This was supposed to be a easy job! 

That's a cesspool. We have them around here but they are never that big. Probably was part of a farm at one time. The idea was to have the waste go in and then percolate out, they were replaced by septic tanks starting in the 1950's.

Aw, that's a shame. A bunker would have been great! About 20 years ago a hole appeared in the playground of my old junior school and when it was excavated, it DID turn out to be a WWII bunker! It was very exciting being able to go down and have a look - the perks of knowing the headmaster! :-)

It's a septic cistern. There's one behind my grandparent's house that my uncle coincidentally uncovered and cleaned out three weeks ago because his granddaughter is now living there. Built the same as this one with sheet steel on top back in the late '50's or early '60's. My grandparents were born around 1920 and this used to be a normal thing.

The only reasoning I can think of for it being that large is in the history of the property being a former bus terminal. The restrooms would have been used more frequently by the public than a standard residential size pit would accommodate. It was likely forgotten about when being converted into a single-family home and with the introduction of modern plumbing. Glad that back deck didn't collapse on you guys! I held my breath at 4:24.

The first tank from the house would be a solid tank, also called a septic tank, for the solids to settle. The tank in the video is the second tank, also called a cesspool. The cesspool has holes in the walls of it to allow the effluent to disperse in the soil.

Personally I think it's a giant soakwell; somewhere for storm water to accumulate and drain away. Note the "open" blocks lining the walls. This is so that when it IS full of water, it will drain away into the soil. In Australia, these are usually like a big concrete pipe on itse end, with a few holes around the side, and often a dirt floor

One of my grandparents built their septic tank for his home during the 50’s. Covered it with a large sheet of steel, covered the whole area with new dirt, lasted for decades. This is incredible for living the gulf coast area.

What a find! Glad it worked out okay with no major collapse or foundation damage. I have occasional discoveries doing HVAC but nothing like this!

I grew up in a old ranch house and had to do some exploratory digging for our septic, only to discover a straight cast iron pipe going into a square box made of old railroad ties and covered with old rotting piece of plywood. Its a wonder we never fell in all those years playing back there. Would explain why the apple tree in the back grew so well without being watered.

Cesspool with a baffle. When we put in our new septic tank a couple years back, while running the new drain field we uncovered a round cesspool. The one we uncovered was 12' diameter 8' deep. It also had a concrete top, though it was supported in the center with a banjo rear from a Ford model a/aa that was being used as a post.

I had the same exact situation. Bought a home that was built before the city had plumbing and found a brick tank. The guy I paid to fill it in was nerding out about it being close to 100 years old and still in good enough shape to be put in operation.

This is exactly the way we build septic tanks upto date in The netherlands antilles When it fills up we let them pump it empty And it will take a couple of years to fill up again. Greetings from Curacao the jewel of the carribean ❤

It's drywell. This is how it was done before leach fields. This was very well done and would probably still work fine. My old house before the one I'm in had 2 of them one for just the toilet and the other for every thing else. They have been in use for 50+ years. There would still be a septic tank in line before this to deal with the solids. There are a huge number of these still in use.

My great grandparents farm house had one between the driveway and kitchen door. It had a small manhole with a cracked cement cover. An adult would not have fallen very far with the lid gone but a child would have disappeared. My cousins and I would dare each other to jump on the lid. We’d all take turns jumping once then twice, 3, 4, times. We didn’t think about it being dangerous if someone fell through, just the thrill if that happened. Some grown up would eventually come out and fuss at us to play somewhere else. Sometimes I marvel at the thought of surviving my childhood.

Yep here in Mississippi we use cinder blocks for septic tanks all the time. Im starting a series on building my new house from uncut land to the finished product and we're doing a cinder block septic tank. The series will start by the end of next month, check it out.

It would appear to be divided into two chambers suggesting it is an old septic tank. Yes. In some areas of the US septic tanks were allowed to be built of masonry (block). Most building codes require exploration of areas where there was previous construction in order to make safe the conditions under grade (not visible) prior to more construction.

