Plumbing just seems to disappear

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

We have a pipe (which I have recently discovered is plastic) that exits the house in the kitchen to go into our shed 10 yards away. I wanted to dig the pipe up before it gets to the shed and put a pipe up for an external tap. However, following the pipe out of the house and digging down a good foot, I have found no sign of the pipe. I have dug in several other areas I suspect the pipe to be, but have not found it.

Now our house is over 100 years old and it's stone walls are about 0.5m thick, and it seems to me that the pipe has been run inside these walls. It's the only answer I could come up with as it definitely does not exit the house where logically it should.

Has anyone ever had any experience of pipe work being laid within the walls. I don't mean interior walls, but solid stone walls. Could the plumbers have chipped out into the house walls, laid the pipework and then stoned back and rendered over the top? Seems a lot of work to me, but that's the only thing I can think of. Remember the pipe is plastic, so it must have been laid in the past 20 years or so I would guess.

As it stands, I have cut the pipe at source and run new pipe out into the area I want the tap to be, but I am curious as to the methods and wondered if anyone else has come across such a thing in their old places.

Many thanks.

R.

[BIG MAC]

Confusing in that you say you have followed the pipe out, therefore exposed it externally? Pipes laid just a foot below will be susceptible to frost so I suspect what the pipe does is go through the wall at a steep downward angle or is turned across the face of the wall via an elbow. No one in their right mind would chase a pipe into a stone wall below ground.

Regards,

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

When I say chased the pipe out, I found it's exit point inside the house and measured it from a known point that I could see inside and outside (it was an evacuation pipe within 6" of the pipe I am searching for). And then I dug the garden up outside to search for it, and it wasn't there.

But what you said makes sense, I hadn't even contemplated frost.

[Dave&Olive]

hi OK

 this is in response to this posting and the one asking about plans for water mains .... posted before but what the ...

 The plans showed  the route from the stopcock  to the water meter some 10 mtrs inside our boundary .so i marked it out  ( this by the way is for when I put in my own fosse and sand filter ) I then added 3mtrs   to be safe and said right oh the tank can go here, first bite with the mini digger  .... yes   straight through the water main . That was 3 ish years ago and have learnt here in France it`s the norm so beware.

 just a thought plastic water main can also be put in using a mole , you just dig a hole drop in the mole and it vibrates it`s way to where you want it to go dragging behind the pipe

   Dave