Find a Drain Guide:

Posted: February 23, 2007
Author: Joe

Well, this is of course one of the main problems with draining aside from possible dangers or getting caught by some kind of authoritative figure. It is however the only real issue that can necessarily keep you from draining. I mean, how are you supposed to do it you don't know any locations to start? Dave and I have decided not to post specific directions to drains for the time being. Hell, we had to find the ones we found, so why are you any different?

The first think you should think about when finding a drain comes into mind should be: “Where have I seen a drain before?” Now, if you get out even a little, you've probably seen drains and not even realized it. Before doing any ground work, just try to think back to where you've seen large sewer openings before.

If you can't remember any locations just off hand, the next best thing to do would be to think logically. Obviously, the largest drains are going to be in the most populated areas of the city. Not only that, but all the water traveling through these drains must come out somewhere. Once again, drains only make sense to be largest at one end, and get smaller as you go further down. That is, if you're working against the current. Logically, as water flows inward to the drains, they must get bigger to accommodate all the water flowing in from smaller drains. Now, this might seem very obvious to some, but to others, it just has not occurred to them.

Now you understand the basic idea of they way drains are constructed. Generally speaking, any concrete drainage ditch, or man made ditch for transferring water will convert into a storm sewer that is enclosed. The question is how large the drain is.

If you don't know where to look for a drain, start at any large water source. For example, the South Platte River runs directly through the downtown Denver area. This is obviously a prime location to start.

So you know where drains are likely to be placed, but you don't want to walk for miles up and down the banks of a river, right? Well, that's where the beauty of the internet kicks in. Google Maps for example can provide a great birds-eye view of a river for scouting. Of course, there are down sides to Google Maps, because a drain might be camouflaged by a highway overpass or nearby trees could be making it difficult to identify.

Basically, when you're using Google Maps, what you want to look for is an alternate source of water pouring into the river, along with concrete or man made structures nearby that look very “drain-like”. A drain opening will look almost like a U shape, but not so rounded. Kind of like a trapezoid for you geometry folk. Here in this photo you can see the river running up and down and a drain opening to the right. There's a bridge crossing the river, and a road running parallel on both sides of the river. You can tell that the rocks on the shore near the opening are put there on purpose and there's even a concrete walkway down to this drain!

If you're more of the person who likes to research records yourself, like Dave & I did at a local library, we found proposed plans for storm sewers in the Englewood and Denver areas from the 1970s with fading blueprints on sickly looking yellow paper. Several of the drains proposed had locations and sizes of the drains as well. We managed to track down several of the drains and they were in fact about as explained on the blueprints. That goes to show you that even old records can sometimes be reliable.

One last thing to keep in mind is any major construction the city has recently finished working on. For example, here in Denver the “T-Rex” project which added some public transportation trains to the Interstate, as well as widening the interstate in a long stretch, required huge amounts of drainage capacity. Think about it: an interstate in an urban area collects a very large amount of water in the lower areas and must drain somehow. The largest drain system we have found to date is located near and underneath an interstate and flows into the South Platte River.

Hopefully this helped you get some idea of how to find a drain in your area. If all else fails, just do some foot work the old fashioned way. Follow drainage ditches, rivers, streams and most of all, think logically!