Mystery floor drain

[justbrae1]

[newbie]

Hey guys, long time lurker, new registration

I moved into my house about a year ago, built in 1988. Attached 2 car garage with municipal water/sewer.

I have no idea what to expect, but my floor drain seems to not be able to keep up if more than a few gallons of water are dumped on the floor from snow melt, cleaning, etc. I pulled the drain cover off and I have about a 2" opening to what looks like PVC outlets towards the top(cant really clearly see) and a sump or pit of some sort that seems to be about 22-24 inches deep. I poked around with a rod a bit to try to determine what in the world was done, but there appears to be a good 14-16 inches of sludge before hitting the bottom of this "pit". What might I be looking at to figure out if this needs to be cleaned out, or if im looking at an old rock pit filled with **** from the past 25 years.

Any advise is appreciated!

 

[nehog]

Well, you might try sucking the sludge out with a wet vac and seeing what's under it... I bet you are looking at about 25 years of car dirt down there!

 

[duneslider]

If its anything like my area, it isn't tied to the plumbing system and its a pipe that drops into a 5 gallon bucket. The "good" guys will have put some holes in the bucket and a bunch of gravel around it to let it kind of drain.

Sucking it out with a wet vac is probably what is required.

 

[Edger]

I thought those were pits where one pipe drains into it, the water fills the pit with heavy dirt dropping to the bottom and the lower pipe drains it away. Probably just needs a scraper to loosen the dirt at the bottom until you feel hard concrete. Hope so, good luck.

 

[justbrae1]

Below is my enhanced drawing

I contacted the builder to ask wtf they did.

Big settlement tank to collect sand with weep holes. At the top of the tank is a PVC "T" that has 2 outlets connected to a 16 foot drain tile that runs in a big circle under the slab allowing water to seep into the ground.

I was able to pull the plumbing flange out of the cement and stick my hand in to unclog the tile hole entries and used the shop vac to **** out the bit of sand in them.

Still 10 inches of sludge in the settlement tank i want to clean out, but its progress.