Water - Dousing

[Flint]

Just been down the pub with an old friend and up he comes with this new tidbit of information... he can find buried pipes.

Of course I insist he prove this, and he did - found all the drainage within 10ft of my back door. Ever the sceptic I ask for lesson, which he gives, then send him inside. I mark out where the crossings happen for me on my lawn surreptitiously.

Tom then proceeds to validate my findings with corresponding readings of his own.

Am kinda freaked out at the mo but in a real happy way - there's definately something going on here.

Any other diviners out there?

[Meatwad]

I can find buried pipes also with a detector and a shovel

[Flint]

There you go - there is a device that can do this - is there that much of a leap to a human doing it to? Power source & a bit of wiring....

I mean computers can add and subtract just fine  -  is no mirracle when a 5yr old performs the same feat.

Am serious - this has kinda opened my eyes, and I'm from a well scientific background.

This was a double blind test and it got beat - just wondered if anyone else has come across this kinda thing

[midnight Target]

I saw the Amazing Randi test a Dowser on TV once. The Dowser was completely humiliated.

[Holden McGroin]

My dowsing stick works much better if I store it in my crystalline pyramid.

[storch]

I can find PVC pipes by dowsing and do so routinely.  furthermore I have taught the technique to many people who have worked with me for years.  it works.  it works 100% of the time in locating where there is flowing water.  I take two coat hangers and fashion an L shape out of each.  holding the hangers loosely in my hand with the long part point straight out I walk the proposed dig site.  when the hangers move in towards each other and touch I have a pipe.  I crouch low to the ground and repeat the process if I get a second hit we dig with a shovel and locate the pipe.

I don't know if dowsing works for finding ground water hundreds of feet down under the ground though.

[Ghosth]

Been dowsing for over 40 years now. Wire, pipe, copper, pvc, you name it you can find it.  With a bit of practise you can find blockages in sewer pipes and shut off valves also.

 I Seldom do water as we live in a giant lake bed left over from the last glacial age. 4 feet down we have clay from 100 - 200 feet deep with gravel below that. So there is water everywhere, but not much close to the surface.

On a good day I can find a silver dollar hidden by friends in about 5 minutes .

However the second I try to profit by it, or use it to impress someone the gift is gone and I end up looking the fool.

[Holden McGroin]

There is no scientific basis for dowsing.

source James Randi tested some dowsers using a protocol they all agreed upon. If they could locate water in underground pipes at an 80% success rate they would get $10,000 (now the prize is over $1,000,000). All the dowsers failed the test, though each claimed to be highly successful in finding water using a variety of non-scientific instruments, including a pendulum. Says Randi, "the sad fact is that dowsers are no better at finding water than anyone else. Drill a well almost anywhere in an area where water is geologically possible, and you will find it."

But I can dowse ghosts and bigfoot.

[Flint]

$1,000,000 bucks coming my way then.

Holden - I'm a scientist. I like what Richard Dawkins says. As a teanager my father subscribed to the Sceptical Inquireur and I read them voraciously on the loo. (Father last of the black tie IBM lot - mother a teacher).

I'm a skeptic - "proove it" - been saying that all my life.

Tonight it kinda got prooved to me - hence the post, and it turns out I can do it too.

2 guys mark the same 2 spots in a 20x20ft lawn - within 3inches. Somethings going on. And there was no way one saw what the other did.

[Meatwad]

Contractors are experts at finding underground water lines



Just give them a backhoe and you are guaranteed a found water line that never existed there before

[CavemanJ]

Originally posted by Meatwad
Contractors are experts at finding underground water lines



Just give them a backhoe and you are guaranteed a found water line that never existed there before

Especially if they work for phone companies... but they're better with ditch witches.

[storch]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
There is no scientific basis for dowsing.

 

But I can dowse ghosts and bigfoot.

I don't need a million dollars I just need to not knock out Mrs. smith's watermain on the day before thanksgiving while drilling post holes for her new fence.  what I do works ok for that and I'm well pleased.

[rpm]

Dousing works. My Dad taught me when I was a kid. You have to use brass rods bent 90 degrees. The real trick is to keep them absolutely level. When they cross, you are over a pipe.

Devining is something completely different and altho I have done it, I'm not completely sold on it. The trick to that is using a willow branch that hasn't been cut for very long.

[Heretic]

I used to work for a company that located buried electric,telephone,and natural gas lines.  We were the company that you called if you wanted to do any digging with equipment.   We would mark the lines with corresponding colors to mark the lines.

Red: electric
Yellow: natural gas
Orange:telephone

Plastic natural gas lines are buried with a tracer wire attached to the line so all we had to do was hook up to the tracer line to find the gas main or gas service line to a house,busines........etc.

[Masherbrum]

My father in law back in 1973 needed a well dug for their property up north.   They brought in a neighbor who used a willow branch, the well is still good to this day.  Most of the neighbors that went the "professional" route, had theirs dry up and needed to be re-drilled.