induction on trace wire.

[Blato]

Just have a quick noob question; the utility I work for is about 99% plastic gas / water pipe. The issue I have is when it was installed about 50% of it did not get a trace wire or the trace wire did not get pulled up with a tap / valves. I was talking to a guy and he told me you can use induction on the trace wire. Anyone know if this is true? Right now I use rd400 and a Mala GPR, most of our lines are in the bottom of a ditch making the gpr all most useless. We are about to get a Vloc Pro.


any tips or tricks that you guys think might help me out?

[UULC]

Induction on tracer wire will get you damages. I have had to dig the line up and find the wire then connect to it. I would install a piece of 10ga wire with a waterproof connector and install a marker post. I have also been going along with a good signal then it would drop. If I could not connect to the other end then I would dig it up at the last good signal and good Milliamps and find the wire broke or missing the sheathing.

Just something to think about. I am sure other on the Vine can give you more and probaly better info. Viners what say you?????

[Blato]

Thanks for the quick reply UULC

ya I have dug up some lines with post hole diggers, haha than again some of our lines are 6 feet deep!

[Blato]

i have had a fue issues with sticking a probe rod into a gas main haha

[noOT4me]

try hooking onto the shut off valve. sometimes the tracer wire will be welded to the riser below ground level.

[Blato]

noOT4me
i wish our system was like that. onley thing i ever see is a trace wire wrapped around the riser, if its going to have one.

[Mke]

Hey Blato,

Induction is a weird beast, you could easily bleed off on something you don't want to locate. The basic principal is correct though, you can induce a tracer wire, depending on the length of wire, and size of wire. I have seen 18guage wire that wouldn't induce for some reason or another. (18 is small enough to break when back filling or compacting the trench.)

Good luck.

mke

[orangeboots]

personally i think you would be better off going to the nearest hookup point and direct connect and bump up your freq and output to push signal thru tracer

[locator00566]

Two words, Pipe horn..........when in doubt, mark it out

[SouthPaw]

Like the others said, it can be done but it's sketchy at best.

Do you have measurements?

[yahoo]

good luck in the future with your job!!!!!?????

[TheCableVine]

If I can't find the trace wire I will hook up to another point and try to back feed the line. This can't be done with the new locators. I use an old detectron for that.

Oh yeah... Pipehorn. It is dangerous but if you know what you're doing it is wonderful.

[Blato]

Thanks for all the great input, im going to see about testing a pipehorn out.

[Blato]

good luck in the future with your job!!!!!?????

The good thing about my job is my bosses know the issues with the trace wires so damages don’t get me in trouble based on the wire, going on 3 years now, 2 hits. So im doing ok considering.

[Blato]

Like the others said, it can be done but it's sketchy at best.

Do you have measurements?

in some parts of town i do, and sometimes thats all that saves me. i take photos and measurements every time we dig up our lines that cant be traced