Posted by John Nichols on February 11, 2005 at 22:28:42 from 165.91.196.86 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: dowsing still in use posted by alan truelove on February 11, 2005 at 10:35:05:
As a professional, who has spent many pleasant days in search of buried pipes, I can say there is a modern method.
1. We get plans.
2. We get a long stick to probe with
3. We get an expert prober (no joke this is the second hardest job)
4. We get a backhoe with a very old operator who can feel the pipes
5. We get a surveyor and chainman
6. Me (I look pretty and can sweet talk the old ladies who complain about their roses being dug up by that team of bastards.)
7. We get out on site and dig.
8. Average cost per day - backhoe 800, me 1200, team 2,500, survey party 1000
9. Number of services per day - varies but probably 15 - 20 so
10 Cost per service - 5500/20 = $275.00
11. We pay the Water Board 500 per day to have a guy tell us where to dig.
12. We smile when 11 gets it wrong and we did up a big service and it costs 20,000 to fix. Water Board pays as they supplied the expert. (Shades of the Mastercard Commercial here with the memory of the old days).
We only broke three services in about 200 miles of sewer investigation. One cost 20,000 to fix, one was an illegal sewer dumping waste into a stream courtesy of the Water Board - I asked them if they wanted me to report the illegal activity to the EPA and they said "nah it will be gone in the morning",
and the third was a fitting on a main. We had to break up a slab driveway to get at the valve to shut it off. The owner was livid. I said - tough you did not get approval for the slab. A little old man tottered out and said thanks for turning the water off, now he could change a few washers.
So you see we are an advanced society -
JMN