Pipe Material / Fix

[dcrabtree]

All,

I had my septic tank pumped yesterday and in the process a pipe was severed that ended up being the main water line to the house. When our house was build, polybutylene was used, so when it was replaced by the previous owners, the line ran up from the street and around the back of our house, right over the top of the septic tank. Anyway, I have attached a picture of the pipe and a picture of the repair I did.

The pipe is black, 3/4", and has some flex to it, but it still rigid. I spliced it back together using a 2' piece of PVC (450 psi) with pvc compression couplers. Is this a good fix or should I try and replace with the same pipe and use difference couplers?

So my questions are:

1) What type of material is the black pipe?
2) Is my fix sufficient or should I go a different route?

Thank you,

David

Grayson, GA

 

[phishfood]

The water main should be rerouted well away from both the septic tank and drainfield. At that point, you can try and dig up and reuse what pipe is there, but it would probably be easier to abandon it and run new pipe. Sch 40 PVC is relatively cheap and easy to install.

 

[dcrabtree]

Thanks Phishfood, that is certainly going to be the plan long term.

I'm pretty certain the black pipe is HDPE. For the near term, do you think my patch using Sch 40 PVC and the PVC couplings will be sufficient?
Thanks

 

[Caduceus]

Yes, that looks like HDPE pipe and I'm with Phishfood on running a new water service away from the tank and field. The couplings that you installed may seem to be reliable but I'm not a big fan of plastic couplings/unions on water services. I prefer one continuous piece of pipe and I like HDPE over other plastics.

 

[phishfood]

Was in Lowe's yesterday poking around in the irrigation section, when I saw something that reminded me of this discussion.

When I first looked at the picture of the end of the black pipe, it looked like poly pipe except for the thickness of the wall. The poly pipe I have seen does not have nearly as thick of a wall as does the pipe you have. But I saw some black flexible PVC pipe in the irrigation section that looks very similar. On a general curiosity note, is this likely flexible PVC or HDPE?

 

[dcrabtree]

I'm pretty certain it is HDPE. On Friday, I had the piece that I had to cut and realized that where the paint used to be with the pipe information, it was actually stamped with the following:

C901 SDR-9 PE 3408

After searching this, I'm pretty certain this refers to HDPE. If I'm wrong, please correct me.