Dowsing for water?

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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I was trying to locate a buried PVC lawn sprinkler line in my yard (the sprinkler head had been removed and capped some years back, by me). After digging three or four large deep holes near where I "remembered" it to be (incorrectly, mind you), I googled "how to locate a buried pvc water pipe", which returned this result, where the "best answer" was this very technique.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080712081336AAoGBuX

That's what led to this video, from the same keyword search on YouTube:


Crazy!! Look at the end, how the wires cross over a hose or bucket of water.

So I went to the garage, cut two 24" lengths of solid core copper wire left over from a 220V house wiring project, stripped the insulation, straightened them out as best I could and put a 90-degree bend at one end, to make about a 7" leg to rest against my palm and over my index finger. Using them in the garage, they'd cross every time I walked under the fluorescent light fixtures (not surprising, induced current).

Went to the backyard, stretched out the garden hose over an area of the yard where I know sprinkler lines don't run, and tried it again. No matter what direction I put the hose, the wires would cross and correctly indicate the direction the hose was laying on the ground. I then practiced over KNOWN runs in the yard, between sprinkler heads on the same circuit, and they'd cross and align with the buried PVC run.

Now, over to the "missing" line... walked the yard several times, at angles perpendicular to each other, and it kept indicating over a specific lateral stretch. Dug RIGHT there, and BAM... there they were.

Call me crazy. Growing up, my folks and the church I attended (past tense) thought it was "witchcraft", but there's a lot about physics and the universe we don't know yet. It worked for me.

Here's some additional observations:

1) They were definitely sensitive to being held "lightly"; too much resistance against my skin and they wouldn't turn as easily. So I thought, "I'll make some bushings to hold the short leg, and they'll rotate more freely." I cut the barrel of a Bic pen in half, making two 3" tubes, and slipped those over the short leg of the wire. Walking over the garden hose, NOTHING. Hmmm.

2) The wire held in the left hand would ALWAYS point to the right, even if the other wire wasn't being used; the wire held in the right hand would ALWAYS point to the left, with or without the other wire in my left hand. Since they'd do nothing if they weren't in contact with skin (see #1 above), I'm thinking there's gotta be some interaction with your body's "field of energy"?

3) It wasn't the wind swinging them. Even with a breeze, when I thought the wind might be blowing one of them downwind, the other rod would swing UPWIND to cross.

Before you call me a crank... GO TRY IT. Then report back!
 
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And then what, you're going to turn me into a newt???

WITCHCRAFT!!!!!!!!!
 
I know folks who that same thing with a willow switch off a tree...... it works

glad you found your PVC!
 
There's a guy who wants to sell his plane cheap on another thread here - check it out -it's the thread "best way to sell an airplane" about 2/3 of the way down the hangar talk page
 
TripleZ said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing

Check out the Evidence section.
Just sayin. :wink2:
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I wonder about the accuracy of scientific study of essentially witchcraft.

I've watched quite a few people dowse for water and they're frighteningly accurate. One guy wandered around, found the spot, turned around several times, did some other weird motions and said x gallons per minute at some distance down right here. They drilled right there and it was damned near the x gallons per minute rate. The high tech professional drill operators who didn't believe in dowsing hit very little 3 times in a row.

If I go back to a friends land, I'm planning on using dowsing to find the septic tank cleanout with it. No one can find it by digging random holes or following the map that says it's where it should be.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Trust me, I read that article BEFORE I tried it. All I know is it worked, exactly as shown in the video.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
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I don't doubt that you found what you were looking for, but I've also seen the opposite, when a dowser tried to find water at my previous house. The seller ended up digging two dry holes before listening to the well digging company.

No one can explain how dowsing works. Now that in of itself doesn't prove it a hoax, since we can't explain a lot in the universe. But its one piece of the puzzle.

Then, there are multiple scientific studies showing dowsing is no better than chance. I think there was even a CBS show on it (disproving it) back in the 90's.

Dowsing is like most urban legends. When it works, everyone swears it worked perfectly. It might have been blind luck instead. When it doesn't, its chalked up to a bad day, wrong person, and just forgotten about. So you hear all this word-of-mouth evidence in support of it, but none saying its a hoax.



For your yard, you dug how many holes before dowsing? How much area did you rule out? Could it just be that based on the previous holes, where the "known" pipe was, and the remaining yard............. any hole you dug in that spot would have found the missing pipe?

