Can anybody identify these 1.5" 'buried' pipes? Photo.

[Hugh Jaleak]

That to me looks like a gas pipe, I have something similar to that joint in my understairs cupboard. (The installation up to the meter here is prehistoric but National Grid wont touch it until it starts to leak.... )

Possible though the gas system has been upgraded/replaced and that steel pipe used to thread a smaller plastic service pipe through from the road up to house, known as an 'insertion'.

Hopefully if the OP has cut through then he's found the plastic inside and left that intact!

 

[nv_london]

Update: the pipes are old, dead gas pipes. Gas board eventually came out and......hit the rotten one with a hammer ('that one's dead, mate) and cut straight into the other one ('no hissing, mate, there must be a plastic pipe fed through it'....bit more sawing....'this one's also dead, mate').



Thanks for all your help everybody!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Gotta love their technique for assessing whether a pipe has gas in it or not