Is there any method (short of divining!) for determining the course of an underground water supply? [The outdoor stopcock appears to have been asphalted onver.]
- posted
19 years ago
Is there any method (short of divining!) for determining the course of an underground water supply? [The outdoor stopcock appears to have been asphalted onver.]
If it's metal, you can use a cable detector; you could probably hire one. Some cable detectors come with a separate transmitter which is attached to the pipe with a crocodile clip and sends an electronic signal down the metal pipe. The detector unit is switched to the relevant tracing mode and can detect this signal.
If it's plastic, then I haven't got a clue.
Why "short of divining"? It's easy and actually works. Nobody was more sceptical than me, but some years ago a friend persuaded me to try it. He gave me a couple of Biro tubes (with the refills taken out) and into each of these he put an L shape piece of wire. Holding one in each hand, and held horizontally, when I walked over a water pipe, (which he knew about but I didn't) each loosely swinging arm of wire swung suddenly together. Just try it.
Regards
Pat Macguire
Diving works and if it works for you it's free .... I thought this was garbage ... and one day a guy bent a couple of gas welding rods to an L shape and showed me how to hold them and it works, I can follow the route of pipes with water in them, mains cables & underground streams ... I am not good enough to tell difference though - you need an expert for that.
Rick
"Rick Hughes" wrote in news:cuj85k$7ob$ snipped-for-privacy@hercules.btinternet.com:
I thought it would be better to find the water before diving?
Same thing here, welding rods bent over...... amazing
great adaption with the biro tubes, not nessesary but will help I guess
If it's plastic you can inject a strong r.f. signal into the water and search it out with a directional receiver.
I'm afraid the pipe is plastic. Is your method real? How do you "inject a strong r.f. signal into the water"?
Give the local water company a call. They may be able to help. We had a leak (I guess you can tell them you think you hava leak!) and a guy came out with a long stick with an ear-piece on the end - ll very high tech. He was able to pin point the leak to within 6 inches, so they should be able to follow the path of the pipe. Or try it yourself, it was simply a 4' metal rod, with a 2" disk screwed to the top, he let me have a listen, amazing how much you could hear. Press it firm to the ground, best over concrete or hard surface.
Mike
If it's the stopcock where the water company service meets your pipework then I think it's their responsibility and if you tell them you can't find it they should come out and locate it and make it accessible for you.
Have a go at dowsing, it works for me too. (welding rods 8-10 inches long) I traced the water main in a friends new house until I found myself standing on the outdoor stop-c*ck grid that he hadn't spotted, in the garden. Just note that whatever is detected is under your feet rather than under the rods.
I have also seen our local water authority man using dowsing rods!
A
That's more or less what I have tried. We don't have water companies as such here - the local council is responsible for the supply. They tell me that they do not keep any record of where stopcocks are, so I am hoping they have some technical way of finding mine, though I didn't get the impression that they had anything clever in mind. In any case, the council's water expert is coming round on Monday to look.
I've actually located something with my grand-daughter's metal detector, though whether it is the lost stopcock I'm not sure. If it is then it is covered with quite a think layer of asphalt. I'm wondering if I dig it up whether I can put the asphalt back, as it is in the middle of a fairly well-used common driveway.
sorry, didn't notice the .ie
all bets off on that score then :-)
But surely they're still going to be ultimately responsible for finding the thing, even if they have to dig up half the street to do so? :-)
Wouldn't have thought so. Unless it's a pretty sophisticated detector the range is only going to be a few inches, and an external stop c*ck will be much deeper than that. (If it was the stopcock, you'd probably be able to trace the pipe too - assuming it's old, it will be metallic).
David
I should have said that it may be the metal cap over the stopcock. The pipe is plastic, unfortunately, as I can see it where it leaves the house.
To be fair, I haven't noticed the water supply is any worse here than in England, where I lived half my life. In fact I would expect a better response here in case of emergency.
As an aside: why do you want to?;
This is of interest to me as well, because i am going to replace my service pipe, easy, dig trench, lay pipe, stopcock my end, waterboard connect other end BUT in the bumph it says that the old lead pipe should be capped so as to not leave a dead leg. I share a supply at the moment with next doors and the stop valve is in the pavement a good 20 yards from the corner of my land, so I guess the pipe tee's somewhere in next doors front garden - how do I decide where to dig ?
Regards Jeff
Presumably the water co will have their own views on what to do in this scenario? I would have thought the last thing you want to do is try and trace the tee junction - could take forever! What if you cap off the old lead pipe inside your house, next to where the new pipe enters? I've seen that done before. Then you'd just need to dig directly from the entry point to the water co's stop c*ck (they'll presumably fit a second stop c*ck close to the original).
David
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