Again... Just sayin. I don't think were going to prove or disprove dowsing 100% here.
 
Our driller did it too, seemed to find excellent water at 50', and we are in a semi-arid location, many wells are 800'.
 
I remember the CBS one. It was four or five dowsers trying to find a buried hose with a known flow rate. One said it was a trick, and there was no hose. One said he couldn't find it because they were over a vast underground lake. One actually found the hose, though he said the flow was in the wrong direction and was actually a vast underground river.
 
James Randi did a very controlled test for a television show some years back using "professional" dowsers. All failed, i.e. they only found water at the statistical rate for random finds. I'm sure you can find it on youtube.
 
I believe everything I see on television also.
 
steingar said:
So you're saying those tests were rigged to make the dowsers fail?
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Not having seen the episode, I am not at liberty to make any assumptions one way or the other, but that is a possibility.
 
EdFred said:
Not having seen the episode, I am not at liberty to make any assumptions one way or the other, but that is a possibility.
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If dowsing could be proven to work in controlled scientific tests, I think the scientific community would be thrilled about the new avenues of research it opened. Rigging a test to fail would be counter-productive.

Some people think you can communicate with the dead via a Ouija board. Others think they can keep snakes out of their sleeping bags by encircling the area with a horse hair rope. Some people believe Uri Geller can bend spoons with his mind. These are just wishful thinking. Fun, but not supported by any evidence.
 
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I have never believed it before, but I trust Troy that it worked for him...

So, that means that under some set of circumstances, it works, while in others, it doesn't. Now, just to explain "Why?"

Another simple thing that science hasn't fully explained (though there are several plausible theories that probably combine to create the effect) is why if you fill your ice cube tray with hot water instead of cold water, it'll freeze faster. Seems to go against the laws of thermodynamics, so I didn't believe it, and then I tried it. Holy ****, the hot water froze faster! So I'm not against believing that there is a possibility that there is some way in certain circumstances to make this work.
 
Thanks Kent. I was in the same camp. I want to try more testing to narrow down what works and what doesn't. Blindfolded would be good. ;-)

Anybody in this thread actually gone out, laid a garden hose full of water (doesn't have to be running, just full) on the yard, bent up two copper bare wires as described, and TRIED IT? It won't turn you into a witch. Or a newt.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
So, that means that under some set of circumstances, it works, while in others, it doesn't. Now, just to explain "Why?"
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Which is more important? Explanations or end results?
Explanations can exceed one's ability to explain sometimes. At one in our not so distant past, air, fire, water and dirt was all the universe was made of. Since then we've figured out there's a bit more to it.

The thing that gets me is how the dowsers can completely pull off what is essentially impossible. It's a person, holding two sticks, and no nothing to extrapolate information on where. It violates the scientific method like crazy. It's like trying to count the number of marbles in an opaque box and not even being allowed to know if the box exists in the first place because you're not allowed to see the box.

I watched a well drill crew come in with survey maps and all the technogoodies and information from wells around that piece of land and punch three holes in a piece of land and come up dry every time. A few weeks later a dowser came in and wandered around, his sticks crossed, he turned around several times, walked backward and forward and leaned down then stood up. He said X marks the spot, Y feet down and Z gallons per minute. They drilled a hole at X. They hit water at Y feet down plus or minus 25 feet and Z gallons per minute near exactly. Not only did the witch find water, he also got two other data points right (or close enough to be considered good enough) that the technology crew couldn't even guess at. Sure, the technostuff could have drilled 500 holes in the land and eventually hit water however this person with two sticks walked in hit water on the first try. Or the witch could have missed the water entirely however he didn't.

Random chance? Something more we can't explain? Total BS? Ideal water location detection method? Take your pick.

I have no clue how it works at all in the least. All I know is after seeing that kind of thing happen several times, if I need a $5000 hole drilled in my land one of these days, I'm calling in a witch to back up what the technology claims before they start drilling.
 
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I don't "get" how it could work with a willow or peach tree stick; the metal rod alignment makes more sense to me (alignment of magnetic fields and all that jazz) at an intuitive level (electronics background).
 
