Period Water Diviners

[JoceAndChris]

That time of year again when the well has run dry - we still have a bit of rainwater in the chamber but it won't last long.

But, happily, now in a position to go ahead with the borehole at long last. We have made initial contact with a professional looking firm and it seems there are two ways to start things off. One is to pay for a geological survey (which basically looks at online data about the nature of the rock in the area and the depth of other people's boreholes nearby). It's around £350. The other is to get a water diviner, which is £250. We've decided on a diviner and a Welsh one is booked. What do we think, a load of hocus pocus or a genuine skill?

It's this company who will supply the divination and the drilling.
http://www.welldrilling-uk.co.uk/well-drilling-uk.html

They want to drill down 180ft. My feeling is that if you drill down 180ft anywhere you'll hit water but I must confess that's pure speculation and not based on sound geological understanding.

We have 4 acres to pick from, but it would be nice to have the borehole close to the electricity of the garage. There's going to be a massive amount of replumbing and decisions to be made on what to do with the well water and the underground rainwater pit. It's all very exciting! (to me anyway) No more running out of water every year and having yellow baths with bits of wasp.

Anyone else had one put in?

 

[tobydog]

Joce - I'm sure you may already have seen the site below but it's an interesting read. I have to admit to falling on the side of hocus pocus and this is definitely the case when the drilling engineers feel they need to go down 180ft. I struggle to see how a couple of old twigs or rods are going to provide any guidance at serious depth.

http://www.groundwateruk.org/Does_divining_work.aspx

I don't know what happened in Lincolnshire on Saturday afternoon but for us soggy souls in Suffolk it absolutely fell down. Over 3" in a short period. I couldn't even see the A12 I was driving along.

Good luck with the water search. Sounds exciting.

 

[JoceAndChris]

It tipped it down here too but the well is never affected by rain, sadly, it takes months for that below ground level to top up. At least the garden is looking lovely though!

I agree with you, load of mumbo jumbo, surely. But I also think the BGS, the geological survey, is also a waste of money. Surely it's a case of drill down and see what happens.

This bit in that forum post strikes me:

"A water diviner can walk over an aquifer such as the Chalk and predict that water will be found at a certain location; a hydrogeologist knows that a well drilled almost anywhere on the Chalk will encounter some water. The expense is not in finding the water but constructing a borehole to allow it to be pumped out."

I think that for round here, it's all springs and aquifers- our well is an aquifer one. But the 180 ft, according to that company, does a better job of guaranteeing supply.

 

[Keith Bowman]

We looked into this a few years ago, using the other Welsh borehole people (Morgans at Presteigne). I don't remember water diviners being on offer, but I do know that the 'geological survey' doesn't give a guarantee, only a percentage likelihood. Ours was about 85% and we eventually bit the bullet and paid Anglian Water to connect up to the nearest main instead. I seem to recall that information about the results of other people's boreholes is available on line free of charge - can't remember where, but a quick google should bring something up (possibly not H2O though!). Hope this helps. I have used two bent bits of wire to locate underground pipes successfully, but only 4 feet down. 180 feet would certainly be pushing it. Good luck and how about turning the rainwater cistern into an indoor swimming pool!

 

[DJH]

Beg to differ here... 8) I've used wire bent from wire coat hangers (those that appear when socks disappear in the wash) and I've located drains, manhole covers, gas and water pipes and soakaways in my time. I've never tried for water deep down as that's probably mumbo jumbo. Are we allowed to say that??

The wires I used had a 3 to 4 inch right angle bend at one end and about 18 inches or so extending from there. I held short pieces of copper pipe in each hand with the short end of the wire inserted in them and walked along with the other ends inclined slightly downwards and they've crossed when over whatever was in the ground I was looking for.

Doesn't work for you? I must be special then...

Doug

Sorry Keith. I didn't read your post fully and I see I've just repeated it.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Didn't know we had our very own diviner here on PPUKe! 8) Doug, I reckon you are special, I'm going to try this where I know there are pipes and I bet nothing crosses over for me.

we eventually bit the bullet and paid Anglian Water to connect up to the nearest main instead.

Fab! Hope it wasn't too expensive? We can't, unfortunately, due to being on a mountain top. The pipe was laid only to find there wasn't sufficient pressureand Anglian Water said we'd have to build a pumping station.

I seem to recall that information about the results of other people's boreholes is available on line free of charge - can't remember where, but a quick google should bring something up (possibly not H2O though!).