I have an old cistern, the walls are lime plaster, they were used for rainwater collection for washing clothes etc. This is probably what everyone else is saying about a dry septic system, that allows stuff to drain into the ground. It is so intact that I would probably put stairs in it and a roof on it to use as a interesting structure in my yard. It seems way too cool to just fill in. Someone probably hand dug and lined that a long time ago, they did a great job! I thought the way you guys dug into that cement was dangerous though, because you didn't know how far back it went....

Yes it was a septic or a waste tank usually because of the way the blocks are positioned for draining into the ground I've seen a lot of this in Mexico they are common over there

Definitely a cesspool, helped fill one in at my Grandparents home back in the 80's. It was not as big as that, but if it was a Bus station that makes since. Looks like 1 side was solids and the other was fluids to leach out. Or they would compost 1 side and fill the other, dual composting system.

Few years ago digging up my garden in the backyard without a cistern. When we did our patio over the top of it we had to fill it in. Took 40 yards of rock to fill it in. Give or take some of it we use to help for the patio.

I'm surprised you didn't backfill with #1 stone then topsoil. My experience says you may be going back when it sinks and settles probably after a heavy rain storm. One thing is for sure you never know what you're gonna find in the ground when you start digging

It looks like a "Brick Seepage Pit" used to be common type of dry-well/sewage tank. I have found them at old farms and rural areas a few times.

If it was an old bus terminal, the pipe running to it could actually be a grease trap drain for oil changes and other fluids to drain. Septic tanks don’t have open cinder block walls. Septic also has a concrete floor, not a dirt floor. Back in the day they just ran oil and fluids into the ground like that. Before they had laws against doing that.

The house I lived in in the 60s had a smaller round one in the back yard. It was attached to what was originally a 2 bedroom Cape-cod house. It had no baffles in it, no drain fields, just the cinder blocks turned sideways. It ended up handling all of what became a four bedroom house. It had a 2 foot elevated top with a man hole cover on it. We always called it a Cesspool. In 14 years I only recall it getting pumped out once. It always worked pretty good, no smells, no wet spots. That is, it worked good until the city said we had to get on their system. $$$

Whoa...Man the collapse of that concrete, right up to the stairs, sure was a surprise. I feel for Sean. I took on a job, and while excavating we had a similar situation, except this was a 30X40 '50's>'60's era bomb shelter. Our collapse came within 18'' to a poured concrete foundation. Whew, our hearts were in our throats, ha ha.--

My first thought was a septic tank from the blocks of concrete that were used as walls. I ran into one similar to that years ago. Nice job that they did.

I can’t believe you buried debris in the hole, you know it’s going to settle with time.

At my current home we found 2 of these and instead of filling them we expanded one out to be a server room and the other was made into utility room.

If I thought I'd found a bunker in my garden I certainly wouldn't be filling it!!! Even a cesspool like that would be cool to have as a kind of bunker lol

I’ve built septic tanks out of cement blocks. Still working great after 40: years!

My father actually put a “dry well” in line with the septic system to prevent over saturation of the old septic system. It helped prevent the ground from getting swamped out and backing up with waste water from doing laundry and such. He actually used cinder blocks and lightly back filled. I’m surprised it never collapsed as of yet because he never used anything to hold them together. It was probably 4 x 12’ from what I remember and still in their backyard holding up.

That is an old cistern that was used to catch rainwater to be used to water livestock when the drought during the summer hit. I have seen many of these and with farm equipment theu=y were easy to put together. They really worked and gave a source of water for the animals when the wells started going dry!

I remember when we were building on an old ww2 airbase, when they came across an unmapped underground command room which they had to fill with concrete, if I remember correctly it took about 6 loads (approx 36 cubic metres). A week later they dug up a 6 cubic metre concrete block which apparently was used as part of bomb blast shield wall. To get rid of it they dug another hole and came across 2 more.😂😂

We built a septic tank when working in Belize one week out of blocks. Concrete base and all the blocks were on end, not any on side, filled voids with concrete and rebar, then capped with concrete with an access hole. The inner walls were sealed with mortar as it went up but did not seal center dividing wall.

Good to see you brought your big machine.

Looks like a drainage system. By any other name just as functional. I saw one once many years ago that was fairly old. Brick, arched roof with two stone lids. It was about 6' wide, 6' tall with one circular section about 10' in diameter at a step down. The structure was quite long. Amazing and structurally sound they kept it ! Still functional and had a spring running threw it to keep it 'fresh' !

