Electrical nononsense from T Bone

Well I see you guys have been busy since I've been sleeping. Told the wife I didn't expect to wake up to read my obituary on YTmag....LMAO

I do think everyone for there vote of convidence and glad that I have helped someone.

At times I do make mistakes and try to correct them when I can. On the other hand I'm not writing a technical document on each thread nor do I want too. I type way too slow and can not keep up with long running threads due to my disability as it takes me a couple days to form my thoughts at times.

I try to present my thoughts with the least amount of of tech jargon and easy of understanding. As you see that don't always happen.

I try not to comment on topics that I have not studied or had some sort of personal experience with.

T_Bone

BTW I read how you got your nickname and I was relieved it was that way rather than the hot piece of slag (OUCH!!!!!) you told about a couple years ago.

• Dowsing

I use steel welding rods, bent in a 90 with the long part about 2.5 times the length of the handles. Not that it really matters very much.

I have used several kinds of forked tree branches, bent rods, (clothes hanger works well too), and brooms,(just hold the brush part straight out and it will pull down when you cross something).

Most of these I used in Kansas as a youth where there was really water to find. In high school one of the biggest non-believers who give me lots of guff turned out to be a strong dowser, much to his chagrin.

This is a fun subject. I think I'll go find some supper.

• Rods

Anyway, if you REALLY have to find a buried line , and its worth the expense to use slightly higher tech stuff, you may want to try the following:

For anything that conducts electricity, (phone lines, copper pipe, ductile pipe) an electronic locator works well. We use a Metrotech 9800, which has two components..a transmitter (either inductive, or a direct wire clamp) and a reciever, which will give you the depth and horizontal location (x,y, and z). You see the phone guys and utility guys use it along the roads.

Then for non - conductive materials, we use ground penetrating radar (GPR), which looks like a big plastic lawn mower that you walk behind. This uses an antenna that transmits radar waves into the ground, and reflects back any anomolies to the computer screen on the handle bars, in real time. Anything that is round, weather its a pipe or a log, will reflect back as an inverted hyperbolic curve on the screen. It works pretty good, and we use it to locate expensive stuff like fiber optic cables or PVC sewer lines. The harder the material, the better the reflectivity you will get. (Clay sewer lines are hard to find, but steel tanks, concrete or ductile are easy.)

So, ONLY if its worth it, you could probably rent a GPR to find the buried tanks, pipes,or your buried treasure you lost in the back yard.

I happen to know where the lines are on my property, in no small part because my neighbor was the one who installed them. Make a call to the utility companies because I'm going to do some digging, and they've got painted lines going all over the property, following god knows what. Lines going into my pond and through the creek, dozens of lines wandering around and criss crossing my fields, etc. The last time they came out they must have used a half dozen cans of orange paint painting lines on my place. And they successfully missed the actual locations of the lines yet again.

Many years ago, back when I worked for the power company, I used that stuff for tracing lines. I wasn't any better doing it myself, and my results were frequently as clownlike as the ones above.

You are right, many times we get false positives, because the GPR will locate ANYTHING down there...logs, stumps and pipes and will miss at times too...such as clay pipes. Reading and interpreting the screen is sort of like looking at a scan of a pregnant woman....heck I cant tell if its a boy, girl or martian.

The electronic stuff certainly is not infallable and that's why we guarantee NOTHING unless we use the vacuum excavator and we put our hands on the pipe or wire to SEE and verify it.

So there are lots of way to get an educated guess on what is there...from dowsing to GPR and as far as I'm concerned none are always right without verification by seeing it.

Mark

Also, if you were outside, you may have been over a strata rock formation OR water which will keep them crossed.

If they crossed, while holding them apart they were working. If they were crossing while holding them together, turn them over so the bend is on the bottom.

I prefer using acyetelyne weld rods bent in a 90 just cause the rods are straight. Here in AZ where I live now they aren't much good for finding water but they can sure tell you about buried stuff.