LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. i^Hp. ®0{a|rig]^ Ifu* ShelfJh[.M UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Sewerage and Land Drainage. Illustrated. 4to. 400 pages. New York : D. Van Nostraud Co. $6 00. The Sanitary Drainage of Houses and Towns. Illustrated. lamo. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $2.00. How to Drain a House. Practical Information for Householders. i6mo. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co. $1.25. The Sanitary Condition of Town and Country Houses. i6ino. New York : D. Van Nostrand Co. 50 cts. Modern Hethods of Sewage Disposal for Towns, Public Institu- tions, and Isolated Houses. Illustrated. i2mo. New York : D. Van Nostrand Co. $2 00. Book of the Farm : or the Handy Book of Husbandry. A Man- ual for American Farmers. Illustrated. i2mo. Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. $2.50. A Farmer's Vacation. The Record of a Pleasure Trip through Holland, Normandy, and Brittany, and the Channel Islands. Illustrated. 8vo. Boston : J. R. Osgood & Co. $3.00. Tyrol and the Skirt of the Alps. Illustrated. 8vo. New York : Harper & Brothers. $3.00. The Bride of the Rhine. 200 Miles in a Mosel Rowboat. Illus- trated. i6mo. Boston : J. R. Osgood & Co. $1.50. Whip and Spur. Chiefly Horse Stories. i8mo. Boston : J, R. Osgood & Co. $1.25. Village Improvements and Farm Villages. With Diagrams. i8mo. Boston : J. R. Osgood & Co. 75 cts. The Elements of Agriculture. i6mo. New York: Orange Judd Co.v $1.00. Draining for Profit and Draining for Health. i2mo. New York: ^ Orange Judd Co. $1.50. How to Drain a House PRACTICAL INFORMATION FOR HOUSEHOLDERS / ^^ GEO. E. WARING, Jr., M. INST. C. E. Consulting Engineer for Sanitary Drainage. SECOND EDITION, WITH ANNOTATIONS NEW YORK ' D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY 1895 f^ Copyright, 1895, BY D. VAN NOSTRAND CO. < CONTENTS. CHAPTER. Prefatory : Our Enemy the Drains, . I. House-Drains and Health, II. Drains of the Average House, III. The Policy Adopted, IV. The Healthfulness of the House, V. Foundation and Cellar, . VI. Foul Drainage, VII. Specific Advice — as to Plumbing, VIII. The Sewer-Gas Question, . IX. How the Simplification of Plumbing will Affect the Plumber, X. Main Line and Main Traps, XI. Fresh-Air Inlets, . XII. Material and Construction of the Main Drain, .... XIII. The Soil-Pipe, . ' . XIV. Ventilating Cowls on Soil-Pipes, XV. Traps and Trap Ventilation, XVI. Non-Siphonic Traps. Ill I 12 22 24 29 51 56 63 68 73 79 82 86 94 98 113 CONTENTS. XVII. Plumbing Appliances, . . . 120 XVIII. Slmplicity, Economy, and Convenience, . 124 XIX. Wash-Stands, . . . .127 XX. Water-Closets — the Dececo, . -130 XXI. Sinks — the Dececo Flush-Pot, . . 143 XXII. Overflows and Stop-Cocks, . • 153 XXIII. An Example of Simple and Good Work, . 162 XXIV. Owners, Architects and Plumbers, . 166 XXV. Sewage I^isposal, .... 174 ILLUSTRATIONS. FIGURE 1. Gravel Drain under Cellar Floor near Foun- dation, ..... 2. Tile Drain, with Muslin Joint, 3. The Top Finish of a Soil Pipe, 4. The Crooks and Angles of Trap-Vent Pipes 5. Putnam's Trap, .... 6. The " Puro " Trap, 7. The Dececo Water-Closet, 8. " " Flush-Pot for Sinks, 9. Flattened Sink Waste, . 10. Hidden Overflow of Bath, 11. Standing Overflow and Plug for Bath, 12. Double Chambered Flush-tank, 13. The Rhoads-Williams Siphon, . 14. Plan of Sub-surface Irrigation System, 15. 16. 17. Method of Laying Disposal Tile, 18. 19. •* 33 34 95 107 115 118 134 146 151 155 158 187 190 195 195 195 200 200 201 X ILLUSTRATIONS, figure page 20. Open Flush-tank (Section), . . . 209 21. " " (Plan), ... * 209 22. " " (Cross-Section), . .210 23. Straining Basket for Flush-tank, . .211 24. Wire Screens for Flush-tank, . .211 25. Plan of Surface Disposal System, . .215 26. " " *< .. . ^ 215 27. Combined Surface and Sub-surface Disposal, 216 28. Gutter, Tile, and Cap, .... 217 29. Open Flush-tank (Masonry Construction), ,218 30. Distributing Chamber, .... 220 31. Operation of Distributing Chamber, . 222 32. " " " . . 222 33. " *' " . . 222 Note. — The text of this book applies to conditions existing in 1885. The notes at the ends of the chapters relate to progress made since that date. PREFATORY: OUR ENEMY THE DRAINS. The drains In average modern houses are probably the most serious and preva- lent enemies with which struggling humanity has to contend. But, at the worst, they are only Incidentally enemies, and they are never necessarily so. All of the intended purposes of the drains are wholly beneficial. With all of their defects, it is not too much to say that on the whole the world is much bet- ter off with them than it would have been without them. Defective though they often are, whether in the house or in the IV PRE FA TOR V. Street, they have probably been, next after the introduction of a pure water-supply, the most important factor in the reduc- tion of the death-rate. That a country town, depending en- tirely on outside