I once owned a home built in the late 1800's and it had a large septic tank that was oval just like this one. The only difference was that the walled sides were made out of large, natural stone, but had the same ability to allow the inflow to seep out into the ground. When it began to give us problems, we had septic experts come and open it and then fill it with a combination of rock and sand. It took a tremendous amount of sand/rock to fill it. Like this site, it was very close to our home and partly under what was a beautiful brick patio. YIKES! When we disturbed the overall tank, that part of the patio sank down about 6-8 inches. It was costly AND we were thankful that it had not collapsed or worse!

If that was in my backyard, I'd connect all my rain downspouts to it and not have to worry about rain water near my foundation. Looks like it was still stable, no collapsing walls.

You can contact your county water and sewer department or building permits and see if they have an old chart that existed before your house got hooked up to the public sewer.

Looks like a cistern. Every home built in the 19th century had one... And they always had water for their vegetable gardens, no matter how dry a summer might be. Super smart. So, of course, they are no longer made.

In Ireland, that's called a soakaway, but you wouldn't have left it hollow because of the risk of collapse. They like for you to plan/build for centuries rather than decades. First, we dug two 3sqm holes. One off each corner of my shed a couple meters away from the slab. Lined each hole with a silt-blocking membrane and then filled it with clean large gravel. and ran a drain pipe from the end of each downspout (with a grate/trap/clean-out because of leaves and dirt). Then covered it all up. My shed roof covers a carport as well, so fairly large. So we doubled up the soak-away requirement by planning. And funny enough, we had one of the wetest springs in Ireland's history and when the rest of the back garden starting turning into a flood zone and had standing water, the area by the shed was well drained and the soak aways weren't spilling over. So result!

A cistern would have solid walls and not built so the water would run out. I would agree that it is either a dry well for gray water or runoff. It possibly could be an old septic tank, but based on the one that was found on my property when I had an old growth tree removed, it would still smell after decades and there would be sludge still in the bottom. Mine stunk horribly when the ground gave way over the top of it. The one I found was likely put in in 1932 or before . Still smelled bad enough to gag a maggot.

That is a very large dry well. Grey water from septic. Very common in our area until field systems became the norm. That is 3 times larger than we have. Notice its made on concrete block that are laid sideways. The holes allow the water to leach out and soak into the soil.

Septic tank. The one on my property was from the late 1920's . My aunt and uncle lived here for years using it. I noticed the top begin to sink in 2019...would walk beside the lawnmower when passing over it. Spring 2020 I came out toa 6" hole. It was cinder block, with antique train rails (narrower gauge) over the top . Likely long gone boards and then the poured cement. That one was more than twice the size of here!

It was a drywell, I remember we had one when I was just a kid. They used them instead of drain fields in modern septic systems

The old farmhouse we lived in from the mid 1970's to mid 1990's had a bank barn that had been built in the 1850's. We had the barn removed before my parents sold the property because it was starting to fall apart. After the barn was gone we hired bulldozer to smooth out the barn site and while he was leveling the bank out the operator hit an old cistern that we didn't know was there. It was brick lined, about 10 feet in diameter and still full of water. The barn must have had a rain water catchment system that was still functional enough to top off the cistern without us knowing it was there. The dozer operator wasn't happy when he almost dropped into the pit. We knew about a separate cistern that had provided water to the house at one point. It was on the hill above the barn and there was a pipe from the spring to the cistern and another pipe from the cistern to the house.

Grew up with a cistern, that was my first thought, but that had concrete walls and cement block wall down the center as a filter. Since this one had cinderblock walls, as others noted, it was probably a really old septic system

Definitely an old school septic system. Those were done that way so the water could seep out at different points and dilute in the ground water without causing pollution. Also there was no need for a gravel fill line with that. They were used in high populated areas where there was no room for fill lines. I build and remodel houses. We have seen dozens of these things still in use today

I was thinking if the house was old enough, that could have been a coal bunker, but way too big and no connecting hatch to the house. And I thought it was far too big to be the septic tank for a house until late in the video, it was stated that the house was once a bus terminal. Yeah, that large a cesspool would be needed to handle the public restrooms in a bus terminal. And the leeching field associated with it would have been about 15 time larger.

