PVC pipe sticking up from basement floor

[Graikos]

Hello everyone,

I did an inspection today on a 2005 house. In the basement, toward the front of the house I found this pipe sticking up from the floor. It is PVC and it is tee'd into another pipe running under the floor. I have no idea why it is there. There is wet fiberglass sitting at the bottom so I know water is flowing through it. Any help would be appreciated. I feel like a dummy posting this but I just can't seem to connect the dots.

Click to Enlarge

28.65 KB

[Ben H]

Was it open like that in the basement? Could you smell sewer gas coming from it?

[ghentjr]

Probably a passive radon system without a cap. Builders put them in as a "just-in-case" selling point.

[Graikos]

There was no sewer gas smell to it. I put my nose right up to it.

A passive radon system sounds right. I would have never thought of that. Thanks a lot for your replies!!

[Mark P]

A Passive radon mitigation system that vents into the basement? I guess you just put your mother-n-laws favorite chair over it and invite her over a lot...?

[Ben H]

A Passive radon mitigation system that vents into the basement? I guess you just put your mother-n-laws favorite chair over it and invite her over a lot...?

I'm with Mark. That just doesn't seem very smart.

[Rob Amaral]

If you did a radon test... you should have plugged that sucker up..

Fitchburg/Leominster area is the birthplace of PVC tubing by the way.. "

[Bain]

Well, but it isn't necessarily a passive system. The builder probably installed the piping before pouring the slab premptively, like John G. suggested.

If there were a radon issue once the house was completed, the builder could have connected the piping to a fan to mitigate the radon without having to tear into the slab. I assume there was an easy-enough method by which to extend the pipe to the exterior in the OPs house.

Here, I often see the same set-up, with a pipe installed in a chase, and terminating in the attic. Builders have learned it's easier--and more attractive--to address installation of the piping during construction rather than after.