privies and on cess- pools,— with all that their use implies in the way of exposure and irregularity of habits, and of the fouling of the ground and the air — would be vastly improved in its sanitary condition by the introduc- tion of even an imperfect system of sewerage and with plumbing-work of a very low and ordinary character, is not to be doubted. Therefore, at the worst, one enemy has displaced another, and the new one is much less to be dreaded than the old. What we still need is continued prog- ress in the right direction. As indoor water-closets are better than out-of-door privies ; as defective waste-pipes are better PRE FA TOR V. V than none ; and as bad sewers are better than cess-pools, so will good substitutes for all of these defective things lead to still further Improvement. In the following pages the subject Is approached entirely from the point of view of the individual householder — he who has got so far on In wisdom as to know that Imperfect drainage Is an enemy to the well-being of his household, and that by abolishing the Imperfections, the enemy can be disarmed and made a most useful ally. The drainage system is, however, a trustworthy ally 07ily so lo7ig as the woman of the house holds It under close and careful supervision. Her whole duty Is not done when her husband has paid a good round sum to the engineer and to the plumber. It Is only begun. There has been placed under her con- Tl PRE FA TOR V. trol a means of safety, or an engine of destruction, according as she performs her duty, or neglects it. She can not safely delegate her responsibility to her servants. Her own eye must see that at no point, has neglect, at any time, per- mitted even the beginning of filth — for the beginning of filth is the beginning of danger. It marks the desertion of the ally to the ranks of the enemy. G. E. W., Jr. Newport, R. I., December, 1884. HOW TO DRAIN A HOUSE. CHAPTER I. HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. FORTY years ago the best houses In American cities were little if at all better in the matter of drainage than are the best houses of Paris, with very rare exceptions, to-day. They had at best only one drain to remove the kitchen waste and another to drain the cellar. All the water used was carried by hand and it was used in limited quantities. The bath was an exceptional luxury ; the water- closet was almost unknown, and the un- speakable horrors of the privy, the close- 2 HO USE DRA INS A ND BE A L TH. Stool and the sick-chair — still dominant in undrained houses, and especially in coun- try houses — were accepted as an inevitable incident of human life. Happily, we are now emerging from this barbaric condition, and are learning to regulate our appliances according to the dictates of health and decency. A dozen years ago in a pamphlet description of the earth-closet, then re- cently invented, I wrote the following, which is as true of country houses now as it was then : Out-of-door privies, those temples of de- fame and graves of decency, that disfigure almost every country home in America, and raise their suggestive heads above the garden-walls of elegant town-houses, are, I believe, doomed to disappear from off the face of the earth. Thirty years ago, every back-yard in New York City was provided with one of these buildings ; now, since the water-closet has come into universal HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 3 use, probably there are not twenty of them to the square mile. Twenty years hence, it Is to be hoped, they will become equally rare In smaller towns and In the country. That they are objectionable on the score of decency and comfort, will be confessed by all. What Is not so gen- erally understood Is their pernicious effect upon health. The Influence of subterranean stores of fecal matter In the propagation of disease has already been referred to, and will be more fully discussed hereafter ; but that which pro- duces. In the aggregate, far worse re- sults — the aggravation of the difficulties of delicate females — has attracted less atten- tion than its importance deserves. It Is universally admitted that nothing Is more injurious to health than irregularity and the undue retention of the rejectamenta of the intestines. It Is not necessary to quote scientific authority to prove to any 4 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. person of intelligence that in prompt and regular attention to this duty lies the car- dinal secret of health. We have all been reminded, in our own persons, that our health and efficiency, as well as our cheerfulness and good humor, depend on perfect regularity in this regard. There can be little question that the prevailing female complaints are often induced, and always intensified, by disorders of the digestive organs, and the oppression in the lower regions that neglect in this matter causes. Admitting the justness of the view, let us see what chance a woman living in the