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Dowsing - what do you think poll
Mr Whippy - 3/8/09 at 12:32 PM

Really this is a Friday poll but its quiet today so I thought why not…

Dowsing, yes the ‘art’ if it is such a thing, of finding water underground with some bent bits of wire. This has bugged me for ages tbh how this could possibly work. I mocked my boss years ago for being an engineer and yet claiming he did dowsing for farmers, its just not right or is it?!


mookaloid - 3/8/09 at 12:34 PM

I was half serious when I suggested it on the other thread.....


blakep82 - 3/8/09 at 12:35 PM

i was going to suggest it before whippy got in there

i thought you said it worked from experience? never tried myself, and i really can't understand how it could work, but somehow it seems to lol


Mr Whippy - 3/8/09 at 12:41 PM

quote:
Originally posted by blakep82
i was going to suggest it before whippy got in there

i thought you said it worked from experience? never tried myself, and i really can't understand how it could work, but somehow it seems to lol


it did work very clearly to me but I haven't a scoobie how it could possibly do so

I just want to see in a forum of predominately technically minded people what their views are, rather than ask a bunch of mystics Meg’s...

[Edited on 3/8/09 by Mr Whippy]


miikae - 3/8/09 at 12:43 PM

I knew man who worked for a local well boreing company that drilled for water , he always used his dowsing rods first , he even helped my uncle locate an underground water pipe in his engineering workshop, we watched on as he did it and he was dead right too as it was where he said it was,

Mike


scottc - 3/8/09 at 01:15 PM

Interesting reading if you have the time

PDF from US GS


Ivan - 3/8/09 at 01:45 PM

Done it - it worked many times - got paid for it despite not asking for pay - don't believe in it.

Have also used it to trace water pipelines on the job - sometimes it worked for this - sometimes not.

Normaly use a flexible forked stick (1st prefference) or cooldrink bottle half full of water balanced on palm of hand.


Mr Whippy - 3/8/09 at 02:01 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Ivan
Done it - it worked many times - got paid for it despite not asking for pay - don't believe in it.

Have also used it to trace water pipelines on the job - sometimes it worked for this - sometimes not.

Normaly use a flexible forked stick (1st prefference) or cooldrink bottle half full of water balanced on palm of hand.


a somewhat crypitic reply...

If you don't believe it works, why do it at all? Especially if you don't aim to get paid for a successful hit? Surely doing something you don’t think works is just risking looking like a fool…

I read the above PDF document, their basic argument that water is so abundant under the ground it’s hard to miss anyway but that still does not explain my own experience as I only got any result when directly over a large water pipe and nowhere else I tried. The accuracy of what was basically two rods swinging round to cross over each other was tbh directly over the pipe, they then swung apart as I continued forwards & did the same when I walked backwards. Considering there were no markings on the surface and the fact that I personally thought the pipe wasn’t even there doesn’t explain the result.

It would be hard to say it doesn’t work for definite because it didn’t work all the time if one did not actually know the mechanism that makes it work some of the time. How would you know if it was being done wrongly?

[Edited on 3/8/09 by Mr Whippy]


Toltec - 3/8/09 at 02:36 PM

Not tried it to find water, however a friend and I experimented by hiding six inch nails in the back garden and trying to find them.

The patch of grass was only 30ft square, but I found all three nails quite easily.

Rather weird really, I certainly do not believe in superstitious stuff normally. I put it down to some kind of sensitivity to magnetic/electromagnetic fields or perhaps unconsciously picking up body language from my mate when I got close.


Slater - 3/8/09 at 02:51 PM

I watched my Dad do it when I was 10 years old, he used bent coat hangers hinging in cotton reels that were held in his hands. I didn't expect it to work, but he found 1 water pipe under a 100ft long garden. The clay pipe was about 4ft deep and 5" in diameter.

I was amazed, but nobody could explain how it worked.


BenB - 3/8/09 at 04:50 PM

Does the water have to be flowing or can it be stagnant water?


x_flow57 - 3/8/09 at 04:53 PM

I was shown with a "Y" shaped stick when I was about 10 or 12, since then I've used mild steel welding rods bent into "L"s and held lightly.

It never fails to both work and amaze me and the kids. Funnily it onlyworks for one of the three kids.

I wish I could explain how/why it works.

Nick


Benzine - 3/8/09 at 08:29 PM

old tbh


Ivan - 3/8/09 at 08:55 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
a somewhat crypitic reply...

If you don't believe it works, why do it at all? Especially if you don't aim to get paid for a successful hit? Surely doing something you don’t think works is just risking looking like a fool…


[Edited on 3/8/09 by Mr Whippy]


I did it on a few occasions for friends, aquintances and family at different occasions who were stuck and had drilled a couple of dry holes so didn't ask for, or expect payment. Also I never mind looking a fool if I don't know what I am doing or why it is working and can't 100% guarentee success.

I don't believe in it because I don't think it has ever been proven or explained and I believe that it is sufficiently hit and miss to be questionable, kind of like any other unproven belief, I only belive in what is proven not in what might be so.

As said in my previous post - sometimes following or finding buried pipelines in a greenfield situation seemed to work - sometimes not - maybe that's a lack of consistant technique or a consequence of a good eye for pipe routes and experience in designing and laying them.

So - I am a fence sitter who does it, but doesn't believe in it, and would never put my own money on the result ahead of proper geohydrological investigation and assessment, although I might drill my first hole at the site where my dowsing and the Geologists investigation coincide.