Tried a ground-penetrating radar kit in my backyard last Saturday

I borrowed a rental unit for $150 to look for old pipes, but instead it showed a weird rectangular outline 3 feet down that turned out to be an unmarked cistern from the 1920s according to the county records. Has anyone else accidentally stumbled onto a historic feature with basic equipment like this, or did I just get lucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

miles_roberts229d ago

Oh man, you definitely lucked out big time. I had a similar thing happen with a cheap metal detector I bought off a whim from a garage sale. I was just looking for old bottle caps and stuff but found an entire horseshoe pattern that matched up with an old carriage trail from the 1800s. It's wild what's sitting right under our feet, most people never bother to look. Now I'm halfway convinced every older neighborhood has some hidden cistern or foundation just waiting to be found, especially if the house was built before the 1950s. You probably saved yourself a nasty surprise if you ever tried to dig a post hole or plant a tree right there.

logansullivan8d ago

i mean, @miles_roberts22, i get the excitement but you're kind of making it sound like every lawn has a buried time capsule or something lol. half the time it's just old pipes or a rusted fence post from the 70s. i've dug up plenty of "artifact" looking junk that turned out to be nothing but scrap metal someone chucked in a yard. unless you're finding actual foundations or cisterns with water in em, it's usually not that big of a deal. people definitely overthink what's underground