Finding underground pipes?

[Ed62]

I'm toying with the thought of building another small addition on our house. It would be built on the back of the house. We have a septic system, but the septic tank is not a problem. A line runs from the septic tank, to a distribution box, which feeds the field. There are no drawings of the system available. The distribution box might be in the area that needs to be dug out. Is there a way to find where the lines run, without actually digging?

Ed

[Daryl]

Google "Dowsing for buried pipes" or some such search. Be a skeptic if you want, but it works for me.
You need one of the old timey steel wire coat hangers, cut the hook off and cut the bottom part in half. Shape the two parts into two "L" shaped pieces. Hold them one in each loosely closed fist so that the two long legs extend ahead of you as you carefully, slowly walk over the area where you suspect a buried pipe, as you cross the pipe the two wires will cross each other. Practice it where you know there is a pipe. I am not magic and have never dowsed for a water well, but I can locate pipes.

[master53yoda]

Dowsing has worked for me, I was shown to do it by holding a shovel balanced horizontally and when you walk over the pipe ( or Power cable) the shovel will dip towards the ground and then come back horizontal when you go past. I have been able to find septic tanks as well as water mains and power cables with this method. It does seem to work better if the water is moving through the pipes for me. I've never tried to find a drain field but i don't see why it shouldn't work.

Good luck. the old guy that showed this to me had found a number of shallow wells, Less then 50', and was none for his ability.

[chopnhack]

Are you guys serious about the dowsing? Whats the thought behind how it works, magnetism?

[iceman61]

Ditto on dowsing here also. I've used it several times & it works like a charm. I called one of the local utility companies out on day & the guy gets out of the truck with a couple of welding rods & went to work locating underground pipes.

[master53yoda]

Are you guys serious about the dowsing? Whats the thought behind how it works, magnetism?

I don't know if it is magnetism, an electrical coil hooked to a meter doesn't show even a miliamp difference. I checked that once trying to figure it out.

[Hoover]

Dowsing is for real. Years back we needed to have a well drilled on our property. The well driller asked if we had dowsed before. I dowsed for water, and so did my wife.
We went with my wife's dowse. We had water at 65 feet.

[rfisher7381]

I've used a small diameter (1/4 or 3/8) 3' dowel in the past to probe my line but that was to locate the septic tank. Not sure how deep or how big your distribution box is so that may not work. Crazy idea might be to remove your clean out cap in the basement and shove a length of wire down the line then use a metal detector above ground to see if you can trace its path. Depth could be a problem as the metal detectors (type marketed to find "rare coins" and "expensive jewelry" - mine usually finds bottle caps) won't penetrate real deep.

[Daryl]

Are you guys serious about the dowsing? Whats the thought behind how it works, magnetism?

I am serious, I don't know if it is magnetism or not as it works on plastic pipe. I have marked out a drainage field and found pipe under concrete. I don't know if there was steel in the concrete or not.
I have also seen the basic set up all fancied out for sale in a local plumbing supply for over a hundred bucks. Give it a try.

[Ed62]

I saw a neighbor of mine try it. It didn't work for him. But I guess it's worth a try if so many others have had luck with it. Thanks for the replies.

Ed

[Shep]

I've never heard it called downsizing. In the country we called it water-witching.

[DaveS]

While I don't claim to understand everything in the universe, I would have a hard time trusting any results obtained from "dowsing".

We had a plumber with a beacon on the end of a snake - he ran it out into the sewer line, and then took a hand held receiver (looked kind of like a metal detector) and was able to locate the beacon under the ground.

In our case, it was to locate the blockage/breakage in the sewer line.

I don't see any reason why something like this wouldn't work to find your pipes.

[Crash2510]

Believe what you want
http://skepdic.com/dowsing.html

If you want to find out the layout for your septic system It is probably on file with your local county or health department.

[RAFlorida]

+1 with Daryl.

Used old metal coat hangers for many years. Works about 85 to 90 percent of the time. Try it and see if it works for you.

[L. D. Jeffries]

Ditto on "it works-just don't know how". I've used to brazing wires for years, works every time for me. But neighbor of mine couldn't get the wires to even wiggle! Some have it and others don't.