How to Find Underground Pipes & Cables
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- Опубліковано 21 жов 2022
- Following many questions about where a water pipe goes in a recent video, I'll show you how to use a CAT & Genie cable detector to find underground services around your property.
Proper DIY Patreon Page: / properdiy - Навчання та стиль
Now that's dedication for you Stuart. Digging up your garden just for our entertainment !
Appreciate the effort. Keep up the great work !
i kept hearing that line from PeppaPig "we''re digging up the road!!!", yes i do have small kids at home ;)
you should watch Colin Furze!
Seems like you have found a free water supply. Expect a swimming pool build series will be coming up.
He says he doesn't care about finding the end of that pipe but don't believe him, he's an engineer 😂.... this man will be back out with a mini digger and a trench box in a couple of videos... 😂
Great videos Stuart, thank you!
I surely hope so! It wasn't an abandoned pipe or it wouldn't have had water to it Id imagine but I could be wrong... I think a fish tape might be better than that stiff cable...
😂
Well done Stuart. And at least a lot of people now know how a CAT en Genny work!
Thanks as always for your insightful videos.
One your most amusing videos yet. How I laughed that you didn't press the depth button BEFORE you decided to dig a great big hole in an otherwise perfect lawn. Great vid. Well done
One other little tip for those not conversant with these things that we learned at work a few years ago (I worked in the electrical distribution industry so we actually already knew it but the new apprentice didn’t.😉) Take care if using it on “radio” mode, that you’re not picking up your metal toe caps in your protective footwear! 😂😂😂
Great video as always Stuart.👍
Good stuff Stuart, your belt and braces approach brings us all huge confidence! Most splendid indeed.
I found that quite interesting as we have one at work. Not that I've used it but I do send it off each year for calibration! Thanks for all of the hard work digging a hole. As a Brit, I enjoyed sitting here watching you dig! 😂😂
Fascinating. Watched the first video so was looking forward to the mystery being solved. I take it the leak that you fixed is no part of the redundant pipe.
I’ve used a CAT and Genny a lot and I’ve got a couple of tips….1. If ur tracking a cable inside to out don’t be tempted to use electric or gas as an earth otherwise u will track that service and not ur cable 2. U need a good earth so if u turn the Genny on and then connect ur earth you will hear ur Genny change in noise, if it doesn’t then it’s not a good earth 3. When u first start to track with ur CAT then do at least a 90 degrees sweep as if the cable is damaged it can bleed noise with the earth but ur cable should always be the loudest 4. If ur CAT doesn’t have depth detection then u can gauge it with the sensitivity toggle as the more u have to wind it up to hear it the deeper it will be….hope this helps
Just amazed you’ve got that much top soil in a new build! Every time I dig more than a spade deep, all I find is rubble…
Usual to find that depth of top soil so it's a good sign that the ground level was raised.
Organic matter in TS over 300mm deep may start to decompose.
The Old Cat & Genny...... Had many a goodtime using these, looking for 11KV Cables.....
You pressed the depth button on the CAT and held it to get the depth reading and it displayed 'M', this is for a Sonde (Mouse). You should have pressed the depth button and let go and it would have given you an accurate reading and displayed 'G' for Genny which you were using at the time. 🙂
Thanks Stuart, really interesting, thanks for your experience in this area, and sorry you had to dig up your lawn to share this content !
Great video that Stuart, I often see groundworkers waving those around on site and I wonder how they work. Thank you for explaining and demonstrating.
one again thanks for posting quality work
Thank you for such great video!
Mini digger £50 a day to hire !! Might make a good video!😂
Mrs.DIY is going to love you
Appreciate the great work!
Thanks for the vid, useful as I’m thinking of putting some security posts at the bottom of my drive. 👍🏻 kindest regards Mike
Glad to see that someone finally accepts defeat and moves on. Thank you for the superlative videos. 🍁🍺
I use a Cat and Genny regularly at work.
Mine is a bit older being a Cat3 and the genny is a little different too.
The main difference in the Genny is that it sends a pulse that is echoed in the Cat (a rapid Beep Beep Beep) but it is only detectable as such on the correct setting on the Cat!
