wroughtn_harv
Super Member
The witching works for some folks and not worth squat for others. You can give it a try. If you can find some solid copper wire remove the insulation. Make a ninety degree with say six inches one leg and eighteen inches the other. Make a matching pair. The gauge of the wire only has to be thick enough to maintain rigidity.
Place the wires where the short leg is in each of your curled hands with the long leg pointing straight out in front of you. Don't grip the wires tight. Your hands are only bushings that hold the long leg parallel to the ground. Walk ACROSS the suspected path of the line you want to locate.
Supposedly the witching only locates things that are flowing, telephone, works great on telephone lines, power, and gas too. I've seen it where water lines wouldn't witch until a water faucet was turned on inside.
Here's the way I'd witch your yard. Since the lawn is so nice I'd pick up some of those little flags the box stores carry for marking things in a yard. I'd walk across the yard slowly.
When the two wires gravitate together and cross I'd put a flag. I'd repeat this process every five feet, going across the yard marking the places where the wires cross. It is weird when it happens if you've never done it before. On their own the wires just cross and then uncross. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
After I'd done the witching across the yard and marked the crossings I'd step back and look for a pattern. You have to keep in mind that if the water line is running parallel to the phone line and only a couple of feet apart you might have a real confusing pattern. At one location the telephone wire might be the stronger force while five feet away it might have taken a dip in the trench and the water might be the stronger one.
You can buy a professional witching tool at Northern Supply, or at least they used to sell one. It looks like a bicycle handle bar grip with the bar still inside it. It has a telescoping radio antenna thing that comes out of the handle. When it's fully extended there's a hinge to allow the extended end to fall to a ninety and the whole thing pivots freely for perfect witching without human grip becoming a factor.
I had one for about ten years and finally just gave it to someone whom it worked for. The copper wires worked okay for me but that darn thing worked sometimes and didn't others. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
You can also buy a probe for probing for utilities. They are made of fiberglas. That is the best thing to have if you need one often. You can make one out of steel, just don't sharpen that point! If the buried power is not in conduit or you hit the telephone cable with that point. Neither event is on the list of pleasurable ones. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
Saturday we located the water line before we dug the trench for the power and communication lines for the gate (see fence project under projects). The customer knew approximately where it was. What we were looking for was the forty five where it made the turn for the house so we could trench to the house without cutting it maybe at least twice.
Since we were in gumbo clay and we knew the line was approximately eighteen inches to two feet deep I first scratched off about a foot of top soil with the trencher. I made a probe with a piece of half inch steel rod. I also had a softball sized boulder I'd drilled a half inch hole in earlier for grins on the truck, great combination for a great probe.
In the clay you can only go down once semi easy. The next insert gums up with the residue of the first probe and you've got in your face real life gridlock. So we had a five gallon pail of water. The probe was soaked in water prior to each probe.
It's amazing. But a plastic line feels and sounds different than anything else. A good confirmation pass is to move about a foot in the direction of the line and try again. If it's the real deal you'll hit it again.
Once we located it at the point where we started we moved where the customer thought the line made the turn. We couldn't find it. Then it was the old cut that section in half and try. We did that until with the probe I had the forty five dead on. We didn't even dig it up to verify. It was that dead on.
Good luck. If it was easy the girls would be doing it.
Place the wires where the short leg is in each of your curled hands with the long leg pointing straight out in front of you. Don't grip the wires tight. Your hands are only bushings that hold the long leg parallel to the ground. Walk ACROSS the suspected path of the line you want to locate.
Supposedly the witching only locates things that are flowing, telephone, works great on telephone lines, power, and gas too. I've seen it where water lines wouldn't witch until a water faucet was turned on inside.
Here's the way I'd witch your yard. Since the lawn is so nice I'd pick up some of those little flags the box stores carry for marking things in a yard. I'd walk across the yard slowly.
When the two wires gravitate together and cross I'd put a flag. I'd repeat this process every five feet, going across the yard marking the places where the wires cross. It is weird when it happens if you've never done it before. On their own the wires just cross and then uncross. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
After I'd done the witching across the yard and marked the crossings I'd step back and look for a pattern. You have to keep in mind that if the water line is running parallel to the phone line and only a couple of feet apart you might have a real confusing pattern. At one location the telephone wire might be the stronger force while five feet away it might have taken a dip in the trench and the water might be the stronger one.
You can buy a professional witching tool at Northern Supply, or at least they used to sell one. It looks like a bicycle handle bar grip with the bar still inside it. It has a telescoping radio antenna thing that comes out of the handle. When it's fully extended there's a hinge to allow the extended end to fall to a ninety and the whole thing pivots freely for perfect witching without human grip becoming a factor.
I had one for about ten years and finally just gave it to someone whom it worked for. The copper wires worked okay for me but that darn thing worked sometimes and didn't others. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
You can also buy a probe for probing for utilities. They are made of fiberglas. That is the best thing to have if you need one often. You can make one out of steel, just don't sharpen that point! If the buried power is not in conduit or you hit the telephone cable with that point. Neither event is on the list of pleasurable ones. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
Saturday we located the water line before we dug the trench for the power and communication lines for the gate (see fence project under projects). The customer knew approximately where it was. What we were looking for was the forty five where it made the turn for the house so we could trench to the house without cutting it maybe at least twice.
Since we were in gumbo clay and we knew the line was approximately eighteen inches to two feet deep I first scratched off about a foot of top soil with the trencher. I made a probe with a piece of half inch steel rod. I also had a softball sized boulder I'd drilled a half inch hole in earlier for grins on the truck, great combination for a great probe.
In the clay you can only go down once semi easy. The next insert gums up with the residue of the first probe and you've got in your face real life gridlock. So we had a five gallon pail of water. The probe was soaked in water prior to each probe.
It's amazing. But a plastic line feels and sounds different than anything else. A good confirmation pass is to move about a foot in the direction of the line and try again. If it's the real deal you'll hit it again.
Once we located it at the point where we started we moved where the customer thought the line made the turn. We couldn't find it. Then it was the old cut that section in half and try. We did that until with the probe I had the forty five dead on. We didn't even dig it up to verify. It was that dead on.
Good luck. If it was easy the girls would be doing it.