country has to escape the direst evils that ''delicate health" has in store for its victims. The privy stands, perhaps, at the bottom of the garden, fifty yards from the house, approached by a walk bordered by long grass, which is always wet except during the sunny part of the day, overhung by shrubbery and vines, HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 5 which are often dripping with wet, and sometimes exposed to the public gaze. In winter, snow-drifts block the way, and dur- ing rain there is no shelter from any side. The house itself is fearfully cold, if not drifted half-full with snow or flooded with rain. A woman who is comfortably housed during stormy weather will, if it is possible, postpone for days together the dreadful necessity for exposure that such conditions imply. If the walk is exposed to a neighboring work-shop window, the visit will probably be put off until dusk. In either case, no amount of reasoning will convince a woman that it is her duty, for the sake of preventing troubles of which she is yet ignorant, to expose herself to the danger, the discom- fort, and the annoyance that regularity under such circumstances implies. I pass over now the barbarous foulness and the stifling odor of the privy- 6 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. vault. It is only as an unavoidable evil that these have been tolerated ; but I can not too strongly urge attention to the point taken above, and insist on the fact that every consideration of humanity, and of the welfare not only of our own families, but of the whole community, demands a speedy reform of this abuse. It will hardly be believed by my more civilized readers that, over more than half of the older settled parts of the United States, even the every-way ob- jectionable system that I have described is comparatively unknown, and that the corn-field and the thicket are the only retreat provided, while the majority of farmers' houses, even at the North, are most inadequately supplied. In view of the foregoing facts, I make no apol- ogy for calling the attention of women themselves to this important matter, believing that they will universally con- HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 7 cede that, however much of elegance and comfort may surround them in the appointments of their homes, their mode of Hfe is neither decent, civiHzed, nor safe, unless they are provided with the con- veniences that the water-closet and the earth-closet alone make possible. As a positive source of disease, and as the occasion of a most injurious irregu- larity, the barbarous appliances of our ancestors, still existing in connection with nine-tenths of the habitations of the United States, were and are doubtless more injurious, even at the arm's length at which they were held, than are the average water-closets of average city houses. In saying this, however, it is not intended to be understood that these average modern appliances are acceptable as any thing but makeshifts — though relatively good, they are absolutely bad. That their injurious effect on health is 8 HO USE DRA INS A ND HE A L TH. practically as bad as theoretically It ought to be, Is not obviously true. Many of their victims die In Infancy, and so large a number of those who pass this critical period withstand their evil effects, that it has come to be believed by the people at large that the outcry against them is an unreasonable one. Perhaps all popular outcry is unreason- able, but certainly those who will take the trouble to Investigate the condition of the drainage of an average house, supplied with the usual plumbing appliances, will find defects at every turn — not merely slight defects which It would on the whole be better to avoid, but generally very grave defects which it is absolutely neces- sary to eradicate before we can hope to secure those conditions of perfect health which we have a right to demand of the civilization of which we boast. In periods of epidemic, or when cholera or yellow HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. g fever is apprehended, the popular imagi- nation on the subject becomes excited, and the long death-roll which pestilence creates gives an almost dramatic force to the stronger arguments advanced against our imperfect plumbing work. As a matter of statistics, however, the deaths caused by any epidemic, and the degree to which these are favored by bad drainage, are of very secondary impor- tance. The thousands of deaths from yellow fever in New Orleans, and in Memphis, and in the Mississippi Valley generally, in 1878 and 1879, fairly shook the country with terror. They amounted in all, in both years, to less than twenty thousand. Their suddenness and their concen- tration gave them their striking effect. In the country at large there are annu- ally not fewer than one million deaths, and not fewer than two hundred thousand of I O HO USE DRA INS A ND HE A L TH these are from directly