If you just use it to find an underground mains cable (say your service cable feeding your house that you don't want to build an extension over) it comes across as a humming. For additional ease of detection we have an induction loop that you can clamp, like a clamp meter, round the cable (say under the cutout) so there need not be any electrical contact! When you connect eather the induction loop or the direct connections the beeping tonne changes so you know you have a good signal.
This is an essential tool if you are doing any kind of regular digging .... installing fences and gates or you are a builder and will pay for itself the first time you do not dig through a cable!
It does pick up Gas pipes too! ;o)
If you ever need to thread a cable through an existing pipe or conduit, one way is to get a small plastic bag, & tie it to one end of a long line of string, then push it into the pipe, and at the other end of the pipe, hold a vacuum cleaner hose, & turn-on the vacuum, which will suck the bag & string through in seconds..! then tie the string to cable, & pull it back through the pipe...,! 👍👍
Stuart,
We had exactly the same problem trying to find a 70 yr(?) old septic system. We used a CAT system and pushed a wire 20 ft down the line and the pipe was so deep that it lost it ~10 ft from the house. In the end we dug a big hole with a backhoe to find the line and tanks that had been 'over buried' when they remodeled the house and brought in a lot of fill. The septic had no cleanout in the lid, and had never been pumped out. We changed lids, added a 3 feet of riser, and finally pumped out the septic that had a lot of grease in it.
We were 'so' confident that the CAT system would find it and it just lost the signal.
PS long time Patreon
That I think is good going and makes my little pipe look very small by comparison - nice one!
Fantastic video Stuart, you put yourself in a predicament just to entertain us, now that is excellent work......oh and I learned a great deal about detection, of which I had no prior knowledge. Cheers !!!
Youre so good to us.
Best wishes Stuart 👍
You just learned me somethin new!
Great video
Well, I was entertained so consider it worth it!😂
That lovely lawn. Easily filled in though.
Forgive me, Stuart, but I was more interested in where this apparent free-to-use water supply was coming FROM and not where it was going to. It could be junctioned back to either your house supply, your neighbour's or an unmetered lost supply. I cannot recall if you shut off your actual water company stop cock to see if the water from the renegade supply eventually stopped flowing or you politely asked your neighbour to do the same on a different day and monitor it accordingly? The problem is that your channel highlights the issue and unless you use best endeavours, your neighbour or the water company could come after you for additional water usage bills, particularly since it had been discharging into the ground for some time.
I had this issue in my old house when I was doing a lot of improvements and it was a lead pipe that split underground beyond my water authority stop cock and then went 40ft along the length of the house then it split off again, I think one to the old boiler room and another to the back door kitchen sink. The lead pipe must have been leaking for decades but fortunately at the time, I was not on a meter. I got my builders to lay a new alkyd water supply straight to the new boiler house and all new cold water pipework went from there to supply the entire 7 bedroom house. Soon after, the water company enforced the installation of a water meter and so I was pleased that I had solved the matter.
You say there is no way to dig deeper, but you also know it makes great content … 😊
And where does it come from? Do you really have free water? Do you contact your supplier again?
Great stuff.
A very interesting watch
Why am I watching this. Why do I care where the pipe ends. I literally have the internet at my finger tips.. I could be researching anything!!
Stuart, you are obviously a great presenter. I honestly could see you being on the tele. Alan tichmarsh of DIY. Good work buddy :)
I actually wondered about the other end of the pipe. Where is the water coming from? Ha ha don't do anything on my account Stuart, we all have bigger things to worry about.
Very interesting thank you
Thank you, I didn't know about those... I do now. :D
Pity you could not push the cable the other way to find the source of the water. Not sure if I am dreaming but in the old days cattle troughs were connected without meter to the supply. When your plot was developed the probably capped off the pipe at the tank and left it.
Amazing what you find! Time to call in Colin Furze 🤔
On the plus side you seem to have amazing soil!
you may have used that as an engineer but you got the same outcome that happened to me when an electrician said the supply feed to my consumer unit was very old and "leaking". can't remember exact details but some sort of mineral covered wire which had an oil "infused" insulation.
