Divining rods, oy vey!

[Dan Hintz]

How many here watch American Woodshop with Scott Phillips? Anyone catch the episode a few weeks back where he used (in all seriousness) a pair of divining rods to determine where his water lines were? He was digging post holes for an archway/pergola.

I was stunned... here we have a fun show with some useful techniques being taught, only to be sideswiped with such bunk. My uncle tried to teach me divining when I was much younger, and although the science behind it sounded plausible to some degree, even at that young age I felt something just wasn't right. Time and time again divining has been proven in double blind tests to be pure hokem, yet people still swear by it. Prior knowledge of line location was the major factor in affecting the rods (i.e., it's the user, like the horse who could do math), consciously or not.

All of that aside, what bugged me the most was his suggestion, nay, his flat out statement that divining would help you track down your water mains and avoid punching through them. I can see someone who has no clue where their water mains are getting out there with a post digger and going to town. Gusher city...

[jim mills]

Funny thing...My brother built a house on a acreage about 25 yrs ago and the well driller (a large reputable local company) "witched" (is that the term?) for water before he dug. Said "plenty of water here, and not too deep either". Sure enough, 60' of drilling later and he hit water. Well still flows today! Now how can you argue with that?!?!?!?

[Ryan Hellmer]

Yeah the "science" behind divining. Sheesh. As for the well driller, what part of the country? Around here you could drill a hole anywhere and hit water in 60 feet. Move 300 miles to the west and it's closer to 600 (and more in many places). Go to Louisianna and you can't set a fencepost without hitting water. If you want to find your lines, call the local dig safe program, but even then, use some common sense.

[lowell holmes]

Dan,

I've seen it work. Two bent welding rods were used. They crossed over each other as they passed over the line.

[John Coloccia]

A friend of mine showed me how to make a diving rod with a couple of tubes and some bent welding wire. He was the guy who replaced my septic tank, by the way. Anyhow, we used these rods all over the lower part of my property to trace the pipe all the way from the septic tank down to the leech field. We even found the individual pipes that made up the leech field.

A couple of weeks later, I spoke with the old owner of the house, and I told him what we did and how we tracked everything down with divining rods. At that point he informed me that when he first moved in, the area were we "found" all the pipes was overgrown with bushes and trees, and that the leech field was 100 feet away, way on the other side of the clearing. We had a good hearty chuckle and my world made sense again

[Harry Niemann]

Do you suppose this might work to find nails in used lumber?

[Dan Friedrichs]

What a sad state our science education is in in this country when otherwise intelligent people can't fathom that this is nothing but "witchcraft". It's really disappointing to hear that Mr. Phillips believes it.

[John M Wilson]

I had a friend who used a special divining rod hooked up with a bleeder resistor. When hooked up in series (or maybe parallel) it could detect buried hot dogs. Sadly, he forgot to detension it one night, and the resulting static charge buildup ruined it. Otherwise, I would supply pictures...

[Dan Hintz]

I had a friend who used a special divining rod hooked up with a bleeder resistor. When hooked up in series (or maybe parallel) it could detect buried hot dogs. Sadly, he forgot to detension it one night, and the resulting static charge buildup ruined it. Otherwise, I would supply pictures...

Ouch... that chuckle snort now has a piece of taco meat lodged into a nasal cavity. That'll teach me to eat lunch while reading a thread such as this... meh, maybe not.

[Jeff Bartley]

Dan,
I've also seen this work. In a former career (just north of you in Baltimore) I worked for a Geotech engineering firm. While there I would go out with the drillers to log and interept the borings. The drillers we used always walked the site with the rods before putting the drill bit in the ground. Time and time again they found utility lines that weren't marked, or were marked in the wrong place.
I've also seen this topic cause some heated arguements....one young engineer (at a different firm) practically got red-faced mad he was so adamant that this was bunk!
Now, I'm not trying to argue, I'm just saying that I've seen it in action.
As for an explanation I can only offer this: soil density and the interaction between the magnetic pole and two metal rods. Can I prove this? No. But may be someone here can add some objective science to this topic....people are too quick to dismiss things which they can't explain as 'witchcraft'. Remember the scientific method!

