How to trace a pipe

[brightspark]

I was working on a job and the builders were digging a trench 5 foot deep and it was gonna be 25 foot long looking for a drain . I said il check for u with rods see if its there nupe it isn't . they thought it was funny till they dug it and it wasn't there

 

[MattF]

Then what?

Mention the result so that everyone else can have a chuckle.

 

[the snooper]

Mention the result so that everyone else can have a chuckle.

at the damage

 

[wookie]

at the damage

We might have to wait a while, he's a 'elf & safety guy so he'll be busy for the next month doing a risk assessment.

 

[tinman123]

there could be a traffic plan in there too....

 

[MCKDAVID]

Ofcourse there fairly easy to teace once you bash through them with the digger.

yip, that's how I usually find them too.... pretty good with cables too...

 

[fixerupper]

Yep I worked as a banksman with a digger driver in the late 70s doing sewer connections in rural Suffolk , we'd have a guys from the Gas, Phone , Water, and Electric come out with the latest high tech kit and some very old drawings ...they would wander about for hours ( holding us up) and mark the road up saying ."yeah the water service is between here and here and the gas pipe is here or maybe here " and so on ...after they had all got into their cars and buggerd off... my mate would get out his bent coat hangers ...to" get a closer fix "...so I'm a believer ...

 

[brightspark]

thin gas welding rods are the best. I did a test for a mate round our house once. told him to blind fold me and il walk up the drive and I asked him to mark when the rods crossed so he did then I walked down the drive and he marked. I was over the drain and the marks were a meter apart. he didn't know there was a drain there but it was spot on no trickery

 

[slim_boy_fat]

......told him to blind fold me and il walk up the drive and I asked him to mark when the rods crossed so he did then I walked down the drive and he marked. I was over the drain and the marks were a meter apart......

Sorry, couldn't resist

Aaaand, back to the pipe.....

 

[DAPPH]

Water divination? Really? In 2016?
Come on folks, we have moved on a bit.
"I can do this"? Get a grip on reality my friend.
Look it up, google etc, it's complete codswallop.
Now - back to the welding..... :-)

I found our water supply to the farm by me dowsing with welding rods it when the water board couldn't find it , they were up for a complete re-lay of the supply costing god only knows how much . It was nowhere that they had thought it would be nor was the cast iron water main .

I cannot prove it works by using any known scientific means or principles but work it did .

I learnt about dowsing when I was a kid back in the 1960's and have successfully located several water pipes or land drains for folk over the years .


A safer easier bet would perhaps be to look for a stop or threaded free pipe near the incoming domestic supply that runs off with a blue pipe an extra stop in such places as under the sink or in the bathroom or outside toilet etc. . Or a look for ground stop cock access lid that is not the one to the home My garden water is apparently Tee'd off the house supply where the incoming pipe is still outside the home , some 3 feet below a concrete path , there is a stop valve almost 40 feet away in a garden path the blue water pipe terminates at another stop inside the garage ..

If the pipe is running from the home to the pond area or for garden watering such as in a greenhouse are there any other likely places in concrete paths or in a garage that might contain access to a stopcock ?

 

[brightspark]

Water divination? Really? In 2016?
Come on folks, we have moved on a bit.
"I can do this"? Get a grip on reality my friend.
Look it up, google etc, it's complete codswallop.
Now - back to the welding..... :-)

I suppose u think u cant find cables doing it neither or even sewerage pipes that are empty because google says u cant . I don't know how I managed without google for 40 years I must have been imagining it or was on magic mushrooms

 

[Maker]

Water divination? Really? In 2016?
Come on folks, we have moved on a bit.
"I can do this"? Get a grip on reality my friend.
Look it up, google etc, it's complete codswallop.
Now - back to the welding..... :-)

Pfft, next you'll be telling me it wasn't my grandma talking to me through my Ouija board.

Just kidding, I agree with you, it's pure chance as to whether you find anything IMO.

Still, there's no harm in people thinking it works, I'll just sit and laugh, it's not like they're being used to find bombs or explosives...
ADE 651, Alpha 6, GT200... Ah, that's not so funny, quite worrying that they were ever purchased.

 

[brightspark]

u wouldn't say that if I kicked u in the jacksie for every pipe I can find doing it maker

 

[Maker]

I would if I get to kick you for all the pipes you can't find.

 

[fixerupper]

Challenge on.....