I worked construction for 50 years. I came across a couple of similar setup. Not that big or built like a bomb-proof shelter but it's definitely a septic system of some type. Maybe a farm or commercial or industrial setup of some kind.

I've installed aerobic septic systems for about 12 years , we've dug up several old septic tanks like what have here . some even older with old red brick for walls and just dirt on the bottom.

For the house grey water (washing machine, etc.). We used to have one until the town installed sewers, then made us fill it in.

We used to call them a dry well. That one is much larger then most for a regular home back in the day. It was for the liquid coming from a septic tank and then it would drain in to the ground while the solids stayed in the septic tank to be pumped out.

We found one under our old back porch pad. The house is circa 1960 and in the middle of farm land. It has a well to support the house. The cistern is a cinder block lined. Designed to hold run off water that could be used as a water holding tank. We had to have a county engineer come and help us design a safe structure to rebuild a laundry room over it vs spending tons of money to fill it with dirt or concrete.

I would be tempted to keep it as a storage room, prepping for hard times to come.

When I was a kid, my grandma had a giant hole next to the house. I had always figured it was septic but years later I met the grand-daughter of the original owner and she told me the hole had something to do with a pipe organ that the house used to have.

That is an old style septic tank system. The sideways blocks help water filter into the ground. My grandma's home in Mexico had one built about 50+ years ago and never caved in.

I think it's an old fashioned cistern. It holds water like a well to water your lawn and gardens during the dry season. Back a 100 or so years ago everyone used them so you wouldn't deplete your well.

I'm not sure what can be but in México we built similar ones but are exclusive for rain water, we call them _Pozo de absorción_ "absorption well". They are build with cinder block or red bricks, a concrete top, and the bottom is fill with gravel or volcanic rock. They help to replenish the groundwater

Growing up my parents had a septic tank made from old railroad ties. They were great because they were very much resistant to rot. Makes me think it's very possible that this could be a septic tank too.

I agree, a drainage pool of some type. If the pipes came from the turkey farm, that might have been a disposal pool for a slaughterhouse or large coop. It might also just have been drainage for roofs or a parking lot for a bus terminal. Having courses of block on their sides definitely identifies it as some sort of drainage. A test of the bottom soil might have shown old oils suggesting a parking lot drain. Interesting that it still held up your machine after being there for decades.

Wow! What an ace vid. Just watching this while I have morning coffee. Nice work. Cheers.

Grandpa built a few of these very very similar. Cinder block walls, I beams laid across, perforated aluminum sheets, aluminum chainlink fence and another layer of perforated aluminum sheet for top. covered over with fill dirt and sod. The are to help prevent flooding. Allows all the water to sit in there and be absorbed slowly. His property had a water flow issue going towards the house and a couple of these eliminated the flooding in his basement and cellar. One he used as a rainwater well with waterlevel meter and pump to water the garden and flowers.

We have an old cesspool on our property that looks like that although not nearly that large. We abandoned it over 20 years ago because it quit leaching. The cinder blocks in the side of it were for leaching purposes.

Probably a cistern for water storage before city water. They usually caught rain water from the down spouts. As a 7 yr old kid my family rented an old farm house (1960s) that had one. It was the only source of water that supplied the house. Hard telling what kind of microscopic creatures we were drinking. There was a big concrete slab over it that also was used as a patio. It had a steel manhole lid I guess to keep an eye on the water level.

Well done, Sir. Lessons for all, especially nowadays, do research and investigation before committing to a project, do have a well-written contract, specifically one that allows for renegotiation for encountering conditions not specified but very important.

