Endoscope

[AndyP]

Anyone with first hand experience of the type of endoscopes one can find online that connect to smartphone and can be bought for around £40 and come with a “semi rigid” cable.

I need to inspect some 4” drainage pipes of the yellow corrugated variety.

Some reviews advise they are not suitable for 100mm, 4”, pipes but do not say why.


TIA

 

[RogerS]

I suspect it is because they are floppy (at least the ones that I have seen). So the head will get caught on one of the corrugations but as you push, the head stays stuck and the flexible pipe concertinas up.

 

[AndyP]

Yep, I’d thought about that too and reckoned I can run the endoscope up the inside of a garden hose as I know that I can push a hose as far as I need to see.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

I bought one of these:
https://amzn.eu/d/gqAO8PK
It works pretty well and is useful having the camera on both the front and side. The “cable” is stiff and positionable so should be okay going along something like that.

 

[Dr.Al]

I've got a couple of them, one fairly stiff and one more flexible. They don't get used often but they come in handy now and again, for example when I was replacing the heating element in the kitchen oven and let go of one of the wires, resulting in it dropping down into the back of the oven. I could have pulled the oven out and dismantled it, but I managed to retrieve the wire with an endoscope and a bit of bent-into-a-hook welding wire and that saved an enormous amount of time.

If you plug it into a big screen (laptop rather than phone) and pre-form the curve roughly, I reckon you'd be able to shove it along a corrugated pipe and just keep an eye on the screen to make sure you didn't hit the side walls and collapse the corrugations.

 

[Robert]

Problem with the one I have is knowing which way up your view is. Once you lose the right way up (because you are busy straightening the semi stiff cable) it is hard to work out which way to move or twist to make progress.

 

[Woodbloke]

I've had one been up inside me; interesting 'experience' - Rob

 

[AndyP]

Thanks chaps. I’ve ordered this one partly due to the free return if it doesn’t do what I need.

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B0CZHT2VHS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here’s the problem

There is a blockage, probably, as best as I can ascertain, 1m vertically down from that cream plastic pipe. The chamber was covered with plastic and then those tiles laid over the top. The sand layer under the tiles has over probably quite a few years been eroded away by the chamber overflowing.
The underground pipe then appears to enter the chamber under the bucket.

Problem is if a push a hose into the pipe in that second chamber it disappears a lot further than the 5m to where the blockage is with no apparent destination.
Tried pressure washer from above no joy and if a stuff the PW hose from below it goes far beyond the blockage. So there is junction somewhere so I need to find out where and why.
Before I start to dig (more likely I’ll get someone else in ) I’d like to know what I am up against .
Another reason to get help is that the first chamber needs raising so that the cover is level with the tiles and not buried underneath them.
Oh and down pipe on the other corner of the house is also cause for concern as it too looks as if there is a covered chamber there too.

Ho Humm

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

Andy, this may fly in the face of your parsimony, but I have just had subsidence repaired - as a result of a leaking sewer and two unconnected (but also leaking) rainwater drains.
I footered about with a friend's 3m endoscope (Lidl) but quickly realised its limitations and got a 'drain doctor' in. Costly, but effective. Firstly, the rainwater pipes were filthy. Pigeon guano (rooftops here are like Heathrow for them) seems to have a specific gravity approaching that of lead...so we had to pressure wash each one in order to see anything. Secondly, Syd's 40m camera lead was attached to - effectively - a laptop, so we had brilliant BIG views AND it was recorded on a USB. None of this poncy matchbox-sized screen malarki.
Turning corners is difficult, as is going up 'tributary' drains off the main stream, but the straight runs are easy.
I had two visits from the power hoser, and was thoroughly glad of him being there. I would certainly cough up again.

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, Sam

 

[AndyP]

I do not disagree with you Sam and I have no qualms about getting someone in whether that is to power jet the blockage and/or rebuild and raise the chambers. I am curious to see what is going on first though.

 

[9fingers]

I would cut out that cream 90 degree bend and replace with a Tee with the extra port facing the sky. Fit with a blanking plug so you can use it as a rodding eye to clear the blockage.

 

[AndyP]

Yep that's on my list as part of the rasing of the chamber

 

[duke]

Wonder if the connecting joints of the white pipe under ground were ever glued properly.
At least by digging out etc. a new line can be installed as well as your other issues.

 

[RogerS]

Can I suggest a 'rewind', Andy

If I understand it, the original concern was the 'top' chamber overflowing ? By the 'top' chamber, I mean the one in the first photo with the cream pipe coming out.

Your current understanding is that that cream pipe ultimately connects into the 'bottom' chamber underneath the bucket.

When you push up a length of hosepipe into the 'bottom' chamber and feed it back toward the 'top' chamber, you can feed enough hosepipe in such that it has gone past the putative end of that cream pipe (buried in the ground). If that is the case then it suggests to me that the cream pipe goes down vertically to a T junction and that you have another pipe entering underground at that point - origination unknown but irrelevant to the problem.

If all I have written is correct then your blockage is in the vertical section of the cream pipe. That is where you need to dig.

 

[AndyP]

Thanks Rog, you may well be right.
I have an aversion to digging if there is a path of less resistance then as per Sam’s suggestion I may well take it.

supposing what I have drawn here is correct. The shaded area is all underground. If i can get the blockage cleared and the upper chamber arranged such that it can be cleaned and the pipe rodded then it is surely worth a try before we dig anything.
I have no idea why there needs to be a junction of any sort but something is going on down there.



here is a wider picture of the whole drive way. Top left by the grey pipe is the top chamber, bottom left is the bottom chamber. There is a junction of some sort under there somewhere but where and why??

