neverenoughtools
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The stats: 87 year old home with a full height basement, flanked by crawl spaces front and back. Basement is block with cement floor, crawl spaces are gravel-filled. No, make that rubble-filled, otherwise it's insulting to good quality gravel.
Original cast iron sewer line ran along the surface of rear crawl space, exiting just below grade into back yard, to what used to be a septic system. Hooked up to city sewer line since mid-70's.
That old cast iron line in the crawl space just split right down the seam, but the fill in the crawl space soaked up much of what was discharged....until it became saturated and everything else overflowed onto the basement floor, which we discovered 4 days ago! With only 2 adults and one child in the house using just one toilet, I'm guessing the break was there some time before we found it, but who knows what the saturation point of that crawlspace was.
My question -- All piping is being fixed, re-routing around any remaining 87-year old pipe and tapping right into the 30-year old pipe, but what to do about the crawlspace, which has become a mini septic field? Soak in some bleach and see if it all just percs down over time? Excavate? If so, how deep? Crawl space to basement floor is about 5', and flood area was maybe 30' sq. That's a hefty volume of crap (pun intended) to dig out by hand if I have to go all the way down. Opinions?
Thanks.
Original cast iron sewer line ran along the surface of rear crawl space, exiting just below grade into back yard, to what used to be a septic system. Hooked up to city sewer line since mid-70's.
That old cast iron line in the crawl space just split right down the seam, but the fill in the crawl space soaked up much of what was discharged....until it became saturated and everything else overflowed onto the basement floor, which we discovered 4 days ago! With only 2 adults and one child in the house using just one toilet, I'm guessing the break was there some time before we found it, but who knows what the saturation point of that crawlspace was.
My question -- All piping is being fixed, re-routing around any remaining 87-year old pipe and tapping right into the 30-year old pipe, but what to do about the crawlspace, which has become a mini septic field? Soak in some bleach and see if it all just percs down over time? Excavate? If so, how deep? Crawl space to basement floor is about 5', and flood area was maybe 30' sq. That's a hefty volume of crap (pun intended) to dig out by hand if I have to go all the way down. Opinions?
Thanks.