Underground Cable Tracing.

Ten parallel plastic pipes in a pit, what sort of test is that?

Finding one old steel water pipe in the middle of a large field is a far better test.

There was another Ron in Birmingham who really did not convince me that his dowsing worked, he was diagnosing health issues in people and animals using a dowsing pendant over a hair sample, then treating them by putting the sample in a can looped with wire to create an electromagnetic, some of his patients were in Australia.

There are limits to what is believable ?

A local restaurant used to have cutlery with a knobbly bit in the middle that allowed them to pivot on the polished wood tables.

Having been dropped into the cutlery box many times they had become magnetic and would swing to point north when the tables were laid, playing with them  Kept the kids amused whilst waiting for meals.

There’s all sorts of little oddities if you keep your eyes open, some easily explainable, some not. 

The trouble with dowsing rods, if they work at all, is that they might in my case identify a buried water pipe, an old land mine or a buried tractor part. It is not certain that they would identify the buried electrical conduit.

Also, how do you use them on a very windy day like today?

Z.

Years ago I tried out a metal detector, I then dug a hole and exposed some old corrugated sheets my dad had put over the top of a soak away, nothing is infallible.

Do you accept that you can magnetise a screwdriver blade or a metal rod by hitting it with a hammer or banging it on something, like the cutlery I mentioned above?

If you do, do you then accept that other metal objects can take on a magnetic field or be influenced by the magnetic  field of the earth? The answer to that has to be yes or you will be refusing to accept compasses work and cannot be used for navigation.

So could the metal conduit have become partially magnetic or affect the natural magnetic field?

I promise the next post will Wiring Regulations related.

Sparkingchip: 
 

Ten parallel plastic pipes in a pit, what sort of test is that?

A really good test of the basic claim of many dowsers, that they can detect water underground.

 The problem with a lot of tests is that there are too many variables. If someone succeeds or fails, there is always a post-hoc argument over why; e.g. “I didn't find the water but I did find X instead”, “you just got lucky”, and so on. For the parallel pipes tests, all the dowsers enrolled onto the test agreed in advance what the conditions for pass/fail were, and that it was a fair test of their abilities. All agreed in advance that given 10 parallel plastic pipes in a field, each buried about a metre down and about 3 metres apart from each other, that if water was ran through one of those pipes at random, they would be able to tell which one. Each dowser observed the pipes being buried, knew their location, and was allowed to survey/test the ground before any water had run, to rule out any anomalies.

When the test was done, the correct pipe was identified only about 1 time in 10.

Yes I accept that things can become magnetised. No, it think it is unlikely that magnetism is a significant underlying mechanism for dowsing.

As a footnote, after decades of investing claims of the paranormal, james Randi said that although he encountered many charlatans, he thought that all the dowsers he met had a genuine (if mistaken) belief in their abilities.

Setting up a closed loop of plastic pipe with water in it isn’t a real life test.

Two days ago on Wednesday evening I had a call from a gas distribution network operator subcontractor, they are replacing the old steel gas pipework that was installed on a housing estate in the 1940’s and 50’s and when they disconnected the old steel pipework to a meter the meter was electrically live.

The house electrical installation is TT, but did not have an earth rod. The water pipework has been cut and adapted with plastic pipe and fittings being inserted, leaving the gas pipework as the only means of earthing for the installation. I ended up driving an earth rod in by torch light because they would not turn either the gas or electric back on until I declared it safe to do so.

The gas guys and myself are fully aware that there is electricity flowing through the old metal gas and water supply pipework.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but any single live electrical conductor has a detectable magnetic field around it, so a metal pipe carrying electricity will have an magnetic field around it.

Last week I read a RICS homebuyers survey, there’s half a page about the electric substation that is on the other side of the road diagonal to the house, the surveyor hasn’t actually stated there is any confirmed health risk due to a field of influence around it, but he has put the wind up the potential purchasers by laying it on thick so they cannot come back in a few time claiming they weren’t told there might be an issue.

That's a load of nonsense!

The loops of water pipes are a carefully controlled trial.

Yes, a conductor will be surrounded by a magnetic field, but it certainly will not be detectable by some bloke with a couple of coat-hangers.

There is a sub-station diagonally across the road from our entrance. It does not frighten me, nor apparently, the surveyor who has lived next door to it for longer than the 25 years that we have been here. (I keep resisting the temptation to ask to measure his Ze. ? )

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/playground-built-beneath-overhead-power-13203007

I used to live by the 400,000 volt grid connection between Feckenham and Somerset, it didn’t affect me ?

It's Saturday morning, I have pulled some books out to show you.

I not so keen on assembling my own library  oof old electrical books as some other forum members,  but I do have some old Megger pocket books from the days before most people Google things and believe what they read on the internet. 

One of them is the Megger book on Resistivity Prospecting with Megger Earth Testers.

There isn't any real reason why you cannot use your earth tester or MFT if it has the test on it to locate underground water supplies, what do you think the tester is actually measuring?

If you have a buried metal pipe or conduit you should really be able to plot its course with your tester ?