Under Water Drain Pipe at side of House

Hi

I am looking at buying a house and the engineer has found a pipe that neither himself, a builder or the estate agent can explain its purpose. The fear is that it is draining water under the house which could be causing damage to the foundations. Below is the pictures. There is only 1 PVC pipe and that is going towards the green area next to the house. The green area is like a bog in the winter and there is a manhole in the middle of the green.

Would anyone have an idea what this is and what purpose it could have. The fact there is no drain pipes from the house going to it suggests the green area is draining into it. its about 10 feet down to the water in the pipe.

The pipe has already shifted as can be seen from the pictures.

my3cents

Pump it dry and see if it fills/how it fills or if you can see anything else at the bottom.

10 feet down is a long way down to be worried about ground water.

At the moment its the engineer who raised concerns about it.

By ground water, i phrased it wrong, i mean where is the water draining to. I am just puzzled myself of its actual purpose.

my3cents

Deleted User wrote: »

At the moment its the engineer who raised concerns about it.

By ground water, i phrased it wrong, i mean where is the water draining to. I am just puzzled myself of its actual purpose.

I'm puzzled too. I'd just take the empirical method and pumping it out to see how it fills up again. Like is it filling from the bottom or what looks like that pipe to the side.

It doesn't look like its for water but the finish looks very good for a drain.

In the first picture is there another pipe or gully coming in from the bottom right just below the cover, also from left?

Yeah that PVC pipe is coming from the green area next to it and in the middle of the green area is a manhole.

my3cents

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah that PVC pipe is coming from the green area next to it and in the middle of the green area is a manhole.

I'm talking about the very top of what you can see just below the level of the concrete footpath. Do any gulleys/pipe come in just below path level?

godtabh

How old is the house?

my3cents

OK having looked at that again I've half an idea it is a drain as I looked at something similar for a neighbor.

Some scale would be useful, whats the diameter of the pipe going down? What I am thinking is that if you put a long piece of timber with a 6 inch nail sticking out the side at one end down into the water you'll be able to "feel" another pipe going off somewhere.

Is the house on a slope or does the land drop or go up either side of it?

my3cents

my3cents wrote: »

OK having looked at that again I've half an idea it is a drain as I looked at something similar for a neighbor.

Some scale would be useful, whats the diameter of the pipe going down? What I am thinking is that if you put a long piece of timber with a 6 inch nail sticking out the side at one end down into the water you'll be able to "feel" another pipe going off somewhere.

Is the house on a slope or does the land drop or go up either side of it?

its roughly a 6 inch pipe. The PVC pipe is coming from the green area and i am guessing it links up to the manhole in the green area. The estate agent said they will organise a camera to be put down and see what is going on. There is no pipes at a higher level coming into it.

I spoke about the foundations with the estate agent and he reckons they have raft type foundations, have you ever heard of this?

godtabh

godtabh wrote: »

How old is the house?

it was built around 82/83

Further to my recent comments, there is a very boggy green next to it, the houses are here for 35 years, would major issues have occurred structurally at this point or could it still happen