidence.

[Wimmera Jack]

Could be your sewerage line or a storm water pipe.

John

[bruceward51]

Try flushing a toilet and see if you can hear it in the pipe. There are plenty of active sewer systems still in terracotta and provided they are in good condition, they are fine. They often fail at the lints first, so be careful not to disturb them if it is an active system.
We redid a terracotta sewer system at our last house in the Blue Mountains. In doing the work, we found at least two and possibly three phases of the sewerage systems and most of the pipework was left in the ground. There was the line that we were replacing plus two earlier septic systems. The house was 1920s and it seemed like every time I dig a hole, there was a terracotta pipe.

[tony2096]

I think droog has nailed it: stormwater + subsidence.

The sewage is sent towards the opposite side of the house but there are some terracotta connections at the base of the old downpipes from the gutters that are no longer used. I reckon these used to be all connected and so a charged system makes sense as it would allow the stormwater to be sent to the street.
So that means this pipe is no longer used.

Thanks

[Arron]

Wouldn’t council have a drainage diagram of your lot ?

[droog]

Wouldn’t council have a drainage diagram of your lot ?

Most councils will only have the legal point of discharge (LPOD) marked, private drains and pipe locations are not recorded.
Of course a lot of older properties were built before these type of records were kept or were simply advised LPOD was discharge to the curb.

[tony2096]

Yes, I got all the dial-before-you-dig info but for stormwater all it shows is where the main stormwater pipelines are but nothing about how each house connects/discharges to these.

[Arron]

Most councils will only have the legal point of discharge (LPOD) marked, private drains and pipe locations are not recorded.
Of course a lot of older properties were built before these type of records were kept or were simply advised LPOD was discharge to the curb.

In Victoria maybe, but in NSW there should be at least a sewerage service diagram which shows the sewer line in detail. Here’s ours from a previous house we owned built in 1961.

Stormwater may be more difficult. We had to turn a plan in for our latest build but I think this may only have become a requirement when the focus on stormwater drainage hooked up to the sewerage system arose.

I think Dial before You Dig is only concerned with public assets. They don’t care if you rip your own pipework up.

[droog]

I think Dial before You Dig is only concerned with public assets. They don’t care if you rip your own pipework up.


More like only concerned with what has been entered into their systems and even then measurements for older services were never recorded with the level of accuracy today.

The only assets that are likely to be recorded on a private residential block is where an easement for a service exists.