Any idea what this is?

[rgloverd]

Hi,
I am trying to buy a building plot at the moment, but it has 4 of the pipes in the photo on the site which I dont know what they are or what they have been used for. The site has always been an agricultural field. Solicitors have done environmental searches and nothing has come up on them, as in it has never been a landfill site.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Richard

Untitled

• rgloverd
• 26 Mar 2014
• 1

 

[rjm2k]

Anything come out if you turn that washer tap? Doesn't the owner know? They look recent

 

[rgloverd]

I will have to try turning them on.
Unfortunately the current owners dont know what they are for as they were there before they bought it, they bought it with planning having expired from a building company that had gone bust 12 months ago and are now selling it on due to financial difficulties I believe,
I think it must be some sort of gas sampling,
Thanks,
Richard

 

[HERTS P&D]

What was the business that was there before?

Andy

 

[footprints]

It would worry the blazes out of me it looks like it could be some kind of rig for sampling underground gas like methene in a landfill site.

 

[Jackrae]

Methane test points? Is the area a landfill site with rotting waste buried under it or a lid on old mine workings - edit oops been beaten to it

 

[rjm2k]

You could try emailing the photo to a company that specialises in environmental surveying to see if they know what they are?

If you turn the tap it may be worth putting a balloon over the end to catch any gas coming out to make it more obvious

 

[joe-90]

Radon is a big problem out that way.

 

[garyo]

Maybe one of the other prospective buyers hammered a few of them in one night to make all the other bidders nervous

 

[rgloverd]

Many thanks for all the replies, I am hoping it is radon as it is a problem in the area, but usually builders around here would just put a radon barrier in as they do not cost that much, so that is what makes me wonder if it is something else rather than radon

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I can think of a quick way to tell if there's methane behind that valve.


But I think these days the methane from landfill sites is captured and used, not just ignored or burned off.


I used to work for a local authority, and they were starting a housing development on a brownfield site - had been some industry there, and landfill, but that would have been in the 60s when they were not as well managed as now. So they thought they'd survey it for methane, which IIRC involved burying some porous containers, then going back later and sampling the gas inside them.

Some of them returned an analysis of 1,000,000 ppm methane.