preventible dis- eases. Not fewer than one hundred thousand of these latter probably owe their origin to diseases occasioned by de- fective drainage or by the Improper reten- tion of fecal matter and other organic wastes. This enormous preventible death is, from the point of view of the political economist, only an index of something worse. Each preventible death doubtless represents, taking one disease with an- other, twenty cases of preventible sick- ness, and each such case of sickness implies at least twenty days of suffering and disability with its serious Incidental cost in nursing and medication. The real benefit, therefore, that is to accrue to the community from the estab- lishment of perfect sanitary regulations, in the house and in the town, aside from the establishment of greater vigor and HO USE DRA INS A ND HE A L TH. 1 1 efficiency, and of increased ability to withstand insalubrious conditions, Is to be sought not so much in the prevention of these deaths as In the abolition of the dis- eases which cause them. As in the town, so In the Individual house, we shall be safe if our attention is given only incidentally to the saving of life, but directly to the preservation of health, /. e., to the removal of all those conditions which affect the purity of the atmosphere In which we live, involving, of course, the purity of the ground on which our houses are built and the absolute pre- vention of the putrefaction any where within or near the house of its organic offscourings. Note. — In all of the larger towns there has been, since 1885, a very marked improvement in the character of the plumbing work done. In the older town houses, and in village and country houses, little advance has been made. CHAPTER II. DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. A HOUSE completely equipped for convenient modern life has two systems, comparable to the arterial and venous systems of the living animal. Its water supply is taken from the street main, or from the private reservoir or tank, and carried through tight pipes to the different points where convenience requires it to be delivered. This supply may easily be secured against contamina- tion, and there is little trouble, if it is pure at Its source, in keeping It pure until it Is delivered for use. The venous system — that which has for Its office the removal of the water after use — the DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 13 water supply plus the burden of filth which has been added to it — has its main discharge through the outlet drain. The various points where the pure water is made foul are also conveniently distributed throughout the house. The drains begin usually as small lead pipes ; these lead to larger iron pipes and these to the main channel, sometimes of iron and sometimes of earthenware. The particular office which this venous system has to per- form is to remove all of the refuse of the house which is suited for transportation in water. This office it usually performs with such a degree of completeness as to satisfy the average demand of the house- holder, i, e.y when water is discharged from a vessel it runs into the waste-pipe and is not heard from again. What becomes of it after it passes out of sight, whether or not it and its filth are really removed from the house ; whether or not 14 DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. the removal is so rapid and complete as to prevent deposits and accumulations, are questions about which the average member of the community is heedless. Lead pipes are usually tight. Iron pipes are connected together funnel-wise, so that whether they are tight or not the water runs away, and if the main drain does not carry to the outlet all that it receives, it leaks it out into the ground, where it is out of sight. There is more or less unpleasant smell here and there and often a sensation of closeness about the atmosphere of the whole house. These attract little atten- tion, because foul smells and closeness are generally accepted as a necessary incident of the production and disposal of filth. It is precisely the conditions which lead to these more or less obviously disagree- ' able sensations which constitute the main feature of the practical sanitary question. DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 15 1 have now In mind a large, elabo- rately decorated and richly furnished house In Fifth Avenue, New York, which I was called to inspect after a serious case of illness. The owner believed Its drainage works to be all right. They had cost a very large sum originally and they had been repaired at considerable outlay. Stationary wash-basins were distrib- uted throughout the house. The spaces under them were closely encased In fine cabinet work. There were two bath- rooms on each floor, containing the usual assortment of fixtures. The water- closets — their bowls elaborately deco- rated, some of them with gilt — were the usual '' pan " closets of the period. Every pipe v/as concealed behind partitions, and all traps and machinery were covered under the floor or behind elaborate car- pentry. The kitchen and pantry sinks 1 6 DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. had waste-pipes two and a half inches in diameter, but were so filled with grease as to have but a thread of water-way left. The drains ramified in various directions under the floor of the cellar. These carried not only the wastes of the house, but the water from the roof. The waste- pipes in the house, in compliance with what was then believed to be the best practice, were vented with small air-pipes leading above the roof. There was no effective circulation of air in any part of the drain- age system. There were evidences of positive leakage at many points, and the lines occupied by the supply and waste- pipes continued, in groups, through every floor, so that the whole house, behind the partitions and between the floor beams, constituted an unobstructed air channel from the ceiling to the garret. A stale odor was perceptible in all the passage-ways and closets and staircases, — DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 17 wherever the open fire places did not afford free ventilation. It was demonstrated in the course of the inspection and renewal of the work, that the matters intended to be removed from the house were very largely only removed from sight. For lack of any thing like adequate flushing, the large waste-pipes and soil-pipes were lined with offensive slime ; the kitchen and pantry sink wastes were nearly filled with putrefying food involved in the con- gealed grease that had attached itself to their walls. The drains under the cellar leaked at many of their joints so as to saturate and render foul the earth under the concrete floor. A direct opening into the sewer, intended to drain the cellar floor, protected only by a bell trap, from which the water had evaporated, was pouring into the air of the house as much foul gas from the drain as could get 1 8 DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. past the accumulated dust and cobwebs by which it was nearly obstructed. The chief complaint of the owner, and what he believed to be the source of all his woe, was that the public sewer was a foul one and that his house was pervaded with sewer gas. This may or may not have been the case. Whether it was or not, it was clearly demonstrated that there existed in the house itself, and almost throughout its whole drainage system, from the ''container" of every water-closet, coated on the inside nearly half an inch thick with fecal matter, to the point where the main drain passed through the foundation wall — a more than ample source of all the difficulty. Certain it is that when the work was reconstructed, though the sewer remained as before, the atmosphere of the house became, and still continues, perfectly pure. The reconstruction of the work was sub- DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 19 stantially in accordance with the principles set forth in the following pages. This is certainly not an exaggerated illustration of the condition of the drain- age works of even the best houses of only a few years ago. Since then, not only has workmanship been greatly improved, but a number of radical modifications and reformations have been universally adopted. In some cities these reforms are enforced by rigid regulation of the health authorities. Nevertheless, a great majority of the houses in New York city as well as elsewhere are still in a very defective condition, and certain require- ments, which the better sanitary practice considers important, are almost entirely absent. The glaring mistakes of ten years ago are no longer repeated by reputable plumbers. The minor and more modern improvements which are still less gen- 20 DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. erally appreciated will doubtless, before very long, be adopted into general prac- tice, and the whole community will benefit greatly thereby. It is still to be urged on every man and woman, who realizes the importance of perfection in this vital element of house construction, to anticipate the universal acceptance of the better processes and to insist that in their own cases at least, they shall be adopted forthwith. The apprehension of cholera may stimu- late attention to the subject, and that it may be urged on by each localized out- break of typhoid fever or other zymotic disease is to be expected ; but much more than this is to be desired and to be advised, i. e., to put the whole house into such perfect sanitary condition as to its waste- pipes, and as to its drains, that it can no longer by any possibility be a source even of the malaise, headache, dullness. DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 21 neuralgic affection, etc., which rob Hfe of so much of its comfort and usefulness. One may properly