Patent Document ID: 5453130
Application ID: 08276624
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of providing preventive maintenance service to sewer lines in a given locality by servicing only those sewer lines having a substantial probability of near term blockages, said method comprising steps of: (a) dividing said given locality into a plurality of predetermined areas; (b) identifying blockage predictors including foliage common to said given locality known to cause root intrusion and using said foliage as root intrusion predictors and further including properties capable to generate substantial amounts of grease and using such properties as grease predictors; (c) surveying a first predetermined area and identifying root intrusion predictors proximate to sewer lines and grease predictors proximate to sewer lines; (d) cleaning those sewer lines proximate to said identified root intrusion predictors from a nearest manhole/clean-out to a safety margin distance beyond an edge of identified root intrusion predictor's roots, and cleaning those sewer lines proximate to said grease predictors starting at a nearest downstream manhole/clean-out; (e) logging a location and degree of blockage for each root intrusion and grease blockage on a log form; (f) entering logged sewer line blockages into a database thereby forming a knowledge based sewer line service system; (g) re-cleaning sewer line locations on a predetermined schedule according to the knowledge based sewer line service system based upon a degree of blockage found at the sewer line locations; and (h) repeating steps (a)-(g) for each predetermined area until all predetermined areas are serviced.