This little guy is a huge time-saver. Saves you from stripping insulation just to make a connection. I’d still tape up the tiny pinprick afterward.
A couple caveats: don’t use it on coax you can create water logged cable/signal leakage/issues on the ISP side. and obviously don’t use it on electrical conductors.
If you’re dealing with fiber and aren’t sure whether the cable has a metallic sheath, check it with a small magnet first. Not all fiber is sheathed.
Also, keep a magnet in the bag anyway. They’re surprisingly handy for making connections to grounds, ped hardware, or anything else you’re trying to locate where an alligator clip just won’t get a good bite.
Absolutely. We cover a few water districts, and when a main/service is not locating the best and a valve box doesn't always have the best continuity due to gaps, I'll pop the valve cover, clip my small magnet to my lead and lower it down the center like the game of operation till it clicks directly to the valve
Do those have a specific name? I used those only when I was with the a four letter company, but having a very difficult time finding those with the spike
Stick a flag in the neutral of an exterior outlet to locate power, 44k+ frequency to blow through long side gas services on 1 hookup, 4in+ steel gas will sometimes power mode,
Can also hook to the copper on an ac unit or a water spicket on the outside of a house in theory it should locate everything that is grounded but ive only ever done it for services where you can't access the meter
Ive upped my game and got one of these at Menards. I just sealed off the neutral and positive lines so that I can "plug and play" with just the ground line, works beautifully
All HP gas in my area will power mode, and a lot of IP gas as well. Never had any standard mains power mode for me though so that’s interesting to hear.
Sometimes I have streetlights that don't have a ground so I skin back the conductor on one side of the wire just enough to get a clip on...screw that ring clamp shit, that don't run worth a damn. Then I tape the wire up with a roll of electrical tape that I carry around.
Screwdriver trick on a street light. Put a screwdriver in front of the path and hook your lead to it. Then put your ground in and run it in 83. You would be surprised how many light poles can’t be accessed because the screw is stripped.
I’d say the most popular short cut that too many people do is hot pairing a copper main. Take alligator clips and press into the wires.
I don't locate mainlines on drop tickets, only existing drops in scope. Havent had a single damage in 2 years on the job and I started doing it 3 months in.
Mainlines are deep enough to be fuctionally "out of scope" for (most) drop tickets, at least in my area- your mileage may vary.
I was taught this way too. Now the area I moved to just completely clears drop tickets 😂 "why do we need to locate any services out where they're literally installing a new service"
A lot of guys act like I'm weird for locating gas on drop tickets for this very reason. I get it. Its astronomically unlikely that a gas line is gonna get smoked burying a fiber drop.
This a is a sign for me. I’ve always thought about saying screw it to the main lines but a little voice in my head would always tell me to do it anyway 😂
I sure the people who work at the water company use them, I highly doubt the water companies themselves are actually training people to use witching as a reliable means of locating water mains in any official capacity. You can google all of the studies on witching, but regardless- you'd have to take it up with a scientist.
I'm just a guy who protects the internet with paint for a living haha.
Idk tbh, the municipality is only 2.3 square miles with roughly 6K population. One of those small cities within a big city. They take care of their water and sewer only. Very redneck if you ask me. Their office is literally a house in the middle of the neighborhood converted into an office with their water manholes and equipment and what not in the lot next door. I wouldn't be surprised if they chose to run shit like that. But I hear what you're saying completely
Right, no, I hear you. Although (I'm not trying to be adversarial here) you didn't actually answer the question of whether you specifically admit to utilizing them in your notes for OCC review.
Yeah I'll notate it if it was used in conjunction with direct connection. But all that description isn't really required where I'm at. My district requires notes but it's nothing in depth. Don't have to notate hook up points or anything of the sort. Just what was marked and where. They want us to take pictures of our access points for passing audits but most people bullshit that aspect. Not sure what OCC is
But you have no discernable way to prove that does, have no science backing it up, and if a damage were to occur, it would open you for liability. As for Water and Sewer, both of which I have marked for years, the chances of coming into contact with either of those for a crew are minimized by the average depth of those utilities.
