Wood Composite Sewer Pipes? Are you kidding me?

I love my job, partially because I truly do learn something new every day.  Some days I learn really big things.  Today was one of those days.

A client is buying a four plex in the Brroklyn neighborhood of Southeast Portland.  The plex was built in 1961.  Today, we did the sewer scope, which involved going in through three different cleanouts in order to inspect all the sewer lines servicing the four plex. 

All of the lines, until the city sewer main, are made of a product called Orangeburg Pipe.  These pipes are made of  a wood fiber impregnated with coal tar, buried in the wet ground to carry water.  Made of wood?  In the ground? To carry water?  What, is this the sewer pipe version of Louisiana Pacific Siding (wood fiber and glue)?

From what I read, this material was first made in the elate 1800's as electrical conduit in Orangeburg, NY.  It started being used for a variety of liquid transmissions in the early 1900's.  Experience though, showed it did not hold up well to liquids under pressure, but did work for flowing or gravity liquids.  So starting  in the 1940's  up until about 1970, Orangeburg pipe was used for sewer waste lines. 

I have been selling old houses in Portland since 1989.  Either I've never seen this stuff, or have and didn't know what I was seeing.  As you might imagine, Orangeburg pipe hasn't held up so well against some of the more widely used products that include cast iron, terra cotta, concrete and now pvc products.

 I really thought by the second World War we'd have figured out a wood fiber might not be best for a water pipe.  I guess the pressures of building all those subdivisions after the war, combined with the savings this product could bring kept this product alive a bit longer necessary. 

Orangeburg pipe can continue to perform.  I wouldn't yank it out of it is working (this is my advice in most things), but...spot repairs don't particularly work on this stuff, so when it goes it is gone.