shoveldowsing

last summer we found a water leak in a buried line supplying outside faucets. the supply line for these faucets branches off the main pipe to the house, so turning off the water to stop the leak also stopped water from getting to the house. divining where the pipe might go i dug up the next in line outside faucet and found the other end of the leaky pipe. alas, i had to cut the pipe to cap it so we could have water in the house. i should add that the leak was in a copper fitting. when someone put in the outside faucets and ran a line under where a driveway would go, they changed from pvc to copper. i don't fix copper without an air pressure test because it is very hard to fix a leak after there has been water in the line. a lesson learned the hard way. so i needed to be able to turn off the outside water system and still have water to the house. and to do that i had to locate a buried pvc pipe. i had a place to start where i dug enuf to find the pipe next to an outlet. i could see the direction the pipe headed. so i dug a bit further. uh oh. it's curving.
 
the white things are bits of pvc pipe showing the arc of the buried pipe, determined by digging holes where i guessed i would find it. i installed a valve, repaired the copper line, tested it, and restored water to our outside faucets.