recall in this connection Poor Richard's recommendation : Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves. Look out well for the health-rate ana the death-rate will lose its significance. CHAPTER III. THE POLICY HEREIN ADOPTED. THE following chapters are presented as a simple and direct statement of some positive knowledge, and of more confident belief, about the drainage of houses. They are not addressed to that indif- ferent public which sees a good deal of nonsense in the theories of all reformers. They are not addressed to plumbers, who, as a rule, are little attracted and less in- fluenced by what is said by any body whose working years have not been given to plumbing work. They are not even ad- dressed to architects and engineers, who, whatever their own convictions, when they have convictions on this subject, so often find it necessary to compromise with THE FOLIC V ADOP TED. 2 3 their mechanics and with their clients, and to be content with such improvements as it seems under the circumstances judicious to insist on. They are addressed to that limited class who are willing to learn, and with whom a promising suggestion be- comes a fruitful germ ; to the few who will agree with their teachings, and to the more who will take their propositions into earnest consideration without the inten- tion, and often without the result, of agreeing with them. Where they can be avoided, alternative suofeestions will not be made. If there are two ways of doing a thing, one right and the other only not wrong, the right way alone will be described. There is usually but one best way, and all that Is to be considered here Is purely and simply the best way of Improving the drainage of a human habitation, and of maintain- ing Its good sanitary condition. CHAPTER IV. THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. THE house, and the ground under and about it, and the air with which it is filled and surrounded, should be as dry and as clean as the best constant effort can make them. To this end, the most intelligent care and the most earnest at- tention must be given to all details of con- struction, and, no less, to the details of maintenance. No house, however perfect its original condition, can remain in perfect condition if subjected to the deteriorating influences of even ordinary carelessness. Many a palace is a pig-pen in its hidden recesses, and where the light of day and the eye of a scrupulous housekeeper are withheld, there will those enemies of the THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. 25 human race, dirt and damp and decay, surely make their stand. The whole range of cubby-holes, dark cellars, uninspected closets, and those spaces about pipes and fixtures which are screened from observa- tion and withdrawn from the reach of care by the pernicious carpentry to which the plumbing art is so closely wedded, are, all of them, places to be suspected and as far as possible to be abolished. Where dark places must be maintained, they should be the chief objects of the householder's care. It is a wise old sanitary saying that '' where daylight can not enter the doctor must." Houses that are perfect, even in the general arrangement and construction of their drainage works, are extremely rare. Those which, having begun perfect, con- tinue so under daily occupation, are still more rare. So true is this that it is some- times asked if it is, after all, worth while 26 THE HEALTIIFULNESS OP THE HOUSE. to encounter the additional expense and the constant attention that perfection demands ; whether, indeed, the world has not got on so well in spite of grave sani- tary defects that it is futile to hope for an improvement corresponding with the cost in money and time. The most simple and the sufficient answer to this is that the world has not got on well at all, and is not getting on well ; that among large classes of the population one-half of all the children born die before they attain the age of five years ; that those who come to maturity rarely escape the suffering, loss of time, and incidental expense of unnecessary sickness ; that the average age of all mankind at death is not one-half of what it would be were we living under perfect sanitary conditions ; that one of the chief items of cost in carrying on the world, to say nothing of the cost of bury- THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. 