Recently acquired a new skill - dowsing for water. Now I am not one for crystal gazing or mumbo jumbo being a nuclear engineer by training - however this just works.
Doing some leak detection on a water system with the local water company bods they produced a pair of dowsing rods and proceeded to trace the line of the buried pipe with reasonable accuracy. Asked if I could have a go and it just worked for me no problem.
So what were these mystery dowsing rods ?
Just two pieces of L shaped number 8 fencing wire, long length about 10 inches, short length about 6 inches. You hold them loosely (so they can swivel freely) vertically by the short length, one in each hand, with the long lengths horizontal, parallel and pointing forward. If you are looking for a pipe then try and walk slowly to intersect it at what you suspect will be close to 90 degrees. The rods will swing out when you cross it pointing back and for along the line of the pipe.
I made my own set from some fencing wire I had lying around in about 5 minutes and have been using them with a high level of success (>80%) typically picking up MDPE pipe buried at 600mm to within a metre. Ferrous is easier to detect.
Saves a lot of excavation time, which is useful for me doing a fair amount of earthmoving around the house and farms.
Starting to do some spring detection work as well now to hone my skills.
Reckon this is a good country skill for all us bushcrafty types to have on board so hope this is helpful to someone. Have a go this weekend and see if you can pick up where the water services enter and leave your house, it's really not that difficult.
I guess it must be something to do with the rods aligning themselves with local magnetic anomolies created by moving ions in the water though can't figure how that might influence the traditional twitching Y shaped stick method you commonly hear about. Whatever, an old dog has learnt a new trick !
Doing some leak detection on a water system with the local water company bods they produced a pair of dowsing rods and proceeded to trace the line of the buried pipe with reasonable accuracy. Asked if I could have a go and it just worked for me no problem.
So what were these mystery dowsing rods ?
Just two pieces of L shaped number 8 fencing wire, long length about 10 inches, short length about 6 inches. You hold them loosely (so they can swivel freely) vertically by the short length, one in each hand, with the long lengths horizontal, parallel and pointing forward. If you are looking for a pipe then try and walk slowly to intersect it at what you suspect will be close to 90 degrees. The rods will swing out when you cross it pointing back and for along the line of the pipe.
I made my own set from some fencing wire I had lying around in about 5 minutes and have been using them with a high level of success (>80%) typically picking up MDPE pipe buried at 600mm to within a metre. Ferrous is easier to detect.
Saves a lot of excavation time, which is useful for me doing a fair amount of earthmoving around the house and farms.
Starting to do some spring detection work as well now to hone my skills.
Reckon this is a good country skill for all us bushcrafty types to have on board so hope this is helpful to someone. Have a go this weekend and see if you can pick up where the water services enter and leave your house, it's really not that difficult.
I guess it must be something to do with the rods aligning themselves with local magnetic anomolies created by moving ions in the water though can't figure how that might influence the traditional twitching Y shaped stick method you commonly hear about. Whatever, an old dog has learnt a new trick !
