Please identify the pipe coming up from my hallway flooring. Image included.

[Tom079555]

Hello.

Please can someone identify what this pipe is in my hallway?

I am wanting to put wood flooring down today, so wondered if it was an old gas pipe that I cut just saw off?

Thanks in advance.

 

[nicam49]

Difficult to tell from those pics can you clean it up a bit and take some more pics.. include a ruler to give some idea of scale.

 

[Tom079555]

Believe it or not. That is the cleaned up version

It is a copper pipe. It has a little turn on it that has a totally fallen off now. It had wire wrapped around it.
You can see on the pics what was attached before.

 

[nicam49]

Wow! I'm guessing the wire is an earth wire! Whether the 'pipe' is an earth rod, or a gas/water pipe that has to be earthed,....
what is used to block the top of the pipe thing... looks like cement or plaster or is there something underneath the cement/plaster you can chip off? Does that wire go anywhere?

 

[Tom079555]

The wire has now fallen off. But somebody had already cut it off before I was doing anything with it.

It is something plaster stuck in the top from when I had this space plastered.

It's just a hole that only goes down so far

 

[foxhole]

Looks like it’s taken a bit of a hammering if it was water or gas I would expect it to be leaking

 

[Tom079555]

I've tried cleaning it up a bit more. It looks like the thing on top of the pipe has been bashed in to block/plug it. I could be wrong though.

You can see on one of the pics that the pipe coming out of the floor is thinner than the thing in the top.

 

[nicam49]

So. If it is an Edwardian house, I know old houses most likely would have had gas lighting of some kind, mantles and stuff. Is it poss that there used to be a wall adjacent to that pipe... Seems strange that it's in tne middle of the floor like that.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

It looks like a one time earth rod, perhaps for a radio or telephone at one time, yes they sometimes needed an earth for the phone. The large wing nut is to clamp the cable. You could try levering it up, to see if it is loose enough to pull out. The 'bashing' on top, will be a result of it being hammered into the ground.

You might be able to confirm it if you have a suitable low ohm resistance meter - measure the resistance between the pipe and and a known live gas pipe in your home. Keep in mind that there will be a low resistance path through the ground, but an even lower reading if there is copper to copper between your pipes.