Finding a buried water line

[ns_in_tex]

I've seen it work on active underground electric lines. I suspect it is sort of like an electric motor, with the "dowsing" wires turning as they cut through the electrical field made by the underground wires.

Bruce

We needed to locate a underground wire we installed several years ago. Googled how to do this, and found this. It worked. You might have it around the house, if not, I think we purchased the cheapest portable AM radio for about 10.00.

Turn all power off to the cable you are searching for. Pull your lawn mower close to the available end. Coil a wire around the spark plug wire several times. Connect the other end to the wire to be located. We had access to the end, so wire nutted them together. Instructions said to coil it around the wire several times, same as did on the spark plug wire. Turn the radio on and tune to 530 AM (only static, no station). Fire up the lawn mower and trace the wire. Should be able to hear a pop, above the static, each time the mower fires. Loudest pop is closest to the wire.

Our wire was about 2' deep and we traced it for probably 150'.

 

[4570Man]

OP here. My dowsing story: I once owned a house that was built in 1928. The main sewer pipe went into the middle of the basement floor and vanished, and connected to a city sewer about 60' away. I needed to locate where the sewer went, so I called a plumbing company that specialized in utility hookups. The guy who came out said, "I have a $3,000 pipe locater, but I find my dowsing rods work better." So he gets out his dowsing rods and walks around the front yard, and he comes back and says he has bad news, the dowsing rods are showing that the pipe runs under an 8' retaining wall, then under the concrete front steps of the house and the porch. Digging it up is going to do tens of thousands of dollars of damage to the house.

So he decides to double-check his work, he gets a guy with a camera to go down the pipe and get its exact location. The camera shows that the pipe runs from the street straight up the middle of the driveway to the house. The driveway is brick pavers that we take up and put back by hand. It's nowhere near where the dowsing rods said it was. But exactly where the electronic pipe finder said it was.

I’m assuming it was a cast iron pipe. Wouldn’t a metal detector work?

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I’ve got a method, I can walk for three days into Denali National park away from the nearest road with a trenching shovel. As soon as that shovel touches dirt it will break a water pipe.

I offer my services to anyone, guarantee my work as well!

Why should you always carry three survey stakes in your pack?

If you get lost, all you need to do is drive three stakes in a line, and somebody on a piece of equipment will appear and run over at least to of them, and then, you can follow the tracks and get home.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I’m assuming it was a cast iron pipe. Wouldn’t a metal detector work?

I didn't get involved. My rule is when I'm paying somebody to do something I let them do it. But it did seem they went to an awful lot of trouble.

 

[Hay Dude]

First off, dowsing does not work. It’s like a lot of things, people want to believe so in their mind it works. At one time there was a million dollar prize if someone could prove it, the prize went unclaimed.

Second, I absolutely believe people can locate utilities without any modern equipment. I’m a retired land surveyor and did a lot of topographic surveying. I can locate utilities but I use my senses. I could bend rods and say that works also I guess. For example, a sewer clean out near a house and subtle low spots in a yard show where the sewer service is.

I personally have seen dowsing fail on numerous occasions. There is always a reason given, like it must have been an underground stream, the gas line threw me off etc.

Last, I am not making fun of people that believe it works, I’ve seen people I respect as intelligent well educated individuals that believe it works.

I have dug foundations and water lines for 30 years using dowsing and it works every time for me. That’s not to say it’s infallible.
Nothing is 100% perfect (except my failure to make estimated gross income every year).
If it fails, it was the operator either grasping the “handles” too tightly, or hurrying too much. There could also be additional buried objects that interfere.
About 25 years ago, I tried to explain dowsing to my father in law. He was sort of a city guy, and like you, didn’t believe it would work. He laughed at the notion. He wanted me to build a deck on the back of his house for him.
Fearing we would hit electric or water lines. I showed him the basics. He grabbed the dowsing rods and gave it a try. Wherever they crossed, we spray painted the ground. His mind was blown when they would cross. He had NO idea where any lines coming from his house were buried. When we did the 811 locate, the utility companies confirmed our markings almost to the foot.
We dug the footings avoiding the spray painted areas HE dowsed. We didn’t hit anything. He is a now a believer.
I have been doing this for over 30 years

 

[Frankenkubota]

I used a new-to-me technique to find a buried water line today and thought I'd share it.

In the basement of my house there is a 3/4" black poly water line that exits through the foundation. It's connected to the house water. A previous owner put it in and I don't know where it goes. I've tried opening the valve to see if water shoots out but nothing doing, I think it must be capped.