Anyway point of the story, the electrician could not work on that side of the consumer unit so called out UK power networks - man rolls up in van and tries to find incoming supply to inspect its condition outside the house rather than digging thru the floorboards. 30 minutes of walking up and down 10ft of lawn and he gave up and went away saying can't find it, but all such supply wires "leak", so not to worry.
As I'm planning an extension on that face of the house I'll bet I find it in due course !
We used to have Cat & Genny trackers at BT to track faulty telephone cables, But never had much faith in them. I always adapted BT equipment to track the cables with much better results .......
What exactly BT equipment are you referring to?
@@puttinxyilo I used to track BT cables with a Tone & amplifier ( Oscillator ), I Also used to find earth faults in buried BT cables with a Tone ( oscillator ). I bet that's blown your mind...
Thanks Stuart, interesting video but we cant get those goodies here to find pipes…..also would really love to join your patreon page but £3 to us is R60+ ….R20 odd per pound and as pensioners we just cant afford that. But please keep the videos coming, we really enjoy them….
Hi any advice on your opinion on tree pruna with extended pole
I wanted to see you dig to 2.5m to find this pipe :o)
Next Video, How to fix a hole in your lawn 🤣
Capacitance effect at play I’d assume. The cable isn’t earthed at the far end, so your signal is discharging back to ground over the whole length of the cable. Also you can’t check for a distorted signal with a cat and genny. Need one of the fancier units with peak and null antennas. Your signal path works like any other circuit. Short pipes like that are the trickiest.
It's likely to be a cattle trough, from the field.
I wonder if adding a small amount of table salt to the water in the pipe and pumping it through, then inserting a 3 meter copper conductor in the electrolyte solution within the pipe attached to the signal generator would provide better signal integrity?
Only logical solution is to hire a company to do a GPR study...Worth every penny 😄
Come on, don't stop now, get a JCB in to finish the job. 😁
Hi Stuart, That's real dedication for you. However, that now has me wondering what the heck it was feeding at almost 3 meters down. Is there some sort of underground bunker (Like Colin Furse'), or a cellar you are not aware of? When you buy a house, your Solicitor has searches done for your property, just to check the ground is stable and has no mine-workings. Maybe this could hold some clues. Thanks for sharing
Missing my weekly dose of Proper DIY. Hope everything is ok?
"Bloody Subscribers" 😂😂😂
I have a dig to do soon and I know there is a gas main I will need to cross perpendicular, will a CAT pick that up, can you use the signal injector part on the gas service? would the service point from the house be the place to attach the injector? Sorry for all the questions, I have dug many trenches etc but never used one of these because there's never been a need until now.
I would dig the lawn up too - would just have to know where the mystery pipe goes and where it comes from!
We once investigated a mystery pipe for a property owner and discovered a neighbouring property had illegally tapped into their neighbour's underground water pipe and was stealing their metered water!
It's a shame you didn't check the depth of the pipe before you dug the hole🙂
Next week is “how to use a mini digger” week after that “how to use tunnel boring machine”
In that situation I'd be tempted to tape a bit of 1mm flex to a flexible fish wire & it might travel better/further in the pipe than SWA ?
Wow, free water, I'd be putting a tap on that pronto to keep the water butt's filled up. Plumb it into the kitchen and washing machine below ground... We wont tell anybody...
I reckon that is the water feed to the horses field (as was) - Bet you eventually find something in the field!!!
I was wondering if you ran a fish tape(thin flexible steel stuff) thru the pipe, would it carry a signal? Can you hook up to a copper pipe and get a signal?
Not sure if someone’s already committed without reading them all but the noise sounding at 7:28 seconds was the noise you should of been tracing.. use them everyday. Won’t see me digging a hole for no reason 😂
Hiya mate,can a pipe detector work through a tiled wall,cheers
Still astounded that the water company weren't interested in either fixing the leak or finding out who was getting free water! Just hope the remaining pipe doesn't spring another leak in the future.
