quicksandfarmer
Veteran Member
I used a new-to-me technique to find a buried water line today and thought I'd share it.
In the basement of my house there is a 3/4" black poly water line that exits through the foundation. It's connected to the house water. A previous owner put it in and I don't know where it goes. I've tried opening the valve to see if water shoots out but nothing doing, I think it must be capped.
I had some time today so I thought I would try to figure out where it goes. I shut off the valve and disconnected it in the basement. Then I took a long electricians fish tape and fed as much of it as I could into the pipe, I later measured that it took 58'. I have a wire locator that I got on Amazon for about $50, it's not very precise but it's been very handy. It's this one:
The way it works is there's a transmitter and a receiver, you clip one wire of the transmitter onto the wire you're trying to trace, the other onto ground, and then you walk around with the receiver, the closer you are to the wire the louder it beeps. So I clipped the transmitter onto the fish tape and went out into the yard with the receiver.
Walking around, I could trace the pipe where it came out of the house. I followed it and it turned and went by a small shed. I found a spot where the signal seemed to stop. I walked around a few times to be sure, and then started digging.
The pipe was directly below where I dug!
So it worked. The hitch is I didn't find the end, just the middle of the pipe. I followed it for a few feet until it got to be dinner time. I measured the distance from the house and I might be 2' short. I don't know if the end of the pipe is a little bit further along and I just need to dig it out, or the pipe could be filled with dirt or some other obstruction. I'm trying to decide how much further to dig before cutting the pipe and putting in a hydrant.
Anyway, I thought I'd share the technique because I feel pretty proud of myself.
In the basement of my house there is a 3/4" black poly water line that exits through the foundation. It's connected to the house water. A previous owner put it in and I don't know where it goes. I've tried opening the valve to see if water shoots out but nothing doing, I think it must be capped.
I had some time today so I thought I would try to figure out where it goes. I shut off the valve and disconnected it in the basement. Then I took a long electricians fish tape and fed as much of it as I could into the pipe, I later measured that it took 58'. I have a wire locator that I got on Amazon for about $50, it's not very precise but it's been very handy. It's this one:
The way it works is there's a transmitter and a receiver, you clip one wire of the transmitter onto the wire you're trying to trace, the other onto ground, and then you walk around with the receiver, the closer you are to the wire the louder it beeps. So I clipped the transmitter onto the fish tape and went out into the yard with the receiver.
Walking around, I could trace the pipe where it came out of the house. I followed it and it turned and went by a small shed. I found a spot where the signal seemed to stop. I walked around a few times to be sure, and then started digging.
The pipe was directly below where I dug!
So it worked. The hitch is I didn't find the end, just the middle of the pipe. I followed it for a few feet until it got to be dinner time. I measured the distance from the house and I might be 2' short. I don't know if the end of the pipe is a little bit further along and I just need to dig it out, or the pipe could be filled with dirt or some other obstruction. I'm trying to decide how much further to dig before cutting the pipe and putting in a hydrant.
Anyway, I thought I'd share the technique because I feel pretty proud of myself.
