A quick and cheap way to lay a pipe under the foundation. Personal experience

Often there is a need to lay additional communications into an already built house. For example, supply water or remove sewerage. For this purpose, the trench method and digging under the foundation are usually used. But what if paths have already been built around the yard, asphalt or tiles have been laid, and the house is residential.

This is exactly the situation that arose in my case. The old metal pipe that supplied water to the house burst. The pipe was laid about fifty years ago and simply served its purpose. I considered searching for and fixing leaks to be “half measures” and decided to simply introduce a new plastic pipe.

Way to lay a pipe under the foundation

The communication well was located at a distance of 1.2 m from the wall of the house.

The width of the foundation is 0.4 m. It was decided to make the so-called. “puncture” under the foundation directly from the communication well. There are special tools and even machines for such work. I decided to make do on my own. A two-inch pipe was used as a working tool.Using a grinder, a cutting edge was created at the end of the pipe, which was supposed to facilitate the process of destroying the soil.

I decided to create a hole in the ground in two stages. Therefore, two pipes with a length of 0.85 and 1.55 m were prepared.

To achieve the minimum length of the hole, I drew a perpendicular to the wall of the house with chalk on the surface. I laid a wooden guide along it and hung a plumb line.

Thus, by punching a hole along the guide, it was possible to maintain the desired direction. After completing the preparation, you could start working. The communication well was lined with brick. Using a hammer and chisel, a hole was made in the brickwork.

I installed the prepared pipe into the hole and, rotating it, began to create a hole.

The soil was packed inside the pipe. Periodically, I pulled the pipe out, rotating it, and freed it from the soil. The soil was clayey and quickly clogged the section. Therefore, to increase the depth of the stope, I additionally hammered the pipe 3-5 cm with a hammer. After about 30 minutes, the short pipe entered the entire length of the hole. I changed it to a long one. However, it turned out that the dimensions of the well were too small, and it was impossible to insert a long pipe into the hole. I had to dismantle the brickwork and remove a couple more bricks, and below the hole made, make a groove into which the pipe would go before it was inserted into the hole.

Another hour and a half was spent drilling the remaining part of the hole under the foundation. The pipe was installed.

You can lay a plastic pipe inside it. All that remains is to remove the floor and dig a trench along the foundation inside the house.To avoid removing excess soil inside the house, you can use a hand auger.