I was talking to one of the underground guys today on the job and he brought up how the moon and it's cycles - new moon, old moon - affect how much dirt you will have either left over or not enough to backfill a trench. He couldn't remember which moon cycle meant which outcome - too much or too little dirt. The subject came up as I was backfilling the storm line and he asked me if I had enough dirt. The grade had been changed and a few swales added so it was hard for me to tell if I had too much dirt or not enough at this time since there is more line to backfill. So the question is - Has anyone else heard of this? I started thinking (yeah that can be dangerous ) and I could see where the moon, through it's rotation around the earth and it's affect on our gravity, could affect how loose dirt goes back into a trench. Heck the moon changes the tides in the ocean so it's not that far fetched of a theory.:beatsme Thoughts? I do know that a copper ground wire bent in a L shape will find buried utilities of any type - concrete, ductile, plastic, etc. I don't know how that works either, it just does.:cool2
I have not heard of this ether, am looking forward to reading what others have to say. glen
I'm convinced the moon affects my wife, not a far stretch of imagination for me to think it affects dirt as well.
Now I have some serious blackmail on ya' Willie! Cut,paste, archive...:tong
It has been my experience that Murphy's Law has more affect on dirt than anything. If getting more dirt to fill a trench is difficult or impossible then you will be short. If hauling away excess dirt will be inconvenient and costly then you will have too much.
lmao!
I dunno about the moon, but I have seen an east wind bring up water an inch deep on what was dry ground the afternoon before on a south wind. An old wood hauler told be it was gonna happen that night and I didn't believe him. It shut my logging job down for two days, and shut me up for a while til I got over it.
I think the moon has diddly squat to do with dirt, just my humble opinion. But then again I don't put much trust in divining rods either and a ton of people swear by them.
the moon creates tidal action on the dirt just as it does with water. so does the sun actually. They're called "earth tides". more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide
My grandpa used to say the moon effected the amount of dirt when you dug a fence post and set it. Sometimes there was to much and some days was a little short. of enough dirt to fill the hole. Years ago the pipe line went through and they had a heck of a time getting the trench to stay deep enough in one river near us. They would almost get it deep enough then loose it, and start over. One old boy called his relation on the east coast to get the tide schedule. Then he figured it out for the midwest. He was laughed at for quite a while till they gave up and listened to him. He told them when to start, and had the trench deep enough at low tide and they set the pipe. So maybe there is more to it than some think. I have seen many people use a wires to locate when all else failed to work. You don't have to know how it works just that it does.
:beerchug
Yeah shopguy, that Auburn War Eagle got the goods on me. But...with a little luck, the moon will be in the right position and will cause the "dirt" that he has on me to carry less weight.
I read the earth tide link. Very interesting, I've never heard of that. Next time someone rags on me for not holding grade, i'm going to blame it on earth tides! :drinkup
here a quick one minute video explaing tides and including some comment on earth tides: http://youtu.be/gftT3wHJGtg For more detail about the tides: http://www.jal.cc.il.us/~mikolajsawicki/Tides_new2.pdf
A good quick little video, Huntoon. I would of never believed the tide could affect anything here in the midwest, but had a real good friend that was there. They had been yoyoing with a drag line for a week, and had gotten close but never could finish the job. Did it the very nest time by starting at a different time, so they had the tide working with them.
Heck, I am going to use that today!
All depends on which phase it's in my friend, I can wait... :tong
Hey maybe if the moon is right, it'll work at home tonite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????
I'm too far from the coast for these earth tides to have any effect. As for running out of soil to backfill, I dig another hole to get enough dirt to make up the shortfall.
I have a carpenter brother that tells all the newbies that if they stroke galvanized nails through their hair it will pound into the wood a lot easier and faster. I have used the brass rods and had it work for water and sewer lines. I used to use the spark method to find underground electricity. Might take a bit to find the line but once you do you never forget how you found it.
I never heard of "earth tides". Not sure if I believe it. Now, water is a different thing, if you're working in, or very close to tidal waters.
John, I have always used copper wires (the normal residential ground wire) to located buried utilities. Like I said, I don't know how it works but it just does.:beatsme I had an old crusty plumber show me how to use them years ago. He used them to locate other buried utilities when installing sewer and water lines to houses before One Call was mainstream. I haven't tried brass, just wasn't as available to me as copper ground wire.
Me neither until I had the conversation that sparked this thread. My inner scientist wanted to know if there was anything to it.
The spark method? Is that similar to the black snake method for telephone cables? glen
CM I've heard of this to and more or less can say it is true also all I use is 2 L shaped rods for finding utilities. Another fun fact for you is on the East coast around 85 or 90 percent of trench cave-ins come from the west side of the trench if your digging north or south.
LoL, that's ok, I've been married to her 31 yrs in Sept, I've learned how to suffer wrath quite well.
i have seen my dad "may he rest in peace' hold an apple branch so tight in his hands that when it did twist down to a stream it would peel the bark off the branch. he could not keep it from twisting. it never did work for me though. after many tries i just gave up
I've seen the same thing when my Grandpa witched our well or whatever you call it Jughead. We got around 20 gallons a minute at 150 feet and the neighbors went to 400 or so feet at 5 gallons a minute.
Where can I read more about this?
I've worked in open cut mines for quiet awhile now and every now and then there would be a slip or wall failure of varying sizes. Some were expected and some were a surprise. Once when we were expecting a failure one of the older hands said something about it will most probably go at night as thats when most slips occur. I can't remember when it went or if it went at all. Some years later at a different mine and now in the truck and shovel area we were taking coal out of a pit where the highwall had some faults that were causing some concern so they brought in a radar system that could detect any movement in the wall, that one of the universities were working on. In the process we were given a talk on how it worked and how much movement it could detect and so forth, backed up with heaps of data and figures. Then as a bit of a joke to get a bit of a laugh I asked him if there was any truth in the (urban myth?) theory about most failures happening at night. His answer was something like, yeah I've heard that story and yes it is mostly true and then gave some figures on when failures occurred and night time was the bigger one by far. Well I don't think I got much of a laugh but it was very interesting bit of information. Another time a farmer friend told me it was better to plough at night as the ground worked better and they got better fuel usage. And I also believe in water divining (witching?) and finding stuff with rods and forky sticks. You can divine for sapphires and other gems too with a couple of rods but you must have a sapphire in your mouth when searching. Here's a link to the radar system that was being developed. We recently used it a fair bit in one of our pits that had a lot of faults and cracking. There was one failure but the pit had been evacuated earlier on because of heavy rain. When they looked at the data in the radar it had detected movement 45 minutes before the main event, and would have been sending out alarms. The rain did cause it to go when it did but it was night time. http://wam.groundprobe.com/ If they're ever around again I'll ask them about earth tides, just as a bit of a joke.
I had an operator who used the spark method. ointhead He found every line he ever dug up that way.
i have saw my dad use the forked tree branch to find water line, wells other things as well. i can use the branch also, but my little sister cant get it to work. dad always said "some people have the gift others dont". if you split the end of the stick(must be a green fork also) insert a copper penny it will point copper be it a penny copper wire, copper pipe etc.
The spark method doesn't work on fiberoptic, but there's a modified non-spark method called the white hat method.