Yes, I've read through it- lots of boreholes at 20 ft around here! How reliable they are I don't know!

 

[philpjuk100]

Have been given dowsing instruction as part of an archeology course,The class was told that nobody really understood the technical reasons that it works but it does and then we were told some mumbo jumbo about addressing the rods and telling them what you are looking for and also about dowsing maps with a pendulum.After the classroom part of the lesson we were all given a set of rods and a bunch of flags and let loose on the burgage at southwell,we were told to stick a flag in when the rods crossed and with 15/20 folks walking randomly we created two straight lines of flags,one line lead to a street lamp so was probably it`s cable but the other was unclear so we dug test pits and found a cobbled surface (probably a medieval path as there was broken "green glaze" pot in the surface).The instructor was a professional dowser and told us he dowses for water and only charges when the water is found which he reckons is always! I tried it in my garden and found a land drain and a cannon ball!

 

[Keith Bowman]

Yes it seems to work when finding some form of straight edge underground - eg a pipe, a cable, the edge of a road. I have seen a theory - quite possibly erroneous - that it has some connection with the interruption of the earth's magnetic field by the buried object.

 

[philpjuk100]

Our "dowsing" class and the fourth army dowsing for land mines (use long rods!) " ooh look the rods are swinging!" BOOM.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

My Son also has the water divining knack--- I don't know who taught him or whether he just 'seems to know,' gets the same results as those described by DJH and usually uses a couple of sticks-amazing!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Amazing! And thanks for sharing your experiences Phil!

 

[philpjuk100]

We were told that it usually works even "for non belivers" but that even experts can have an "off day" at a local tyre depot they put a bottle of water down one of the inspection pits and then put the covers down on all six pits,four out of five tyre fitters found the water using a pair of bent welding rods! it seems a bit spooky to me!.

 

[DJH]

It's not really a lot different to this compass business where a bit of wire always points in the same direction... is that spooky or what?

I don't feel so special now. Everyone can do it it seems...

Doug

PS Anyone want any bent up old wire coat hangers? :twisted:

 

[philpjuk100]

Yup always found a compass spooky! the one on my boat always pointed starboard,it took us a couple of years to find the great big retrieval magnet in the gas bottle locker!

 

[Water Sourcer]

Everyone has the knack apart from 2%. Similar to birds using magnetite to migrate, they follow the Earth's magnetic lines - we have magnetite in the cerebellum which cause the tiny muscular movements that make our dowsing tools move in response to our enquiry. This is in response to the electrical impulse of the dowser's thought which somehow reacts with the earth's magnetite field. Dowsing works in binary, yes or no. You need patience and need to practise every day. Never just see if your rod will move but ask to be shown a specified item. I have surveyed professionally, there are amazing moments.

 

[CliffordPope]

This thread is over ten years old, but very relevant for me as we are currently in the process of having a borehole dug. The company use a freelance diviner, but the engineers admit privately that they think it is bunkum, as I do. The diviner uses a bit of steel rod, and involves him bending over and moving it up and down while concentating hard. Occasionally he gives a jump in the air and reacts as if he has had a mild electric shock. He marks the spot with a stick with a red splodge on it.

I noticed he was very good at sensing where we would like the water to be, and in due course he said he had found it there. When the drilling machine arrived it was not possible to get it into position over the marker (It's a large tracked vehicle looking a bit like a tank with an oil rig on top) so they the operator just moved the marker. They duly found water at 70 metres, where it always is around here (west Wales).

We've got the hole bored now and the pump installed, just waiting for a trench digger so we can bury the pipe and connect everything up.
We'll keep the well and rainwater tanks in reserve, as boreholes do fail sometimes, usually the pump having worn out, or the electrics having failed.

I think the diviner business is just a PR stunt. It costs virtually nothing in the overall scheme of things, but the kind of alternative people who live round here always like a spiritual answer for anythng rather than a scientific.

 

[Flyfisher]

I have a historical record of the borehole that once served our house before it was connected to mains water in the 1930s.
Norfolk sits on top of a major chalk aquifer that extends all the way down through southern England and feeds a network of chalkstreams that are almost unique in the world.
Dig a hole pretty much anywhere into this chalk and you'll find plenty of water, so it's an ideal place for trainee water diviners to hone their scam skills

 

[LadyArowana]

If you think water divining is overpaid bunkum then consider the cost of a feng shui master to tell you where the lions for your bank should go … https://history.hsbc.com/collection...emporarily-located-in-statue-square-hong-kong