25 Sep How To Find Underground Sewer Pipes

How To Find Underground Sewer Pipes

The best way to locate anything underground is with an EM locator (electromagnetic cable locator). Essentially this equipment transmits a signal into a pipe, that you can then go around looking for with your receiver. But for this to be possible, you need the pipe to be made of a conductive material, otherwise it’s not capable of carrying the signal.

Underground sewer pipes are almost always made from non conductive pipe materials like:

• PVC
• Vitreous clay / Earthenware / Terracotta
• Concrete

This makes locating them a little less simple than a copper pipe or cable.

So the solution to this problem is to insert a traceable rod into the pipe. They’re sometimes called a rodder, flexible tracer rod or duct rod. They’re a particular type of flexible fibreglass rod that has a copper wire embedded inside it, making it conductive.

So we can:

1. Feed the rod into the pipe
2. Transmit the signal into the copper wire embedded in the rod
3. Go and locate the rod. Simple

If you need your sewer pipes located, Find The Pipes have a range of sizes and solutions for different environments and applications. Please give us a call for advice on how this can help your next project.