tracing dyes

What does your county use as a tracing dye when trying to dye test septic systems? We currently use the liquid powder but might switch to the dye strips since they aren't as messy. Just wondered if anyone had any bad experiences with them since we don't know much about them.

We also use the liquid powder, Norlab Inc for dye work. Really havent had much problem with it other than staining a finger or two. I do ask the homeowner if their toilet backs up as once I had it come back onto the floor.

we use the liquid and tablets. Liquid usually only on well dye tests.

We use the Norlab Liquid Powder dye as well. I like it.

Liquid Powder is great. Once turned an entire ditch neon yellow/green for nearly a mile. Even had our EMA director concerned about an anti-freeze dump. Those three homeowners were certianly shown that there septic systems were not going where they thought.

Geez, turtle- you're not supposed to use the WHOLE BOTTLE! :lol:

I guess one of the guys did that with red liquid dye a long time ago into the Miami River :lol:

That's what funny jmench. Between 3 houses I used about 1/2 a bottle. All three "systems" consisted of a small crock and about 40' of tile to the ditch. So nearly all the dye I put in ended up in the ditch. Our EMA director called me to tell me come out to road so and so and take a look at this ditch. "Some SOB must have dumped 1000 gallons of antifreeze out here" he says. I laughed and said well I guess I'm that SOB. Made a great picture!!

:lol:

We use the liquid powder also. I always flush the toilet first (prevents that backup problem San2 had, plus it doesn't stain the toilet). I wear gloves when I'm adding the dye to the system. Also, close the lid when you do the first flush of dye... sometimes the toilet will splash up (which you'd know if you did a pre-flush)

If I'm fairly sure where it's going, then I don't use as much dye. If I think it has to go a long way or I don't know where it goes then I'll use more. I don't think I've ever used more than 1/4 bottle per system. I also don't dye more than one system per week where I have multiple suspects. Sometimes we'll use multiple colors in that case, but I prefer to wait a week.

I ordered multiple colors a few years back, thinking it would be handy to be able to test multiple systems at once. After trying the different colors, I found that the orange, blue and purple aren't nearly as easy to recognize when they come out the other end as the fluorescent yellow-green is.