For some time, we had blockage in the day water drainage. During a heavy rain, we've seen some water seeping up on the concrete slab outside the basement door. In this wonderful summer, what better than to attack this and clean it out once for all.
What started with a little vaccuming down the downspout (and vaccuming through the wall of the concrete pipe), ended up being a three week project.
Once I realized vaccuming would not do it, spade, shovel and pick came out. Dug up the entire corner where the downsput goes into ground, only to find the pipes glogged by perfect "potting soil". Hence, everything that has gone down there has been broken down into this nice mulch.
But why, why was the water not flowing? Pipes were of a good size, a decent slope, and even debris should have floated away. Worked as good as I could with a small snake, only to realize some heavier artillery was needed. Went down to HomeDepot, rented their biggest and meanest snake. Took it home and attacked. Could not oven go through the first section. Spent the rest of the morning cleaning out the pipes I knew were good but gave them a little maintenance "nudge", likely not a bad idea after 40+ years.
Attacked the soil with the shovel again. After a few "tracker holes", I managed to find the pipe further down the yard, but no luck there either. I could not get through. So I tried going downhil towards the street and the city stormdrain. Got a fair distance but got stuck a few times and did not want to break the concrete pipe by being overly aggressive. And, the day was up and time to bring the snake back. No need rent one of these, just to have it sit idle in the back yard.
Next morning I started digging closer to the street. I really had no idea in what direction the pipe would run. Would it angle and run down under Yurgen's (concrete) drive way? Or, would it go straight towards the street? After three new holes, each about four feet deep, I managed to find the pipe. It went fairly straight. And from here? Straight as well?
Now it was time to attack out by the street. Cleared the area, and started digging. Found a lot of "traces" that led me to what I believed would be the correct spot. But only found the city storm drain, no connection to my house. Continued further up, the site now looking like a major sewer project, and bingo! Found where my pipe "connected" to the city's big 12" concrete pipe. Continued from there to dig up towards my yard. After about three feet, I cleared enough to to be able to get the "connecting" pipe out. Turns out this one is filled with rock hard soil and also blocked by another rock were it is entering the city pipe. No wonder we have not had any water flow! Tried to vaccum the pipe clean from below and into my yard. No luck here. I just get more and more soil. Decided to continue digging.
After about another two feet, the concrete pipe just ends... What the f-ck? After some careful poking around, I also found the powerlines up to ur house (thankfully I did not attack this area with a back-hoe as planned...). Time to call for location service (they come out for free and locate all water, sewage, gas, electrical, telco, and cable lines).
When poking around more, I also find the reason why it looks the way it does. When Puget Sound Energy put our utility lines underground (late 80ies?), they must just happily have cut their way through my storm drain line and never even tried to fix it. So with no water flow, it was not surprising that the lines have clogged further up, closer to the house.
Called Puget Sound Energy for an inspection since they really created this mess. I know they'd be angry if I cut their line w/o repairing it. Now I am angry! Jay from PSE came out later that day and took some photos. He recognized the issue and promised to get back to me.
I continued digging another couple of feet, only to now eventually find the other end of my nice concrete pipe. Another run back to HomeDepot for the same snake. This time I work with the snake from below and water from above. A little bit of hydroblasting, or the fine art of hydrologic engineering. In doing this, I am able to clear out the concrete pipe so now I at least know I have a good flow and functioning pipe down towards the street. Likely managed to get about a wheelbarrow's worth of rock and soil out of that pipe. Can now focus more on the messs up by the house.
After careful evaluation, the only resonable way to go is to put an entire new line down, from back of the house, until where the "fresh" section of the concrete pipe starts. But that entail digging a trench under some concrete walkways, and digging down into the now rock hard clay - while staying away from gas and power lines.
I mark the area, do a tracer ditch in the top soil. Bring oput the pick axe and get at it. It is tough stuff. Not much dent done.
John stops by and asks if I want any help. He brings his little roto-tiller over. I seriously thought that we'd just ruing it, but after about 90 minutes of "tillering", a massive cloud of dust over the neighborhood, it is sstarting to look like a proper trench.
Bring out a few beers and thank John for his hard work. Likely saved med 4 hours of digging!
After adjusting the trench, running around town in seach of the correct neoprene bushings, adjusting the slope, and finally connectiing it all together, it is time for a "water test". Will it run the correct way, or will it backflow towards the foundation?
No, looks like everything is working just as "planned". Only work remaining is sealing the connection out in the street with concrete, backfilling the entire trench and then patch the grass and seed dead areas. While the trench was open I also ran a conduit for the coming fiber as well a new cable line up from the street.