I had some time today so I thought I would try to figure out where it goes. I shut off the valve and disconnected it in the basement. Then I took a long electricians fish tape and fed as much of it as I could into the pipe, I later measured that it took 58'. I have a wire locator that I got on Amazon for about $50, it's not very precise but it's been very handy. It's this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F5WA6QQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The way it works is there's a transmitter and a receiver, you clip one wire of the transmitter onto the wire you're trying to trace, the other onto ground, and then you walk around with the receiver, the closer you are to the wire the louder it beeps. So I clipped the transmitter onto the fish tape and went out into the yard with the receiver.

Walking around, I could trace the pipe where it came out of the house. I followed it and it turned and went by a small shed. I found a spot where the signal seemed to stop. I walked around a few times to be sure, and then started digging.

The pipe was directly below where I dug!

So it worked. The hitch is I didn't find the end, just the middle of the pipe. I followed it for a few feet until it got to be dinner time. I measured the distance from the house and I might be 2' short. I don't know if the end of the pipe is a little bit further along and I just need to dig it out, or the pipe could be filled with dirt or some other obstruction. I'm trying to decide how much further to dig before cutting the pipe and putting in a hydrant.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the technique because I feel pretty proud of myself.

that's pretty much how the power co does it

guy told me they inject RF signals and look for the leaky wire.

 

[Frankenkubota]

We needed to locate a underground wire we installed several years ago. Googled how to do this, and found this. It worked. You might have it around the house, if not, I think we purchased the cheapest portable AM radio for about 10.00.

Turn all power off to the cable you are searching for. Pull your lawn mower close to the available end. Coil a wire around the spark plug wire several times. Connect the other end to the wire to be located. We had access to the end, so wire nutted them together. Instructions said to coil it around the wire several times, same as did on the spark plug wire. Turn the radio on and tune to 530 AM (only static, no station). Fire up the lawn mower and trace the wire. Should be able to hear a pop, above the static, each time the mower fires. Loudest pop is closest to the wire.

Our wire was about 2' deep and we traced it for probably 150'.

a co i was representing made shielding solutions for MRI imaging locations.

MRIs are very sensitive to all forms of energy but rf signals are the worse. they don't like magnetic pulses either.

they had thousands of dollars worth of test equipment, transmitters, receivers, network analyzers blah blah.

the director of engineering carried around a cheap portable transistor radio and on a.m. he could find a leak as quick as anybody with the test gear.

You just don't let the customer see that.

 

[LD1]

I am a believer in dowsing or "witching" as we call it.

I fix a lot of field drainage tile. I have been in the middle of a field before and located old clay tile that was burried 70 years ago and numerous plow/plan/harvest seasons. So no....there was NO surface indication like subtle depressions to give any hint as to what was below.

I often do this when there is a single blow hole too. Ill go about 20' from the hole and walk a 20' circle around the hole. The wires usually cross twice....drop flags. The two flags in line with the hole show me exactly the direction the tile is running. And its accurate 99% of the time.

Also, about 20 years ago mom and dads 100 year old farm house had a septic tank that needed pumped. Only everything was burried. No surface access or any indication of where this 50+ year old septic system was other than the cast iron pipe went out of the south east corner of the house.

I started witching/dowsing where I knew it came out of the house and started flagging every 5-10'.

It went out of the house straight south for about 50' then made a 45 degree turn....went another 80 or so feet then another 45 degrees back to due south and ran straight another 50' or so till I lost it. Started digging where I lost it and down about 2' we hit the concrete lid. Never in a million years would I have though it made a 45 degree turn and jogged over.

Does it work 100% of the time for me....no. But it works accurate enough and is right often enough that I believe there is some merit to it.

 

[PILOON]

Aviation had problems with emergency locators and we'd often get calls to try to locate an errant unit.
My simple DIY device was a cheap AM/FM radio inside of a deep tin can.
The ELT's transmitted on 121.5 which was close to FM band and the deep juice tin made reception very directional. ELT's were essentially weak transmitters so the directional tin cans worked, at least well enough to locate that errant unit. Also good excersize walkig about.

 

[CobyRupert]

Aviation had problems with emergency locators and we'd often get calls to try to locate an errant unit.
My simple DIY device was a cheap AM/FM radio inside of a deep tin can.
The ELT's transmitted on 121.5 which was close to FM band and the deep juice tin made reception very directional. ELT's were essentially weak transmitters so the directional tin cans worked, at least well enough to locate that errant unit. Also good excersize walkig about.

Very interesting. Wonder if that would work when you’re trying to figure out where the electric fencer is shorting to a post, or branch, grass etc..?