June 26, 2009   5 notes
answers: squashed: This pipe is in my basement. From what I can tell, it’s primary purpose is to spew water into the basement when there is a record storm fall. Were basement flooding pipes were fashionable in the sixties? Might that be for a sump pump? As far as I can tell, it’s just a pipe that goes down a little ways, then curves off somewhere. You can see the waterlevel in the picture is close to the top. It had just overflowed before that. If I suck the water out of the top (with a turkey baster) it refills. My suspicion was that it connected to a storm sewer. The water is quite clean, so I assume it’s all ground water. After it rained, the waterlevel very gradually went down—though, again, nothing I did could make it go down faster. Maybe I could if I had some more efficient method of removing water. My suspicion is that it connects either to a drywell or to some collapsed/sealed off bit of storm sewer. We’re high enough that we really shouldn’t be affected by an overflowing stormsewer, unless there’s something wrong with it. I would say it could be a sump pump—but there doesn’t seem to be any sort of actual pump.

answers:

squashed:

This pipe is in my basement. From what I can tell, it’s primary purpose is to spew water into the basement when there is a record storm fall. Were basement flooding pipes were fashionable in the sixties?

Might that be for a sump pump?

As far as I can tell, it’s just a pipe that goes down a little ways, then curves off somewhere. You can see the waterlevel in the picture is close to the top. It had just overflowed before that. If I suck the water out of the top (with a turkey baster) it refills. My suspicion was that it connected to a storm sewer. The water is quite clean, so I assume it’s all ground water. After it rained, the waterlevel very gradually went down—though, again, nothing I did could make it go down faster. Maybe I could if I had some more efficient method of removing water.

My suspicion is that it connects either to a drywell or to some collapsed/sealed off bit of storm sewer. We’re high enough that we really shouldn’t be affected by an overflowing stormsewer, unless there’s something wrong with it.

I would say it could be a sump pump—but there doesn’t seem to be any sort of actual pump.

  1. andrewfmorrison reblogged this from squashed and added:
    I have one of these...too. My house was built...1930s,...
  2. answers reblogged this from squashedcomments and added:
    I’d have a plumber look at it. It’s very possible that there’s supposed to be a sump pump sitting on top of it, and at...
  3. squashedcomments reblogged this from answers and added:
    As far as I can tell, it’s just a pipe that goes down a little ways, then curves off somewhere. You can see the...
  4. answers reblogged this from squashed and added:
    Might that be for
  5. squashed posted this