Water "Witching"

So, We are doing some soil boring for soil samples / ground water samples at our plant and we had the city water and light guys come out to help us ID a fire main that was poly but didn't have a tracer wire burried with it...

The guy pulled out what looked like a single thin welding rod bent at 90 by his hand and would water witch to find the fire main. Once he had it narrowed down to within about 6-12" of the location, they brought in a power washer with a long extension and washed out a hole to find the main. He had it marked right on top of where it was.

My Dad used to water witch with a forked tree branch and could find underground water lines. I never tried it, but as close as this guy was able to ID where the fire main was, now I want to try it.

Anyone ever do it or know of anyone to do it? Do you believe or do you think it's fake?

I haven't seen it in person, but my FIL can do it.

I've seen a guy do it in Western Kansas looking for aquifers to drill irrigation wells. It's pretty wild. I used to think it was horse ****. But now I believe there is something to it.

When I was a kid, the local well driller did it. I know one house where they dug four wells and got nothing before they called the guy--who nailed it first shot.

We located a 6" gas line this way as well.

Guy used a bent coat-hanger that had a sleeve for a handle that allowed the wire to rotate properly. Took him about 5 minutes to locate about 50lf of pipe.

I always have thought it to be fake/bogus, but I have seen it done successfully. I really don't know if there is any scientific proof to its veracity.

Well, here is the secret, if you go out early in the morning when water vapor is lifting from the ground, you have a good chance of finding something. Where pipes had been laid, the ground has been disturbed, where wells are to be dug/drilled ground water will be more readily apparent with these little cloud puffs rising from the ground. I got it out of an old water witcher. Just be observant as any engineer should be.

A procedure and instructions for doing it are actually in an older (1980s - not that old) septic system manual I have, to be used for finding water and sewer lines. I suppose there could be something to it - if the water is flowing, maybe there is some subtle magnetic field you can feel through the hanging wires twisting? But the method described used metal rods to do it, and only to find water mains and such. I highly doubt the use of non-conducting sticks to find good places to drill wells, and I think I have seen some pretty good debunkings of that one.

I've never tried it, though, and probably never will.

I was inspector on a 12,000 LF watermain replacement project in a residential area. All sanitary sewer leads were clay or plastic and located by "witching." They had to be marked within three feet or the City paid the contractor for a service repair. The City DPW guy probably hit within 36" on 80% of them. Most of the ones he missed were deeper and of the misses, a decent share were 36"-60" from the mark. :appl:

I had totally :screwloose: witching before that. I thought it was some reaction from the operator - he thinks he's getting close and his muscles slightly contract or something. But the DPW guy claimed it was related to the trench being dug and disturbing the gravitational field.