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Pete C. Pete C. is offline
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Default Finding/Locating sewer line under basement floor


Ron wrote:

I own a property that has a cast iron sewer line that runs under the
basement floor, and I want to be able to mark out and locate where it runs
under the basement floor. I know that I could hire a company to come out
and do that, but I am wondering if there are any fairly cheap, creative, and
interesting/fun ways for me to try to locate the line myself.

For example, is there some kind of small signal generator that I could
attach to a sewer line snake and detect the signal from above with some type
of detector? -- maybe something that Radio Shack or some electronics store
might sell?

Or, are there relatively inexpensive underground pipe-locating devices that
I could rent somewhere and do the job?

Would a metal detector be able to detect a cast iron pipe under a concrete
floor (assuming that the pipe is not down very far below the floor?


Underground pipe/conduit/wire tracers can be rented from places like
United Rentals. They couple a signal from a transmitter onto the exposed
part of the line in question, normally with an inductive clamp
connection, and a separate handheld metal detector style receiver is
used to sweep the ground to locate the line. You sweep back and forth
over the line to find the peak signal which should be directly above the
line. If there is rebar / mesh in the slab if could make it more
difficult to pinpoint the line under it.