It could only happen to me

[furball]

Sorting out the back garden, started marking out the first raised bed. Grass sliced off and started digging the topsoil over, only going a spades depth down then came across what i thought was a large stone. Scraped the soil off to discover a very large stone flag covering a pot pipe that was surrounded by water. The pipe isnt broken but it is half a spades depth down from the level of the grass The house is 88 years old and an ex council house .So no possibillity of getting it moved without an astronomical charge. A gentleman from the local council is coming out tomorrow to tell me if its a soak pipe or a sewer pipe but either way i dont think i will be putting any raised beds in..

Oh and not only am i closer to god in my garden i am closer to the pipework, too close.

[teakdesk]

Interesting that it is surrounded by water!

It may not be relevant but any waste pipe (sewer or roof drainage) that is shared with a neighbour is the responsibility of the Water Authority, not you.

Only the actual shared bits though.

Any blockage or breakage in the pipe is their responsibility.

[Nicos]

Don't get down until you know what there is to feel down about

It may well not be as bad as you think- and may be an insurance repair job. (There really shouldn't be any water on the outside of any clay pipe)- and it may be easier for them to reroute the pipe anyway.

You can still put in raised beds- just make a path over where the pipe runs- it may not be quite what you had planned- but it's still 'do-able'
Shallow rooted plants could actually be planted in any beds you may choose to create above the pipes. How about a permanent strawberry bed?
Salad crops, onions etc don't need any soil depth more than about 4-6"- and you've got that already without even building a raised bed.

I think you'll be fine.
You must have a leak- can't think of any other reason for water outside the pipe.
Soil bacteria would break down any 'leaked stuff' if it's from the loo. A raised bed would be just the trick.

Positive thinking Batman

[lindyloo]

i must be thick- i cant see why you cant' put raised beds in? if the pipe was underground anyway, it doesnt seem likely that it is something that needs access to , or it would have a metal drainage cover on it. with a bit of luck, once the fella from council has checked for any leakage, and /or repaired it, you should be able to cover it back up and forget about it; just put some timber sides around your bed to raise it up above the normal ground level , and you should be ok?

also, wondering; as it is clay it could be much older than the house- clay pipes were used as land drainage systems in farming, for over a hundred years- maybe its not connected to the house at all?

[furball]

We have spoken to a builder friend and he thinks it is a sewer pipe. I was helping a friend sort out her garden a couple of years ago, her garden was slightly lower than the neighbours about 6 inch, we were digging up to the fence to make a flower bed and moved an upright small flag that was against the soil and fence it was capping off the sewer pipe faw sewage drained into the garden. Capping sewer pipes with flags seems to be the norm around here. We have lifted our manhole and flushed our loo and its not our sewer pipe, ours is much lower and this pipe is just under the manhole cover and feeds into our sewer pipe. The pipe is open ended and our sewer pipe has a smashed opening so the water from the pipe runs out of the open end and falls into the smashed opening in our sewer pipe.

[furball]

i must be thick- i cant see why you cant' put raised beds in? if the pipe was underground anyway, it doesnt seem likely that it is something that needs access to , or it would have a metal drainage cover on it. with a bit of luck, once the fella from council has checked for any leakage, and /or repaired it, you should be able to cover it back up and forget about it; just put some timber sides around your bed to raise it up above the normal ground level , and you should be ok?

also, wondering; as it is clay it could be much older than the house- clay pipes were used as land drainage systems in farming, for over a hundred years- maybe its not connected to the house at all?

The pipe is so near the surface i was worried about putting stakes into the ground at the corners of our raised bed and fracturing it. Now we will have to dig to follow where the pipe goes so we can avoid it. The metal drain cover is over our pipe which is 2 ft down under the flags by the house.