Locating underground cable?

[mtt.tr]

Get a good digger driver in and warn them there's a cable there. The guys I help out with would find it without damaging it and not be massively slower.

Had a similar problem with a water main through a farm. Once it was found then it wasn't so bad as you could follow it along for the duration of the excavation.

Yup I know 3 drivers who can spot services and cause no damage, think they work like the pinball Wizard, it's all in the smell.

 

[Wedg1e]

I remember using a cat and genny in a naval base trying to locate oil pipes... was going quite well until I walked up to a recent new-build workshop. Walked all round it and there seemed to be an oil pipe every 3 yards, radiating like a spider's web. Eventually we were using WW2-era maps to work backwards from where the pipes should have gone (some of which, like tanks, had been demolished and the pipes capped underground).

 

[skotl]

Oh jeffchen... what a first post.

Guessing you had to be quick not to miss it? First and last post for jeffchen?

 

[tom2207]

I tried ehen I was much younger with willow or hazel rods. Not a positive outcome back then. About 12 years ago I tried I with old wire coat hangers through pen cases. Great for finding water courses/drains. Never tried for power cables but I daresay it works.

I started with a drain I knew was present with no water, then opened a tap and tried again. It worked, but wasn’t a definitive proof. To prove it, I walked slowly down a hospital corridor and found drains going across. First one had a loo either side of the corridor as an indication there was a drain under there. Never looked back since.

lot to be said for some of the old ways ,,, they must be based on something ,,, you dont have to understand it for it to work.

 

[brightspark]

it doesnt work for everyone. i gave my mate a pair of rods and got him to walk across my drive and small field and see how he got on . the rods crossed going over the sewer drain pipe on drive spot on then across the cast iron high pressure sewerage pipe 10 foot down in field both spot on . i didnt tell him where they were and he had no idea but it worked