Why do u need to earth the black cable? Great video BTW
I really wanna see from his neighbors perspective, his window
He's at it again Bob, this time he has just dug a hole and filled it in again. Thinking about it, I haven't seen his wife for a while now.....
Hi great videos. Can I ask what would be the best type of screws to get in for woodworking I’m going to be using 2” x 1” 2” x 4” for building table saw cart and some other big bits cheers
8x30mm black plaster board screws are best for your project..
I bet your wife wasn’t pleased digging the lawn up lol
Just found out!
Great video Stuart but it’s not over yet, what about the other way please ?
Nooice!
Oh dear, I am sorry for your lawn, not to mention your workout 😉 The thing is, where did the water go to, beyond the leak 🤔 Why isn’t there a wonderful lake at the edge of your garden, the water had to go somewhere after all 🤷♂️
At 10:07 you assume that the pipe runs level.
My experience, in groundwork tells me never assume anything 🙄😂.
You already traced the pipe but didn't check the depth reading before starting to dig.
Let's see what happens.....
Ok.need I say more. 🤣
You can also hire a beeper to fix onto a set of rods which when used with the CAT will trace lost pipes and ducts.
A very useful tool if you don't have semi rigid cable to hand.
Looks cool.
I’ve got a big LPG gas tank in the garden and a pipe underground running to the house. Would this be able to tell me where it is?
Yup
Yes, especially if the pipe is metallic or if it's big enough insert a cable as in the video.
@@keithwebb658 thanks. Yes it’s a metal pipe for sure. Maybe copper
leading us down the garden path you pipe teaser 🤣
This will not suffice. I will come round and dig this 2.8m myself. I cannot rest Stuart. Ruined my weekend,
Is it not possible to clip the genny onto a metal tap and trace a plastic water pipe that way?
I used to have a cat, I knew a girl called Jenny, and I often wondered what the point of either of them was. I had no idea they were meant to be used together.
Enjoyed this video. In the States there is a national call-before-you-dig service you can ring 811 and they will send folks out to map the cables where you are going to dig, it is free of charge. Two plus meters, keep digging bruv, there is either gold or artifacts down there.
I'm still not sure how we are supposed to locate pvc water mains before digging, given no current etc
Where does it come from?
Well, now we still don't know where the pipe goes, do we? Better rent a caterpillar excavator next!😄
You felt the disappointment I have had many times over chasing poly pipes as we are on a farm and have tank water and when we have water leaks have found pipes we didn’t even know were there but I watched this cause yesterday I was digging a ditch for drainage and came across an actual drain pipe we didn’t know was there and covered with a gravel road so it’s got a lot of dirt in it but I can’t find the end where it goes and it heads under a concrete slab.🤦🏻♀️
What about lead?
So you're saying that if I join your Patreon, I can make you do silly things like destroy your lawn?
Now that is tempting.
Is it true that when you UA-camrs go for a meal, rag n bone brown always goes to the toilet just as the bill arrives so he can get away with paying ?
Where did you here that from
Where did you here that from
@@mrwood4557 Andy Clarke told a mate of mine.
♣️♣️👍👍 Thumbs up stu pot
Kinda feel guilty now for asking you to check out the source/end 🤭
Ditto that.
I hope the people that cared about this appreciate the effort for something so pointless you wanna be careful tho, keep digging holes in your garden every week the neighbours might get concerned that you're a serial killer burying your victims 👀😂
How ' NOT ' to use a Detector if you've never done it before ?
Wouldn't it have been easier and more effective to hire one of those CCTV cameras that drainage engineers use to find where a drain is blocked?
The biggest mistake you’ve done when you try to find the depth is that you held the button down for more than one click, that’s why you get the wrong measurement.
Fix your broom
First comment!
Maybe you should have pressed the depth finder before digging the garden up. Secondly it's always good to check the cables first to the genny to make sure they are not damaged.
What, and have a video where he doesn't dig? People come here for a reason!
Hi Stewart,that's what I call abortive work. Nevertheless,it's a very informative channel for DIY jobs.Good going pal.
Imagine those ditches being dug in the Ukraine!