Flood problems

[Adam W.]

There will always be someone who says they don't work, but that's probably because they don't know how to use them properly.

Don’t discount the Dowsing rods, till you’ve tried them it sounds like witchcraft, but they really do work and are surprisingly accurate.
Two tubes from bic pens as handles, two bits of wire, bent so that one bit goes down the handle and the rest is straight out in front of you, have it in your mind what you are looking for and walk up and down, when the rods move either across each other, or more unusually apart that is the point directly under your feet. Usually works best when you walk across- rather than along what you are looking for. Ian

It's far too unusual these days to meet anyone who can dowse. When the gas guy came we had a good laugh when his £500 detector couldn't find a pipe that I could find with two bits of bent fencing wire.

 

[Sandyn]

It's far too unusual these days to meet anyone who can dowse. When the gas guy came we had a good laugh when his £500 detector couldn't find a pipe that I could find with two bits of bent fencing wire.

I find it fascinating, How does it work? I always look to see what James Randi says about things like this. Dowsing was a permitted example. Why did no one claim the prize?

 

[Adam W.]

I don't know how it works.

The easiest way to try it out is with a pair of L shaped pieces of wire about 12" at the long end and 4" at the handle end. Hold on to them lightly with the ends resting on your finger so they can move about freely and walk over where your home electricity cable goes up the drive. The electricity cable has the strongest effect out of all the domestic services and they should cross over when you go over it.

Try it a couple of times and see what happens. I haven't tried hazel or any of the other types, but wire works for me. I can also feel when something has a dodgy earth.

 

[sawdust1]

Years ago we had an old chap in to locate the water into our well, he did it for a living and could tell how deep water
was and how good the flow was, using two bent wires, sadly he's dead now.
I had a go with them and although i walked over were he indicated the water was i got no response from them, nor my
young daughter who he let have a go as well.

 

[Fordgate1]

This a political issue with the privatised water companies inheriting combined foul and storm water drains. multinational companies extracting profits with limited tax liabilities in the uk not investing in infrastructure. Take this up with your local MP/councillor. We live on the Somerset levels and were out of our home for 8 months. Resources for the EA were cut the rivers were not dredged and the pumping station not maintained.

 

[dickm]

Back in the 1950s we had a problem with water supply to our house on the edge of the village. Water board guy came out in his van, walked up and down with bent rods roughly where he thought the pipe went and got it spot on. An old uncle of mine was pretty good finding field drains, but only when he was fairly p***ed. There's an old guy (well, he's a few years older than me!) in our present village who does this reliably too. He got a group of us out on the local recreation ground trying to find the drains. I THINK I was finding things consistently, but definitely not reliably.

 

[Cabinetman]

I find it fascinating, How does it work? I always look to see what James Randi says about things like this. Dowsing was a permitted example. Why did no one claim the prize?

Nobody really knows but it’s suspected in our long distant past we could use this sense to detect all sorts of things in our daily life probably for finding food underground? and that since then it has fallen into disuse. I believe in it from personal experience, but as soon as you try to prove it works your brain shuts off the ability- very strange indeed and frustrating.
I went on a one day course once to learn how to do it and it was literally stunning, the two guys were as I’ve since found out the leading experts in the UK and I bought their fascinating book, since lent and lost! It seems that almost everybody has the ability but some have it more than others.
You have to concentrate on what it is you’re trying to find, this can be helped by having a sample in the palm of one hand as you detect, we were told that a lot of what we find isn’t still in the ground in a physical form but the chemical elements are still there to be detected.
About eight of us novices were sent out on our own with our rods and little flags to see what we could find in a field in Sussex and fairly soon a perfect circle of flags showed the post holes from a round house, wood ash in the centre, two lines of fragments of bronze from the wheel rims of carts, with reindeer droppings in a straight line between them – no I hadn’t realised that they used reindeer instead of horses in the bronze age either, both sides of the bronze tracks we detected the run off from thatch on buildings and also an underground stream, the banked lane leading past the site was, we were later told from the period.
Once water has been detected it’s possible to then try again with the thought in your mind of how deep is it, and as you walk away from the source, the distance moved before the rods cross is how deep the water is. It isn’t an exact science and confusing misinformation can send you off in the wrong direction sometimes. It’s also possible to find objects by detecting a line that the object is on and then doing it from a different direction and where the lines cross is where the object is, though I haven’t done this.
I’m told it’s possible to divine over huge distances by using a map of the area where are you are trying to find something but I’ve never tried it, - stories of finding missing people.
I still have my rods and used them not so long ago to find the exact line taken by the water supply to my house.
Ian
Edit, it isn’t the rods picking up whatever it is, it’s you, the rods are only there for your brain to move your hands slightly which makes the rods move.

