Do you believe in divining or dowsing? You know finding things like water and pipes and so on under ground using twigs or two bent pieces of number 8 wire? I'm not sure that I do and there certainly seems to be no scientific explanation for nor proof of it whatsoever.
Anyway I was just on my way out to town this morning when my cellphone went and I answered it on my hands-free but stopped as I'd only just driven out of the drive. It was Gaz. He was at the house site in Grimshader. Could I give him a hand with……divining.
Now why on earth would I be asked to undertake some divining you might ask.
Well a few years ago when I was putting a small en-suite toilet and washbasin in my bedroom I needed to connect the outfall to the house main outfall pipe. It was pretty obvious where it should have been but despite digging a 4-metre long and 400mm or more trench at 90deg to the line of the pipe just outside my fence line on the way to the main village outfall I could not locate it. As a last resort a friend whom I have seen use it rather convincingly suggested that I try divining.
So I made a couple of divining rods out of number 8 wire, turned on a tap to set the water flowing and set about trying to find the outfall on a wider area. Lo and behold at one point the wires crossed quite strongly. I thought it could be the breeze so I set off again. I did it a number of times in a number of different approach lines always with the same result on the same spot.
Unfortunately it was over an area at the end of the house which had been concreted when the house had been extended. Was I going to break open the concrete? I did. I dug a hole over half a metre deep to no avail. I was just about to give up when I decided that as I'd started I'd carry on. Another couple of inches or so and I came across what turned out to be a very large paving slab. So I had to enlarge the hole until I could lift it out. What was underneath? A complete manhole from the original outfall which had been covered when the site had been built up (the site slopes) when the house had been extended many years ago.
Gaz had decided this morning when he arrived at his croft where he is about to build a new house, that the task of finding the water pipe leading to the site by digging a 30 or 40 metre trench trench across the croft through 80cm high grass was going to be a mammoth task. So I set off for Grimshader with a couple of pieces of bent number 8 wire and, despite the 22℃ temperature, suitably protected with heavy clothing against the clegs he had warned me about.
What happened? Well at first absolutely nothing apart from one isolated 'reading' which only occurred in one place (although consistently) at the distance from the house site he wanted to put the new stopcock. So I went to the road end of the croft 100 metres away and started there. I got a 'reading'. So I moved down the croft and nearer the house site in 10 metre intervals and repeated the process until a line was established. Then when I was near the house site we extrapolated the line near enough for the new main tap to be situated and we dug a hole. There right in the middle of the hole was the pipe. No one was more surprised than I was.
So whether one believes in divining or doesn't believe in it if you are looking for a pipe and don't have the sophisticated sonar equipment the water board presumably have then it's worth giving it a try.
