16. Well, it is not a Well

Looking for answers and finding more questions.

We are planning to add a patio to replace of the existing wood deck. To our surprise, we found a capped concrete cylinder under the old deck. Could it be a well? Could it be part of the the old septic system? When we dug further, we found a concrete pad. We are still unsure of what we found, but we are fairly sure that it is not a well.

The original deck

When we bough the house, the backyard had a huge wood deck. It was falling apart, so we decided to take it out — read about that fiasco in our blog post “House 09. Hazard #3”

The discovery

Here is what we discover under our deck: a capped concrete cylinder. At first, I was convinced that the cylinder was a well cap. It fit the description, and clearly someone really wanted whatever it was to be concealed.

Side story: in addition to the concrete cylinder, we also discovered that our defunct Koi Pond was originally twice the size!

Committing to demo

Digging a bit further around the concrete cylinder, I noticed that it was just one cylinder, and not a stack of cylinders that you might expect for a well. There was also a little hole on the side of the cylinder and you could poke a stick in there, so it appeared to be hollow. We stuck an endoscopic camera into the hole and all we could make out were pieces of rubble. We discussed worst case scenarios, what if it was a cap to an old cess pool? what if was a well? what if there was a spring in there? Only one way to find out…

It was a nothing burger

To our big surprise, we found nothing.

It was just a pile of rubble and some trash. Looks like someone had at some point tried to burn something in there. Based on some internet sleuthing, the beer cans stored in the cylinder are from the late 1960’s to the early 1970’s. This coincides with then one of the former owners had made a large addition to the house, and probably when the deck was originally built.

But why? Why would someone have gone through the trouble of putting the cylinder there?

More known unknowns

We were pleased to have removed the concrete cylinder, it was getting in the way of our future patio. Patting ourselves on the back we went to readjust one of our corner markers. But then something unexpected happened. When we tried to strike to corner marker into the ground, it hit a rock. Or so we thought. It seems no matter where we tried, we kept hitting rocks.

Then we discovered, it wasn’t a rock, but a concrete slab.

Digging a little further, we found edges and a small cap or hook. We are guessing that this is the old, decommissioned septic tank. We found a county record showing that the original septic system exited the house at roughly this location. The size of the concrete pad seems consistent with a concrete tank. The way the top of the pad is located roughly 2 feet below grade and about 10 feet from the house also matches this hypothesis. My guess is that the tank was decommissioned when the major addition and new septic system were added to the house in the 1970’s. A plumber recently verified that plumbing drains to the new septic system, which was a big relief.

But who really knows? This house and its history are complex.

Unanswered Questions

I am curious to learn the chronology of improvements to the house. Is the concrete cylinder somehow tied to the old septic tank? Is the koi pond an original feature? Was there a well in the original house, and if yes, where would it have been? So many questions.

My next step — for now — is to bury the unknowns. Will we regret it?