 

[hairy]

I believe it was Cambridge City council who installed posts with rubber seals at the front boundaries of houses on the River Cam (Maybe Mariners Way just looking at a map?). Sectional ally boards were dropped in when flooding was expected. But I seem to remember they didn't change the drains so those waterproofed properties were filled from within.
Rain water catchment or attenuation tanks can be made from digging a hole, lining it with a suitable membrane and filling the hole with a structural plastic crate strong enough to drive on. So you could turn your drive into storage. You could use the stored water with suitable filtration in the house too? But how big a tank?????

Like Aquavoid Stormwater Soakaway and Attenuation Crate 20 Tonne - 2.5 Per m3 | Drainage Superstore®

 

[Krome10]

I've had all the same problems at the house I am in. It has been a long running 'conversation' with the local council. When part of my drive at the back of the house was flooded with sewer water, They did respond and find the problem caused by a tree root partially blocking a main sewer at the rear of my house.

At the front of my house, I sometimes have water running off the road and flooding part of my garden. They come and do patchwork solutions, but never cure the problem.
The flooding happens at this time of year. Lots of torrential downpours and leaves blocking the drains on the road. The water then runs on to my property and down a drain for a down-pipe. No real damage is caused, but it shouldn't happen. My drain got blocked quickly with leaves. I made a new style of drain cover for the down-pipe which doesn't get blocked, (yet) so that problem has been cured.
They surveyed all the drains and discovered all the road drainage and half my house drainage goes down an old stone cundy dating from the 1850's. There is a main sewer running down the road, but they don't seem willing to put the road drainage into the sewer. The sewer is already at capacity, and they keep building more houses around the place, so it's probably best if they don't.
I haven't gone down the legal route with them, it's more an inconvenience and not causing damage. Councils are always very quick to threaten legal action if homeowners don't do something they want. I had trees obscuring a road sign. I was slow to cut them back (more than two weeks) they threatened legal action.
I now keep an eye on the drains on the road at the front and if they are blocked by leaves. I clear them. So far, My new cover has worked well. I should have done it years ago, but only when I retired did I get round to sorting out these sort of things.
You just have to keep pestering the local authority when flooding occurs. I take pictures and video, but perhaps sending them a bill for any clean-up work may focus their attention on sorting the problem.
Good luck!!

I don't suppose you can post a pic of your drain cover? I keep trying to think of a solution that will allow the water from the down pipe and the water on the paving to go in, but not leaves and other cr@p...

 

[Ollie78]

Update on the flood situation.

I have cleaned a lot of stuff out of the garage and am going to get busy with the jetwash in a bit...

On to the important bit.
The guys from Thames water came out this morning and once again checked the pipe with a camera, all fine. It goes straight to the road and drops down into a 300mm pipe at right angles to it, this pipe goes about 100m to another main sewer in the next road. They lifted the lid on this one as well and it was all flowing nicely and is a fair drop down from mine.

They said that a lot of the problem was, as several people suggested here, that the rainwater is going down the same pipe as the sewage.

I noted that I was unsure where the rear gutters went to as there are two pipes that just go straight into the patio with no cover or anything, sort of cemented in.
I brought up the subject of the mystery drain in the garden and he got out his phone which had a gps map thing on it with the location of all the drains. He confirmed its existance and that its marked as a rainwater drain.
I am the first one on the drain line and it goes in the opposite direction to the 300mm sewer line, along the back gardens to a brook at the other end of the street. He also noted that he was surprised Thames water owned it but they do, this could be a good thing.
His metal detecor thingy was on the blink so we didn`t find it, but I will try to find it myself over the next few days.
Time to have a go at dowsing with the bent wires maybe?

He suggested a two pronged approach, firstly find the rear drain and try to get all the water from the guttering into that.
I think this will be possible if the ones on the patio are indeed connected to it. I will have to re-route some downpipes but I think it can be done.

Secondly dig a new manhole at the front end of my drive and install a proper non return valve in there, giving as long a run as possible my side of the valve.

I think this sounds fairly sensible and will at least proceed with finding the garden drain.

However I think I might get a survey by some kind of expert to confirm this will work before I start disk cutting into the driveway.
I am still wondering where the water from my intended aco drain can go as it will be tricky to route that to the back.
He suggested maybe a great big soakaway under the drive may work as well but I am not sure as the water table is so high, also at that point I might as well dig the whole driveway up and start again, starting to become a civil engineering project.


