Patent ID: 6881953

Claim:
A method of tracing drains in a building comprising: (1) surveying the building to locate all existing drains; (2) numbering all of the existing drains; (3) creating a Master Blueprint and a Master Spreadsheet showing all of the drains; (4) using a tracer to determine whether the storm water from the building actually flows from each storm drain to the storm water manhole and recording the information determined about the flow pattern of each storm drain tested on the Master Blueprint and on the Master Spreadsheet; (5) selecting the test location to withdraw the sample of water, wherein said test location is selected from the group consisting of all storm manholes and all sanitary manholes; (6) running water continuously through a drain that drains into the test location manhole selected in Step (5); (7) selecting a target sanitary drain and adding an amount of non-toxic fluorescent tracer to the target sanitary drain, wherein the amount of non-toxic fluorescent tracer added is such that the fluorescent signal of non-toxic fluorescent tracer is detectable over the background fluorescence of the water in said sanitary drain; (8) using a fluorometer to detect the fluorescent signal of said non-toxic fluorescent tracer in the sample of water withdrawn at the test location selected in Step (5); (9) using the fluorescent signal to determine whether the target sanitary drain is draining to the test location selected in Step (5) and recording the information determined about the flow pattern of said target sanitary drain on the Master Blueprint and on the Master Spreadsheet; (10) repeating Steps (4), (5), (6), (7), (8) and (9) as necessary such that all sanitary drains are traced; and (11) using the information from the Master Blueprint and Master Spreadsheet to determine where all sanitary drains and storm drains are draining.