Metal pipe found digging in garden - any advice please?
 

Hello all
Yesterday I found a metal pipe running right across my garden, from one side to the other. I've only dug around about 6ft. of it, but it seems to be actually plumbed in somehow. It is metal, (iron or steel I suppose), about 25-30mm diameter, around 12-18" below the surface.

Does anyone have any ideas what it would be and what I can do about it? Redundant mains gas maybe? It is really in my way, as it is slap bang in the middle of a section I have been preparing to use as a herb / veg / fruit garden. I hadn't exactly decided what I was going to do with the ground but digging is going to be a problem with the position of the pipe.

I'm puzzled as I already dug up another L-shaped section of the same sort of pipe about 18'. It had a cylindrical concrete block on one end, but the whole piece came up without any problems. I'm starting to wonder if I am digging at the remains of an 'Anderson' (WWII Air Raid) shelter.

"You may not edit your posts" - umm, why not? Not very user friendly, is it?

Anyway, some extra detail I forgot to mention - the pipe is in the back garden, at the far end well away from the house. All the terrace's gardens end in a slope down to a lane with garages, the pipe is at the top of the slope.

Metal pipe found digging in garden - any advice please?
 

On Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:06:31 +0000, doublehappiness
wrote:


"You may not edit your posts" - umm, why not? Not very user friendly, is
it?

That's because it's not technically possible to edit posts on a
newsgroup. You are using a website - Garden Banter - that 'steals'
posts from the uk.rec.gardening newsgroup.

Metal pipe found digging in garden - any advice please?
 

doublehappiness wrote:
"You may not edit your posts" - umm, why not? Not very user friendly, is
it?

That's because you're using a web interface to usenet, not a web forum.
When you use a 'normal' web forum, the information is all held locally on
the site's servers, so you would be able to go back and edit them.
When you post to usenet the post you make is sent from one news server to
the next, all round the world. So basically, once it leaves your computer,
it's too late to do anything about it, as the post is out there in the big
wide world.

Hi There, its more likely to be a water pipe ? try making a 'sounding horn' from a length of metal pipe and hold one end against it and the other against your ear, you might hear water running it its in use but of course this is not a guarantee. You might like to try listening at busy 'water use' times ? 8-15 am and 5-30pm ?
just an idea ! Lannerman.

You can't edit because it goes out on urg as well

Try digging a test pit at each extremity of your garden to see if it goes onto the next properties or not.

In other words, you are posting to a site which merely acts as a postbox to a newsgroup, and it is not possible to edit a posting to a newsgroup.

In my previous house, for some bizarre reason, one water pipe ran from the street to a point in someone's garden, from where the pipe split and fed several properties by pipes running across the gardens. If we even needed to turn it off for plumbing works, we turned off several houses.

Old water pipes (still in use) can be iron/steel. But so can gas pipes. So be careful.