Finding Water - Dowsing

[MaryN]

I would like to add a bit of water security to my property, and a well would be great. I live in an old house - when it was built there were no other nearby houses and I am betting (hoping) that there was originally a well on the property. Trouble is, there is no visible sign of one.

I would quite like to try dowsing - never done it - and wonder if anyone has tried it with success. If so, how do you start? And with what?

[Mortblanc]

Usually a well is obvious and located near the house. It will be either the old large hand dug type boarded or bricked over or a capped pipe. I have even seen many wells with the house built right over the well with the access in the kitchen area.

If you go to the local registration office and look up an old deed transfer of your property the location of the original water source might be described in the paperwork.

From what I understand these records go back to the late stone age in most of GB.

It might be easier and more productive than walking about with a hazel branch and digging a half dozen dry holes.

[Lightspeed]

Good logic Mary,

If your house is pre-Victorian, or on the site of a previous pre-Victorian dwelling, there's a good chance that there will have been a well there.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a second well here. It is in what I thought was a nursery pen in a disused pig pen in one of the barns.

If you have barns, and particularly if they are connected to the main dwelling I would start searching them, looking for old obvious features on the floor, but also bits of old plumbing, or even oddly placed old electrical outlets.

Good hunting!

[Steve]

It's also worth looking carefully at vegetation, a slightly greener patch could indicate where to start digging.

[Scythe13]

Dowsing has been proven not to work. Derren Brown did a great experiment with it and then explained how it 'works' with most testing haha. Very clever guy.

I'd stick with Mort's system and just get the land data and work from there.

[MaryN]

Lucky you, Lightspeed - two wells! Are they fresh water?

This property is a Georgian farmhouse, and I know that plumbing did not exist here when it was built, so somewhere there has got to be a well. There are a couple of interesting looking spots that I shall be investigating shortly. Knowing my luck it will probably be the outside privvy!

[CharlesHarris]

My mother liked to say that the flowers bloom brightest over the septic tank.

[Mortblanc]

It would be real handy if you had access to the knowledge of any old folks that lived nearby.

My neighbors have lived in their present abode for 50 years and know more about my place than I do. He even came over one morning right after I moved in and showed me where my septic field line ran due to being the one that dug the trenching.

I have lived in some old structures and if they are pre-electric and plumbing it is almost assured there will be a well within 50 feet of the door of what was once the kitchen! If the place is old enough for the cooking to have been done on the hearth the well is often in the front, between house and road.

I also lived in one cottage (wife said it was a cottage, I called it a shack) where the well was at the end of the front porch with a flagstone walkway from porch to well.

[Lightspeed]

Hi Mary, your home sounds lovely, and you are right, there must have been a well there in the past. Good luck with your search.


The odest structures at our house are between 200 and 400 years old from what we can make out. The first well was not by luck, it was one of the must haves on the criteria list when we were house hunting.

Technically the water is drinkable. It has very high iron content, but is otherwise tested OK. We have filters in place to use with it if necessary. I have not found any known health issues with drinking high iron content water.

Second well is a lucky find. We have not had time to get into it to see if it is still reaching the water table, and current list of must do's means that this work will have to wait a while. Even if this well is not drinkable, it'll still have a use as grey water for toilets and gardens. I'm also thinking that it might be a good geothermal heat source. Fingers crossed that its still wet.

[Bug_out_Bag]

I have used metal dowsing rods to trace water pipes and it really does work, there is nothing mystical about it and anyone can do it. You can make your own rods like these:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Super-Co...sing-Rods/

The trickiest thing about dowsing is just resting the rods in your hands rather than holding / gripping them! Hope you find it!