A plumbing pipe repair turns into another mystery excavation
Long story short, I have a main drain line obstruction. The plumber went up to the roof and tried to snake the line and came back with tree roots. Most likely the pipe is broken causing tree roots to invade the line. After some measurements and camera inspection location of the problem area was determined, approximately.
I decided to dig up the pipe myself and see what’s going on.
about 8-10″ below I ran into some debris, ceramic tiles, roof tiles, old cast iron pipes, a real estate for sale sign etc…no big deal, and then I ran into a concrete slab kind of resting diagonally on the 4″ PVC drain line. In measuring the slab it is 24″ wide, it’s length is unknown so far I have exposed 38″ of it, and about 4″ thick. I am guessing they dug a hole years ago to replace the cast iron drain to PVC, and once the PVC pipe was installed, someone decided to push a giant slab into the hole before back-filling?
There is a part of this slab sitting on the pipe, and my guess is the slab actually cracked or broke a joint to allow the roots to invade. Just a hutch but I won’t know until this slab is removed.
I tried shifting the slab, no movement, even with a 6′ piece of steel bar.
I have no idea how much more of this slab is buried. I didn’t take a picture before I removed all the roots strangling the slab either. It wasn’t nice and clean like this.
I then took out my SDS hammer and drilled a 3/4″ hole through it. I then looped through it with a piece of romex wire and twisted the copper together. Then I put a rope on it and me and a neighbor pulled at the same time, the slab didn’t move.
I could use some suggestions.
Do I keep digging until I expose the entire slab then try to get it out of the hole?
Or do I break the slab, may be drill a series of holes at the bottom and hit it with a sledgehammer? But then I worry I may damage the pipe by putting the stress on the pipe.
Any idea what this slab is? Must be over 200 pounds?
Is it the monolith in 2001 Space Odyssey?
Replies
If it’s the monolith then you could probably sell it on eBay and buy a new house with an unobstructed main drain. That said the fact that you can still maintain a sense of humor about this is deeply inspiring! From my own experience digging deck footings and so forth, large stones that are lodged can feel immovable, and sometimes the seemingly smallest amount of dirt around them can make them feel impossibly heavy. I would make an attempt to dig more and see if you can figure out where that thing ends. If you can’t find the end you might consider drilling a series of holes vertically to weaken it and the break it apart and remove. That might do less damage than just a demo hammer. A little hard to tell from the photo but it almost looks like it has veining in it like a natural stone like granite.
Probably the sidewalk that was moved to access the pipe. (the original cast iron, when it was clogged up)
my experience is you can smack the old sidewalk it with an 8 pound sledge and it will break if you raise it over your head and direct the fall. it will take a couple whacks in the same place, but will crack for you into little parts. I had a similar sidewalk part I broke up in a house I used to have. it was moved for a new leach bed, but they left it on the surface for me (the next homeowner) to deal with. I had a 6 pounder, but that did nothing but make me tired.
you can also drill a few holes first, or just go at it with the SDS in hammer mode.