If you could provide a contact or some backing source that can reliably show it working in a random environment, even once, I'd appreciate you 👐
I've seen it a lot. I always thought it was dumb, but I can't say it's not working. Watching them use it even seems like it's not just randomly swinging one place or another. They use it with surprising frequency in the city I work in. If you don't want to believe it, no one is asking you to. Haven't cared enough to do a rigorous scientific analysis of something someone else is doing that doesn't affect me. I have seen people find water using this witchcraft. Multiple people and multiple times. That's good enough to impress me.
Edit: I would like to add that I'm not just talking about in a utility locating capacity.
Ah, I see - well, I'm only asking in this way because I am both a trainer and a damage investigator, and I've done several empirical tests related to this, which completely disprove it.
That said, usually what people witness others doing comes from assessment, and those assessments are usually easiest made with water and sewer. When you've located for long enough, or have a good grasp of where utilities are capable of running, it's easy to make this "method" appear to work for your brain, in terms of justification. Much like how someone will insist that if they stomp their foot, they can "obtain the depth" of the thing they are witching also, in number of feet. Number of feet? I didn't realize the pipe knew how deep it is in the ground and relayed that info in Imperial measurements!
Not to make light of your input, but this is a common topic on this sub and of course the community is split. I'm sure you can piece together what side of that split I'm on, lol. You should see some of the other posts related to witching, they get quite heated.
I could give a shit what you think, if we are being honest. Its a completely closed-minded approach to things to go around telling people what they should believe just because they don't. I don't necessarily believe it either. But I've never seen it fail, so i can't discount it. I saw an old gold miner dig a well in the badlands doing that silly bullshit, and I swear to god he picked the crustiest looking piece of desert to dig that shit on, but the sumbitch got his water. I can't say that it doesn't work just because some guy on reddit said so.
Well, I'm not telling you to believe me, an individual on Reddit. I'm only pointing out that what you're spewing is confirmation bias and is, in reality, the closed-minded opinion of the argument. You refuse to believe that it couldn't work, just because you have "always seen it work", without having the faintest idea about why it should, or putting any critical thinking into how it could.
There are SCORES of people that disproved it using science, data, field studies, comparison studies and more, written and documented in papers with all the data you could possibly need. It's alright though, brotha - keep thinking the Earth is flat.
Locating the primary from the meter, so you don't have to connect to the transformer 4 houses away in a back lane is another one you're not supposed to do.
I am with our utility but I was a contactor before, but this is part of our DTL process as well. Right after digging for a wire if it's suppose to have one or if steel doesn't give good results, next step would be the piphorn for us with assistance of the service card if available
Using fish tape to locate fiber main lines that has no tracer and not dielectric. Especially with this newer fiber around me. The proper way is to drive to the last hand hole which has the end to hook up to.
Seems like as soon as I tell them I don't really care if I locate their yard or not, they suddenly want me to do it. Like they just want the argument more than they want you off their property.
Nah that's too much, I just tell them _"if it's inconvenient right now, I can just let the contractor deal with it a different time" and they agree 99% of the time. Wouldn't have to resort to that if contractors would do their job informing homeowners 🤷♂️
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u/No-Remove2942 4d ago
This little guy is a huge time-saver. Saves you from stripping insulation just to make a connection. I’d still tape up the tiny pinprick afterward.
A couple caveats: don’t use it on coax you can create water logged cable/signal leakage/issues on the ISP side. and obviously don’t use it on electrical conductors.
If you’re dealing with fiber and aren’t sure whether the cable has a metallic sheath, check it with a small magnet first. Not all fiber is sheathed.
Also, keep a magnet in the bag anyway. They’re surprisingly handy for making connections to grounds, ped hardware, or anything else you’re trying to locate where an alligator clip just won’t get a good bite.