 

[tinman123]

Just kidding, I agree with you, it's pure chance as to whether you find anything IMO.

Still, there's no harm in people thinking it works, I'll just sit and laugh, it's not like they're being used to find bombs or explosives...
ADE 651, Alpha 6, GT200... Ah, that's not so funny, quite worrying that they were ever purchased.

them lads were looking for a lot of things other than a water mains tho.....

if your actually saying that it cant be done then im afraid your wrong there.
ive personally done it and ive seen a few others able to do it as well but ive also seen a few who just couldnt do it at all as its not something everyone can do and i dont think the ratio is even 50-50 either but saying its just a laugh is very wrong there im afraid.

its an old school trick but it works.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

them lads were looking for a lot of things other than a water mains tho.....

if your actually saying that it cant be done then im afraid your wrong there.
ive personally done it and ive seen a few others able to do it as well but ive also seen a few who just couldnt do it at all as its not something everyone can do and i dont think the ratio is even 50-50 either but saying its just a laugh is very wrong there im afraid.

its an old school trick but it works.

Your right about it being a trick but nothing else.
I am sure there are a lot of unanswered questions in science but divining is not one of them.
A old boy I knew reckoned he could find gold and other precious metals by thinking about the item as he divined, he swore blind that he could do it, yet he subsisted on the dole and was always skint.
I am sure that some people think they can find stuff by divining, just as some people avidly read their daily horoscopes, carry a lucky rabbits foot, bend spoons by the power of thought alone, use homeopathic remedies to treat their ill's or pray to a greater being for salvation but unless I see incontrovertible scientific proof its all bunkum to me, no better than the snake oil salesmen.

 

[brightspark]

were looking for pipes here not water divining and as for lucky rabbits foot it didn't do the rabbit any favours

 

[cocker]

Some times I wonder how any thing ever got done before computers and technology was invented .
Some times stuff just works for some , like divining
obviously stuff requiring some imagination don't work for grown-ups .

Back to the op , jam a hose pipe in it and let her rip .
Blue pipe ends at the damp place

 

[tinman123]

Your right about it being a trick but nothing else.
I am sure there are a lot of unanswered questions in science but divining is not one of them.
A old boy I knew reckoned he could find gold and other precious metals by thinking about the item as he divined, he swore blind that he could do it, yet he subsisted on the dole and was always skint.
I am sure that some people think they can find stuff by divining, just as some people avidly read their daily horoscopes, carry a lucky rabbits foot, bend spoons by the power of thought alone, use homeopathic remedies to treat their ill's or pray to a greater being for salvation but unless I see incontrovertible scientific proof its all bunkum to me, no better than the snake oil salesmen.

id say if finding gold was that easy we would all be at it.
and as brightspark says, were only looking for water pipes here.

divining a water pipe isnt a 100% acurate method, but its well up there.
if the two of us were in a field and we were tasked with finding a water main in it, and if we started out with nothing more than a digger each i can promise you that id have the pipe found a lot quicker than you with a divining rod, without bursting it or leaving the place looking like a mine field.

this would be a topic that would never have a unilateral agreement anyways but here is one for you to chew on.
and bearing in mind i dont go in for any of the topics you mentioned above either, id like to think id be prety full of common sense and i know my feet are on the ground,
but...

there is a lad not too far from here that has the cure for a condition in animals commonly known as red water, its a form of internal bleeding that an animal will take from a tick bite.
if left unattended it will kill the animal, thats a given.

back when there werent too many injections for the symptom folk relied on this man's mother for the cure of it, she has since passed away but has handed it down to the son.
now this isnt 50 yrs ago im on about, it still goes on today but not as much seeing since the vets caught up in medicine but if you want the cure all you have to do is ring him.
he will ask random questions about the animal, like what colour it is, how old it is, where it is and so on.
then they might tell you to leave it where it is, give it meal or put it in but there wont be any other thing involved bar the phone call.
and as long as the condition is caught inside the time where either the cure or the medicine can save the animal then with the cure alone the animal will live and the condition cure.

thats pretty much the way that goes down, there is nothing more to it other than if you dont "believe" in it it wont work.
id be just as skeptical as you are about it right now, and bear in mind i dont go for any of the stuff you talked about, but i believe in the cure for ive seen first hand the results of it.

there is a lot of people with different cure abilities throughout this country for many ailments.