On 8 Apr 2007 13:07:34 -0700, "car crash" wrote:

We recently bought a new house. Our big white ABS pipe that sticks
out of the ground at the front of our house is an air pipe to the
septic tank (I think). This pipe sticks up from the ground easily 3
feet. Most other properties in the neighbourhood either don't have
one or have a smaller one. Is there anything I can do to get rid of
that pipe?
Can I make it smaller ? I guess just cutting it in half with a
hacksaw would be the easiest thing to do.
Any other recommendation as to what I can do to get rid of that large
white pipe or reduce it in size?
Thank you.

Don't konw about your situation, but I see a possible similarity with
a n'hood I walk through a couple times a week. The n'hood I'm
thinking of has city sewers, but it is about 10 years old and each
front yard has a 4 inch white plastic pipe vertical in the yard. Some
are even with the ground and not really visible because of the grass.
But others are up to 6 inches (not 3 feet) high, and look really ugly.
I think for many of the owners it is their first house, and they don't
have nerve enough to do anything. If I lived there, I'd figure they
cut the pipes without knowing where they woudl go or how high the dirt
would be, and I'd cut the pipe off as low as the lowest one in the
n'hood.

In your case I'd do what you're doing, ask what it is for, but if it
is for an air vent, I don't know why it has to be anywhere near as
high, or as big a diameter. Or why it would have to hook over, when
one could cut V's or U's in the end edge of the pipe and then attach a
cap a little bigger than the pipe, and it would vent through those. I
am not a plumber.

But I'd also ask the builder, or the builder's plumber.

I don't know why it should go higher than the traps in the house,
unless one was trying to avoid siphoning water through the septic from
the pipes in the house, which I don't think could ever happen anyhow.