Years ago, I worked as a gardener for a lady that had an old house with a beautiful circular perennial garden right in the middle of her back yard. One day, I came to do maintenance on the garden. It looked so nice when I was done and my customer complimented me about it. Next morning, I got a call from her that the garden had collapsed into the huge old cesspool that came with the house and that she and her husband were still using. I drove there to check it out...and it was a big, deep hole with the plants and soil from the garden right there in the bottom. I was thinking a day earlier and I could have been in there, too. She also had a garage built years ago that blocked access from the front of the yard to the back, so she couldn't have a septic system put into another part of the back yard 'cuz they couldn't get trucks or machinery back there, so they had to fill the hole and then dig up her front yard to put the septic system in. Since all of her drains in the house went to the big main drain in the basement that went to the cesspool in the back yard, all of the drain pipes had to be changed to head towards the septic system in the front yard. I hate to think of what all of that cost her. 😝

Honeycomb drywell/gallery, cesspool ect. When my uncle passed we sold his house. No one knew anything about the septic, other than it worked for 60 years. When they found it at the inspection is was a honeycomb cinderblock cesspool. Just like that. But smaller. And it was bone dry. Never been pumped. And he raised 4 kids in that house. You could get away with building your own septic with cinderblocks back in the day. No board of health, perc tests, soil testing, special sands. And they worked better!

Septic yes indeed as a sewer technician for Roto-Rooter for over 23 years I've had the luxury of walking over the top of one and actually falling in up to my armpits still holding on to the lawn now the house was actually connected to sewer by that point but no one knew the old system was still there and we filled Arjun with number one drain rock as well

Cisterns in the back yard to hold excess rain water where common in older homes. I had one in my house that we never went in, and is still there outside the kitchen window. We sold the house years ago and it's still standing, but I have no idea if they discovered/did anything about the cistern. The basement was dry for many years, then after the concrete foundation started cracking and dropping we put a sump pit in the basement just inside from the cistern. It ran for a long time until it dried up. Then we had to seal all the cracks. We were told they stored rain water there but I don't know it there was anyway to use it. The lot sloped downhill from there and led to two levels in the back yard, and a huge field in the middle of the block which was mostly peat soil.

It's a dry well that the French drains empty into. I had one collapse in my front yard when I was a kid in the 70's. Just woke up to a giant hole in the front yard. The drains for several houses on the block fed into it.

It's what is called a dry well. It was to control water run off. When I found it in your yard there was road construction in front of your house. I ask one of the contractors that was removing small gravel if the want to dump it in my dry well so that he didn't have to drive almost 50 miles to get rid of it. There was a Ford Model T and Model A frame was holding the top.

We called them drywells, for gray water, not septic, the sideways blocks allowed water to drain thru the sides, I replaced one that had filled up on the old family farm in the 80's dug by hand was about 8x8 by 6 deep with PT wood as top

It is an old stormwater soakdrain. We have one on our property to stop the low lying area of the property from turning into a lake, which turns the area into mud, killing the grass, and destabilising the ground. The open bricks allow the water to slowly drain into the ground when the storm has ended. The concrete and corregated iron on top is just so that people can walk on top of it safely. The pipes that go under the house probably are there to stop the piles from sinking into the ground during a storm when water is running under the house, or whatever was there before the house. Filling it in may result in the house collapsing in future as the ground shifts.

this is crazy!! glad they got it fixed!!

I live in in a home that had a septic tank very much like that but not nearly as large. When city sewer came through in the 1950's it was filled in but last year it settled a bit and I had to ad about a cubic yard of dirt to keep it level with the surrounding yard.

Since the holes in some rows point outwards, it is likely a form of Septic tank. Certainly not a Cistern which was meant to contain rain water. Professionally built. Some things are best left alone. Farmer hack using Transport trailer frames.

I love how that old truck frame still looks solid just rusty as fck . Meanwhile new cars rust through after a few winters driving on salted roads . The older I get the more I understand what gramps used to mean when he said they don’t make em like they used to anymore.

Wow, that's a crazy hole. Good work. 👍🏻

Howdy. We used to have large chicken farms, and one thing that was always needed was a large hole in the ground with a metal roof over it with a small hole to get in/out. Not people, but dead chickens. They were burned inside the pit. Most old farms still have these things. So, it really looks like you have a turkey pit/ incinerator. Phil

Here in the Northwest they were common into the 1950's usually made out of brick . After about 40 or 50 years it was common for them to collapse

My Dad dug out 12’W 30’L 10’D for a cesspool tank. Walls all out of cinderblocks. Years ago I work for a cemetery about 3/400 yards from a old railroad track. Started digging for grave space and opened up a old bunker that looked as it was set on fire. Couldn’t imagine the thoughts

