"Do-it-yourself" Dig a water well

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dcara":tw9vl964 said:
I've seen it tried twice. But as to whether or not it worked would depend on your definition of "worked". First time I saw it was a guy from the water company used a piece of 1/4 inch rebar about 3 feet long with a handle bent onto one end. He used it to mark the location of the 2 inch water line at the front of our property close to where I wanted to put a pond. I found the water line when I dug the pond. It was about 30 feet from where he marked it.

Second time was when a neighbor was going to put in a new entrance gate. Same water company, different guy, same technique. Neighbor found water line with the post hole digger about 20 feet from where they had marked it.

Those folks needed to retire.

My great uncle would take a willow branch, hold the forks, and when he crossed water the straight end would bend straight down. I took the same branch and tried it. Nothing. He told me I wasn't a water witcher. My cousin tried it and he wasn't either.
 
I can't get a willow branch to work, I can use the wire.
 
ROCKSPRINGS":1b1j9dkt said:
Jogeephus":1b1j9dkt said:
Sounds like Rock Springs lives up to its name.
Ya, this is goat country, very little top soil, buy alot of hay if you have cattle.

I was out in the Rock Springs area a couple of years ago and you folks had more grass than I had close to the coast. Dardest thing I ever saw. Pretty country, lots of wildlife and LOTS of rock.
 
dcara":a7wd0uy4 said:
Second time was when a neighbor was going to put in a new entrance gate. Same water company, different guy, same technique. Neighbor found water line with the post hole digger about 20 feet from where they had marked it.

Probably didn't turn the water on. Gotta have - or I gotta have - running water to find a pipe.
 
I have successfully witched many water pipes. I've also been able to find buried electrical lines. Found a mess of buried baling wire once as well. I prefer to use my posthole auger to do the 'witching', although a backhoe works very well too. It will find stuff like that every time. :shock: :shock: :D Guess I should learn to witch for real so I can find that stuff ahead of time. It really is a sinking feeling when water starts bubbling out of the post hole you are digging. :roll:

I marked out the posts for a new line of fence across a valley flat a while back. The boys told me I managed to mark every damn rock in the valley (it is one of those areas where it is usually hard to find a rock, but I found them all that day)!
 
Where the water table is less than about 22' from the surface you could drive a sand point usually attached to a 1 1/4 pipe down into the water and pump with a shallow well pump or hand pump.
Going deeper is more complex.
 

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