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The House Whisper
Are You Kidding Me. . .
Matt Macedo - Monday, October 26, 2009
Orientation: Photo taken under a 23 year old house below the kitchen sink during a Castro Valley house inspection. As I was inspecting the crawlspace, all that was visible to me in my prone position from a distance, was this circular mound of dirt about 6" high... a giant gopher berm? What was this?
When I was about 8 feet away, someone was running water at the kitchen sink and it simultaneously came out the pipe with a pretty good velocity. It seems that every time the dishwasher was run or the water was turned on at the sink over the years... It discharged onto the soil below.
The circular berm around the stagnant, smelly water was caused by the water stream hitting the saturated dirt every time water flowed from the drain pipe and pushed the dirt up the sides.
The kitchen drain line had never been connected to the main drain pipe about 5 feet away. Maybe the original plumbing installer decided to call it a day or they ran out of pipe. Who knows.
I did get a phone call from the homeowner's insurance agent about a week later... He couldn't believe his eyes