O

 

[duke]

Andy, how far down is the possible blocked area? I have rented electrical snakes which come with varying cutting bits and have had success.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

Andy, may I please suggest an alternative scenario? That, there was indeed a right-angle bend (as per your fine sketch: "blockage area") but it has become disconnected? That would explain your 'greater than 5m' conundrum, as the hosepipe simply ran past the disconnect. Mind you, if there is no resistance, that suggests a void? (It would also open up the possibility of seepage into the surrounding soil - not something to lightly contemplate). Could that void have been a simple soakaway? With an 'overflow' pipe going along the house wall to that second chamber by the door? If the soakaway gets washed out,but its wire mesh roof remains, that explains your observations.

As regards the 45degree, going downwards branch on your sketch, highly unlikely. I have 6 such and they are all horizontal. Getting a P.H., garden hose or camera out of the main drain and into any of them here was impossible.

Your second descending white (edit: grey) pipe definitively shows a lowering of the interlocking pavers around it; if you have drainage 'going onwards' from there, I suggest it too is leaking and undermining the pavers.

 

[RogerS]

If you're right with your diagram then that suggests that your hosepipe ended up going down that diagonal pipe.


But that would have been a lucky route to take rather than go straight on surely ?

There is another scenario



Although quite how just the vertical got blocked is hard to see unless some stones or twigs ended up stuck in the vertical pipe and gradually over the years crud and leaves etc built up to block the pipe.

You're going to have to bite the bullet, mate, and dig down that vertical pipe. With all this faffing around you could have done it, sorted it and be getting that gate fixed !!

 

[AndyP]

Andy, how far down is the possible blocked area? I have rented electrical snakes which come with varying cutting bits and have had success.

About 5 foot

 

[AndyP]

Andy, may I please suggest an alternative scenario? That, there was indeed a right-angle bend (as per your fine sketch: "blockage area") but it has become disconnected? That would explain your 'greater than 5m' conundrum, as the hosepipe simply ran past the disconnect. Mind you, if there is no resistance, that suggests a void? (It would also open up the possibility of seepage into the surrounding soil - not something to lightly contemplate). Could that void have been a simple soakaway? With an 'overflow' pipe going along the house wall to that second chamber by the door? If the soakaway gets washed out,but its wire mesh roof remains, that explains your observations.

As regards the 45degree, going downwards branch on your sketch, highly unlikely. I have 6 such and they are all horizontal. Getting a P.H., garden hose or camera out of the main drain and into any of them here was impossible.

Your second descending white (edit: grey) pipe definitively shows a lowering of the interlocking pavers around it; if you have drainage 'going onwards' from there, I suggest it too is leaking and undermining the pavers.

The undermining of the pavers has been caused by the upper chamber overflowing and washing away the sand and gravel mix that the pavers were laid on. After I had removed the pavers and the chamber cover it had a lot of sand and gravel in it some of which may well have been washed down. I suspect that the chamber under the second down pipe is suffering the same fate.
The pipe connecting the two chambers is clear.
I stopped pushing the garden hose after about 10m, there cannot possibly be a void. It “feels” like the branched off pipe runs off up the drive towards the gate, god knows why. It is possible the junction is a lot closer to the blockage.

 

[AndyP]

If you're right with your diagram then that suggests that your hosepipe ended up going down that diagonal pipe.
View attachment 28428

But that would have been a lucky route to take rather than go straight on surely ?

There is another scenario

View attachment 28429

Although quite how just the vertical got blocked is hard to see unless some stones or twigs ended up stuck in the vertical pipe and gradually over the years crud and leaves etc built up to block the pipe.

You're going to have to bite the bullet, mate, and dig down that vertical pipe. With all this faffing around you could have done it, sorted it and be getting that gate fixed !!

There would have been plenty of crud washed off the roof and down that pipe. The chamber was full of sand and gravel, leaves, moss and other muck.
Your right of course but I still think the blockage being cleared without digging is worth a try and if I can see what is going and and where before the pros come with their super high pressure jets then forewarned is forearmed.
And besides having a new gadget to play is always fun.

 

[RogerS]

I suspect that the chamber under the second down pipe is suffering the same fate.

I don't see why that should be the case. The chamber and pipe is a sealed unit.

Get yourself a pair of these, Andy (lousy mobile phone camera screwed up the aspect ratio. It's a normal size handle. Whole thing is metal.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

The undermining of the pavers has been caused by the upper chamber overflowing and washing away the sand and gravel mix that the pavers were laid on. After I had removed the pavers and the chamber cover it had a lot of sand and gravel in it some of which may well have been washed down. I suspect that the chamber under the second down pipe is suffering the same fate.
The pipe connecting the two chambers is clear.
I stopped pushing the garden hose after about 10m, there cannot possibly be a void. It “feels” like the branched off pipe runs off up the drive towards the gate, god knows why. It is possible the junction is a lot closer to the blockage.

Ah. Thanks Andy; that clarifies things. I agree with Roger then. You have a horizontal pipe connecting the chambers, then going on to ...? The branch line, going up the drive, could be what is called a 'field drain' here. Serving the junction of your drive with the road outside?