Off to jet wash stuff now.

Ollie

 

[Cabinetman]

That’s good news, hope it fixes the problems but it’s a shame you have to mess up your driveway.

 

[Sandyn]

I don't suppose you can post a pic of your drain cover? I keep trying to think of a solution that will allow the water from the down pipe and the water on the paving to go in, but not leaves and other cr@p...

I think my drain is different to yours. It''s At the bottom of a down pipe against the wall.

so no traffic running over it. I designed it to allow some leaves to go down the drain, but if the lower part blocked and the water rose, then more leaves could go down the drain. At times, all the water from several hundred metres of road was running down this drain. Before I added my drain cover, I have seen about 6" of water at the drain. It is really enjoyable to clear the blockage and watch thousands of gallons disappear down the drain.

Can you post a picture of your problem drain. I'm sure someone will come up with a good idea.

 

[baldkev]

Being as you get 'flood damage' I'm wondering if your house insurance will cover a fix?

 

[Sandyn]

Sectional ally boards were dropped in when flooding was expected.

Years ago, when I was suffering from huge amounts of water flowing off the road on to my drive, I made a flood defence by closing the gate and throwing a big polythene sheet over the gate. It was self sealing and pretty instantly cured my problem. The road flooded, was closed by the police who had the council out to clean the drains within an hour!!

 

[Sandyn]

Nobody really knows but it’s suspected in our long distant past we could use this sense to detect all sorts of things in our daily life probably for finding food underground?

I know a few people that can find food anywhere without divining rods!!! a dormant sense perhaps!

I believe you can do it, but still skeptical in a way, which seems stupid, but perhaps It's that I would like proper testing done to prove it works repeatably. I have tried it, but it didn't work. I think I'm too skeptical. I have an open mind on these matters. I have had a few paranormal experiences. Most I can explain away, but one I can't, so I have an open mind. On a similar note. I was in a paranormal research group for a while. I don't believe in it, but I have had some weird experiences which have terrified me.

the two guys were as I’ve since found out the leading experts in the UK and I bought their fascinating book, since lent and lost!

lol.....you KNOW the obvious question!!

 

[Cabinetman]

I know a few people that can find food anywhere without divining rods!!! a dormant sense perhaps!

I believe you can do it, but still skeptical in a way, which seems stupid, but perhaps It's that I would like proper testing done to prove it works repeatably. I have tried it, but it didn't work. I think I'm too skeptical. I have an open mind on these matters. I have had a few paranormal experiences. Most I can explain away, but one I can't, so I have an open mind. On a similar note. I was in a paranormal research group for a while. I don't believe in it, but I have had some weird experiences which have terrified me.


lol.....you KNOW the obvious question!!

Hilarious! Never occurred to me to try and find it that way! Trouble is I probably need the book to be able to do it ha ha That’s the problem with dowsing as soon as you try and pin it down the ability disappears.
I’ve found Roman pottery in my garden before, I think I’ll have to get my rods out in the morning to see if I can pinpoint any more – who knows what’s buried there!

 

[woodieallen]

You need someone like these guys

https://www.drainageconsultantsltd.co.uk/about-us/our-company/
or StackPath

or Google for 'expert witness' sewer because that will give you experienced independent and/or smaller outfits perhaps

or maybe

Danny Everett - Principle Drainage Engineer Wiltshire Council ?

Forget French drains - they will clog up very quickly.

 

[Ollie78]

You need someone like these guys

https://www.drainageconsultantsltd.co.uk/about-us/our-company/
or StackPath

or Google for 'expert witness' sewer because that will give you experienced independent and/or smaller outfits perhaps

or maybe

Danny Everett - Principle Drainage Engineer Wiltshire Council ?

Forget French drains - they will clog up very quickly.

Thanks for this info. I will contact them.

I was going to use a larger aco style drain accross the front of the house, just to grab the water coming down the driveway before it hits the wall on the house.

Ollie

 

[woodieallen]

Good idea re the Aco drain but do you have anywhere for the water to go to ?

 

[Cooper]

I don't know how it works.

The easiest way to try it out is with a pair of L shaped pieces of wire about 12" at the long end and 4" at the handle end. Hold on to them lightly with the ends resting on your finger so they can move about freely and walk over where your home electricity cable goes up the drive. The electricity cable has the strongest effect out of all the domestic services and they should cross over when you go over it.

Try it a couple of times and see what happens. I haven't tried hazel or any of the other types, but wire works for me. I can also feel when something has a dodgy earth.

Is there no end to your talents??
Martin