That's a large one but I remember these as a kid. This is a septic drain tank for the processed solids liquid only. Normally 10 feet at the base but tapered to the top for a 3 foot cover

I know what this is! My uncle and me made one years before he was connected to a suage(sorry) system! Translated to English it's a stacking pit! These holes make it possible for liquid to escape and when ground-water level rises, it is somehow selfcleaning😊

My Dad would have called it a dry well. His original "septic tank" was similar to that one, but not near so big. There was no septic tank then a leach field; that's why the blocks are set in the manner that they are; it's perforated pipe, so to speak. Bet that never had to be pumped!

Very cool! On our ranch and nearby farm, we found under ground an old armory, rfls, clothing/uniforms, canon balls, money, letters, journals, alcohol, cooking equipment, swords, knives, shoes, jewelry and watches. Our son bought a property that had a hidden bunker from prohibition days. Found alcohol, 5 modified cars, old pew pews, clothing like suits and daily work wear, vintage furniture, booths, beautiful clocks, guess it stopped being used a little after ww2 for storage, as there are news papers, and other items from that period in there as well. Also the Veteran who went to WW2 and came back, I guess hunted and took revenge on racist folks who murdered black people, guy kept a diary of folks and the evil they did. Pretty cool find on my sons property! He now uses his massive prop to train fellow law enforcement, mil, and private security entities. Son covets his privacy so he never made the discoveries known, but good lord, can you imagine stumbling on a bunch of prohibition stuff, then newer WW2 era stuff?

It's called a grey water cistern. It receives tap and tub water from the house, so the septic isn't overwhelmed.

Sometimes there can be things underground that were covered up and abandoned and completely forgotten about. At the church that I go to in years past they started constructing a Seminary Building. When the ground was being prepared the contractor discovered an abandoned underground gasoline tank that had to be removed.

That was definitely an old septic tank system from back in the day. I've seen a few built like that up here in Canada.

Interesting. Great job fellas 👏🏻👩🏻‍🏫🥰‼️

Im ersten Moment habe ich mich etwas erschrocken und dachte, na hoffentlich fällt das Haus nicht auseinander, weil das Fundament Probleme macht. Gut , dass nun alles wieder in Ordnung ist.

Yep definitely was a old septic tank which is easy to tell because the cinder block on their side as the openings are for the water part of the sewage to seep out back into the ground. I know this because as a kid back in the 60's my neighbors kid almost fell into one where their pool was set up. They had to dismantle the pool and have it filled in.

cesspool's, my dad used to build them. they started as grey water but ended up as waste pools. we used to fill them with a lean concrete pumpable fill. you could have done this in two days and a concrete truck. look up controlled density fill (CDF).

"Or some crazy Silence of the Lamb shhhh thing." 😂😂 You were right. Crazy Silence of the Lamb💩😂

That clay tile (pipe) at 3:12 leads me to believe it’s a cistern. I’ll bet that they tied to rainwater runoff downspouts. My grandparents had a large octagon-shaped concrete cap on theirs. In the center was an open piece of 1-1/2” steel or maybe iron pipe. They had a pitcher-mouth hand pump connected that my grandmother used for filing watering cans. My grandfather told me that it was also for fire department use. I guess back before running water systems were as robust and common as they are now having an on-site volume storage of water was not too bad a thing to have!

It's was an old cistern, that one was used to hold rainwater and then slowly release it into the ground. That is why there were cinder blocks turned on ther sides. Building codes usually require that a property consist of a certain percentage of open ground that rain water can be absorbed in to. Or you can build a cistern to be a holding tank as the water is absorbed into the ground. that way you don't flood your nieghbors

Definitely septic tank with no leach field needed. Leaches right out the blocks. Back in the late 1960’s a neighbor had a system replaced in his yard and that’s exactly what they built. If the ground percs well, just that is all that’s needed.

Definitely a drywell. It is the older version of a leaching field. My house, from the 50s, still uses a drywell. Sewage goes from house to septic tank then to the drywell

It would have been interesting if a family was down there like the movie Blast from the Past lol.

I used to hide my UFO in there when I visited Earth. That’s why the farmers always talked about seeing my in the sky.