Hello all, I have for a long time been looking into draining and have seen many things about dangerous gasses, how to find drains, and what type of drains you should attempt to explore.

This is honestly something that I want to try because for some reason traveling around underneath a city kind of amazes me but I don't really know where to start. I am in the Chicago-land suburb area Aurora/Lisle/Naperville/Wheaton and I have been looking for drains to explore for awhile. I don't know if this is a lost cause because all of the manhole covers that I have popped have led to nothing more than a narrow drain no larger than a decent sized raccoon.

From what I've read you need to look in ares where it looks like water has been diverted underground but all of those seem to be culverts(if that's the right word for a drainage ditch on the side of the rode) that lead into raccoon sized drains.

Any tips for finding explore-able areas?

I personally have absolutely 0 experience draining, but I have found a few recently. The way I did it was with google maps. Scroll along any big river by a decent sized town/city until you see a big outlet. Also, in Indiana many cities have published storm drain maps with detailed information about the size, material, all that of the drain. It might be worth a google. I'm interested to hear other, more experienced people's responses to this.

Posted by TD The way I did it was with google maps. Scroll along any big river by a decent sized town/city until you see a big outlet.

I have taken a stab at this. My next idea was to go find the public records either in the library or at city hall(conspicuous) and try and find some decent sized ones that way.