[Dan Friedrichs]

The scientific method has repeatedly been used to discredit the validity of water witching. Scientists have done blinded trials where they ask "expert" dosers to locate hidden lines, and none have ever been able to find the lines more accurately than chance would predict. A few individual anecdotes about having personally seen it work means nothing.

The suggestion of "magnets" really frustrates me. Americans spend millions of dollars a year on pseudo-medicinal "cures" that are based on the "power of magnets" (eg - magnetic "healing bracelets", etc). None of these have any basis in fact whatsoever - but people have a specious understanding of the magnetic force, and are quick to credit it with things they don't understand.

[John Coloccia]

Dan,
I've also seen this work. In a former career (just north of you in Baltimore) I worked for a Geotech engineering firm. While there I would go out with the drillers to log and interept the borings. The drillers we used always walked the site with the rods before putting the drill bit in the ground. Time and time again they found utility lines that weren't marked, or were marked in the wrong place.
I've also seen this topic cause some heated arguements....one young engineer (at a different firm) practically got red-faced mad he was so adamant that this was bunk!
Now, I'm not trying to argue, I'm just saying that I've seen it in action.
As for an explanation I can only offer this: soil density and the interaction between the magnetic pole and two metal rods. Can I prove this? No. But may be someone here can add some objective science to this topic....people are too quick to dismiss things which they can't explain as 'witchcraft'. Remember the scientific method!

The problem is that no one ever remembers all the times that it doesn't work. All of the scientific studies I know of, and there have been some, show no effect beyond random chance. The reason there's no better explanation than witchcraft is that there's nothing at all to explain.

[Jeff Bartley]

Dan F.,
I wasn't talking about "magnets" I was referring to the magnetic field that surrounds the earth. And I'm not talking about water witching, only finding buried utilities.
Can you explain why this can't work?? If someone had never seen an airplane fly and they were shown an airplane they might argue that it's inconceivable that it could fly. But Bernoulli's principle easily explains how it works.
In our case here we just don't have an explanation. I've heard a lot of people say that 'so and so scientists' has proven that this doesn't work, but I've never seen one of these 'blinded trials'.
What I have seen is drillers refusing to drill where the boring was marked because their rods indicated something buried. And after a lot of arguing a backhoe was brought in and an old line was found...exactly where they said it would be. I didn't just see this once, I saw it work consistently over and over again.

[Charlie Barnes]

When I was a kid on our corn and pig farm back in eastern Illinois, we had to put down a new well quickly when our old one gave out. The "old man" that owned the drilling rig came out and "witched" for the new location with a forked branch from a peach tree. Unlike what I had seen on TV, he held the branch in his hands and pointed at his chest. He walked the yard and found a new location only about 30 feet from our old well that was "strong". Even at my young age, I thought this was a load of you know what. But he let me try it and I have to tell you that when you crossed over the area where we ended up putting our well, the pull on the branch was incredibly strong.

I'm an engineer now and try to avoid believing in things that can't be explained through science or reason. But I'll make an exception for this one. There is no reason I can see that it should work. All I know is that it did for me.

Charlie

P.S. - The new well had about twice the flow rate of the old one which has essentially stopped. Good for us and the pigs!

[John Coloccia]

How come it only works as anecdotes? It never works beyond luck in controlled environments. I just gave you a story above where it absolutely DIDN'T work, and everyone completely ignores it. In my case, we both tried it multiple times and the rods crossed "strongly" at exactly the same point for both of us, multiple times. The only thing under our feet was dirt and rocks, same as the rest of my property. I've gone back to try it again KNOWING that there was nothing there, and the rods didn't do anything at all. I think it's hocus pocus until someone does a controlled experiment to show that there's an effect...this has been tried and it always fails. Maybe it's like bigfoot...it only works when the pictures are fuzzy.