TangoWhiskey said:
I don't "get" how it could work with a willow or peach tree stick; the metal rod alignment makes more sense to me (alignment of magnetic fields and all that jazz) at an intuitive level (electronics background).
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Even with a couple metal rods and a whole pile of electronics, how do you determine there's water at all when it's 400 feet down?
 
I got interested in dowsing after reading a magazine article when I was growing up. I made a pair of rods and tried them out in the yard. Sure enough, they crossed where the underground water pipe came in from the street. Other than trying them in some other locations (results long forgotten), I never again had the need to use them. I will file the possibility away for the time I need to find the septic tank (or new well location) at my current house (previous owner couldn't tell me the former). Hope I never need to do either - but you never know.

Dave
 
fgcason said:
Even with a couple metal rods and a whole pile of electronics, how do you determine there's water at all when it's 400 feet down?
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That, I don't know. My locates were surface based or less than 18" deep.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
lucky_strike_hand_1959_00.jpg
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I have never believed it before, but I trust Troy that it worked for him...

So, that means that under some set of circumstances, it works, while in others, it doesn't. Now, just to explain "Why?"

Another simple thing that science hasn't fully explained (though there are several plausible theories that probably combine to create the effect) is why if you fill your ice cube tray with hot water instead of cold water, it'll freeze faster. Seems to go against the laws of thermodynamics, so I didn't believe it, and then I tried it. Holy ****, the hot water froze faster! So I'm not against believing that there is a possibility that there is some way in certain circumstances to make this work.
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Are you really sure science hasn't explained that more of the hot water evaporates so there is less to freeze? (Most of the heat transfer necessary is due to the phase shift - not the cooling to freezing temperature - so just a little water lost at the begining can overcome the longer time it takes to cool down).
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Are you really sure science hasn't explained that more of the hot water evaporates so there is less to freeze? (Most of the heat transfer necessary is due to the phase shift - not the cooling to freezing temperature - so just a little water lost at the begining can overcome the longer time it takes to cool down).
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As I recall, there were four different explanations that all probably contributed, and I don't recall that being one of them. We're not talking super-hot, we're talking hot water from the tap, so the amount that evaporates is very low.

A couple of the factors that I recall:

1) The greater temperature difference with the hot water leads to stronger convection currents, which mix the water and give it a quicker cooling rate than would be explained by the temperature difference alone.

2) The cold water will tend to form a thin ice layer on the surface which then insulates it somewhat and makes it freeze slower, whereas those convection currents from (1) will lead to the hot water freezing more as a whole rather than from the outside in.

3) One theory is that dissolved gases lower the freezing point slightly, and the hot water has less of them. This is quite obvious when you look at the differences between hot-water ice cubes and cold-water ice cubes - The normal cold-water ones tend to be mostly white, while the hot-water ones will be clear. However, this has been somewhat disproven because the effect still happens when the water (both hot and cool) is boiled beforehand to get rid of the gases.

Also, after a bit of further reading, the effect has been demonstrated on closed systems as well, so even with constant mass it still occurs.
 
Here's the set of rods I made. Brazing rods from the welding store, and the handles are also from the welding store. Not sure what they are supposed to be, but they had several sizes in bins. Maybe they are for crimping splices into welding cables?

I witched both of my wells, at about 70 feet, two natural gas pipelines at about 6 feet, and any number of sprinkler lines and buried electric lines.

I use them in no wind conditions and only touch the handle tubes.

dowserods-L.jpg
 
BudRiggs said:
Here's the set of rods I made. Brazing rods from the welding store, and the handles are also from the welding store. Not sure what they are supposed to be, but they had several sizes in bins. Maybe they are for crimping splices into welding cables?

I witched both of my wells, at about 70 feet, two natural gas pipelines at about 6 feet, and any number of sprinkler lines and buried electric lines.

I use them in no wind conditions and only touch the handle tubes.

dowserods-L.jpg
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See, now your bushings are metal; I had made ones from plastic, and I think it insulated me from the rods and that's why it didn't work. I have some brass and copper tubing; I'll try again with those.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
See, now your bushings are metal; I had made ones from plastic, and I think it insulated me from the rods and that's why it didn't work. I have some brass and copper tubing; I'll try again with those.
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My first set had wood handles. Used pieces of broom handle drilled out the long way, but they didn't work well. I think there was too much friction where the rod bends over the top. This set with the copper handles is very free swinging.
 
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