If you do a quick search on the internet for “locating a plastic water pipe underground,” you’ll get lots of answers. Many of them will tell you that using ground penetrating radar (GPR) is the way to go when it comes to locating just about anything underground—including water lines and drainage pipes. While we’re big fans of GPR technology around here and use it almost daily for the utility line locating projects we take on, GPR has its limitations—especially when it comes to locating PVC and PEX pipes.
When water lines are made of steel or copper, the equipment we use to find them is a no-brainer. We go with our GPR scanners. GPR is great at finding conductive materials like metal. However, it is not so great at locating things made out of plastic, like PVC and PEX water lines—especially if those water lines are deeply buried in the ground, as many water lines tend to be. And unfortunately for anyone needing to do water line locating, almost all modern water lines are made of some type of plastic.
Fortunately, at Enhanced Scanning, we have more than one tool in our toolbelt. We don’t only rely on GPR to find everything our customers need to find underground. We have many other tools at our disposal—all of which our team is highly trained to use.
For plastic water line locating, a great non-destructive tool we can employ is an acoustic locator. Acoustic locators work by sending an acoustic wave through the water line using a pulse wave generator (PWG). We then are able to locate the buried plastic pipes by carefully listening for the pulsing water using a device known as a geophone, among other specialty tools. This process works well for locating older concrete pipes as well, which are difficult to find using GPR.
The process of locating plastic water lines buried underground is not always a quick and easy one. It often takes patience and diligence on the part of our team to do the job right. However, we are committed to providing our customers with the most accurate information possible so they can move forward with their projects. We want to be able to tell our customers, with confidence, where their underground utilities are located so they can avoid them when excavating on their properties. To do so, we rely on the best tools for the job, and that might not be a single tool like a GPR scanner.
If you need help locating private utilities on your property, including PEX or PVC water lines, contact us at Enhanced Scanning. We have rapid response times and provide thorough utility locating services throughout Southern California and beyond.