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I purchased my home 2 1/2 years ago. Since buying it I have consistently smelled a foul odor in the garage that was converted to a living room. Today I tore out some built in benches fully expecting to find a dead animal and the source of the smell. Instead I found a 3 inch metal cylinder protruding from the cement. The bottom of the pipe is filled with dirt leading me to believe it is just a pipe that goes through the cement into the ground. There is another one about 10 feet away that sticks up about 3 feet from the cement inside the closet where my heater is located. Should I be worried that this is a pipe leading to my septic tank? Or is there another reason for the metal pipe?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PippieIsAPisces,

Do you smell anything from the pipes? Do you know if the laundry could have been in the garage?

I'm guessing the same thing is happening to you that happened to us. We have a septic tank also. About 4 years ago we rerouted the drain from the washer to run into a gray water tank instead of our septic tank, therefore leaving the old drain for the washer going to the septic unused.
We started to smell a foul odor in the garage about a year later and didn't know why. I figured it out. All drains in your house have a P-Trap. The P-Traps always have water in them to stop the backflow of gasses from the septic tank. Well since we were not using the original washer drain the P-trap water had evaporated allowing the gasses to flow back into the garage. All we do now is pour some water down the old pipe every now and then to keep the P-trap sealed.

You could do this or permanently seal the old pipe. Evidently the dirt doesn't do the job.