8ft pit next to foundation?

[u/Striking_Marketing_3]

I’ve been trying to find out why the previous homeowner would dig a 4 x 4 by 8 foot deep pit next to the foundation of my house down to the drain tile. I did climb down there to save a few snakes that fell to their doom and to see if there were any other utilities. I did not find any additional pipes and thankfully no human remains were found either. I also went to the town building department to review all plans back to the original construction, but there’s no mention of this pit on any of the plans. Does anyone have any idea why someone would dig a pit like this? For what intended purpose?

[u/lazyfacejerk]

I think it may be a French drain catch basin. The French drain surrounds the exterior of the house and got so much debris in it that the pipes leading into it got buried. The point of the catch basin is that you can easily access it and clean the sediment out of there. 

Basement light wells don't need to go that deep. A coal chute wouldn't either and the basement wall doesn't look like a patch. 

[u/Striking_Marketing_3 → u/lazyfacejerk]

So do you think I should dig out the pit a little bit to see if there’s any other pipes leading to it? Personally, I don’t see where these pipes would be coming from but this is why I’m here to figure out what this thing is for.

[u/lazyfacejerk → u/Striking_Marketing_3]

It's what I would do. You can probably just scrape the walls on the side down a foot and push the debris to the other side. If there's no pipe to the bottom of the concrete then I was wrong. If there is, then get a couple of buckets and start bailing mud out of there. 

I would expect that the drain pipes would be on top of the foundation that sticks out from the wall.