27 ing those who die, Is that of supporting and attending the sick and helpless ; that another great item Is the cost of raising children to, or toward, the useful age, and then having them die before they begin to make a return on the investment ; that the great object of a well-regulated life is to secure happiness for one's self and for one's dependents, an aim which is crushed to the earth with every death of wife or child or friend. There is a sentimental view, no less important, which need not be recited, but which is sufficiently suggested to the minds of all who have had to do with the sanitary regulation of houses by the fre- quency with which their services are called Into requisition only when the offices of the undertaker have been pen formed. No cost and no care would be too great to prevent the constantly recur- ring domestic calamities which have had 2 8 THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE, their origin, and which have found their development, in material conditions that a little original outlay and a constant and watchful care would have prevented. The objects to be attained in the drain- age of a house and of its site are, first, to remove all causes of excessive dampness ; and, second, to provide a means for the water transportation of organic wastes to a safe point of disposal, in such a way as to prevent decomposition on the premises, and so as to exclude from the house all air which has been in contact with these matters after their discharge into the drainage system. The means for accomplishing these ends are of two distinct sorts : one allied to the drainage of agricultural lands, the other to the flushing of gutters. CHAPTER V. FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. THE first In order of execution, and although not first In Importance, still of absolute Importance, Is the work for preventing undue dampness of the Interior atmosphere, or of the walls, of the house by an actual Inflow of water, by an exhalation of vapor from the water contained In the soil, or by a soaking of the foundation. In the case of city houses occupying the whole width of the lots on which they stand, this drainage is neces- sarily confined to the cellar and founda- tions, and, as a rule, the water to be drained away can be delivered only into a public sewer — though there are frequent 30 FO UN DA 7 'ION A ND CELL A R. exceptional cases where, by piercing an Impervious stratum of clay or other material, an outlet may be gained Into a porous stratum of gravel or sand below. Wherever the site Is on a deep and nat- urally well-drained bed of sand or gravel, the question of drainage as a means for removing soil-water does not present itself. But here another very serious difficulty Is to be encountered, having a different sanitary bearing, but of no less sanitary consequence. This relates to the protection of the house against exha- lations from the ground — not of moisture, but of the atmospheric Impurities of the subsoil. In the case of a country house, or of a town house standing In the center of a considerable area, it Is often the most efficient means for securing satisfactory drainage to apply a very thorough system of underdralning to the whole area about PO UN DA TION' A ND CELL A R. 3 1 it and for some distance away, by laying independent lines of tile drains, not neces- sarily under the house at all, but so as to surround it on all sides from which water flows toward it, and in all cases at a depth considerably below the level of the cellar- bottom. It is seldom, even where a spring is struck in digging the cellar, that such drains, surrounding the site of the house, will not entirely divert the water. In this drainage of large lots, the charac- ter of the outlet is of secondary import- ance. All that is needed is that it shall be low enough for the free discharge of the flow of the drains. If the discharge be into a sewer, the drains should descend toward it with a sufficient fall to prevent foul water from setting back into them in the case of a gorging of the sewer at a point near the house. In the drainage of a city house occu- 32 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR, pying the whole width of the lot, the same system is to be adopted, save that the drains, instead of being so placed as to surround the house and cut off water approaching it, must perforce be placed under or near the foundation to receive such water as may have reached its actual site. Here the question of out- let becomes a serious one. If the discharge must be into a sewer, then some special means must be adopted for preventing the return of the air of the sewer to the subsoil under the house. In the construction of these drains two courses may be pursued with perhaps an equally good result. One is, after having excavated the ditch and cleared its bot- tom of all loose dirt, to fill in to the depth of a foot with sand or gravel — and even fine sand will answer the pur- pose. The other is, to use agricultural drain-tiles, preferably of the smallest FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. zz size, say an inch and a quarter in diam- eter, laid at the bottom of a well-graded trench and continued to the point of outlet. Where tiles are used, the joints should -TTTTTTTTTTTr:' FIG. I. — GRAVEL DRAIN, UNDER CELLAR FLOOR, NEAR FOUNDATION. be wrapped twice around with strips of muslin drawn tight. This makes a perfect collar, holding the tiles in line, and affording much the best pro- tection that has yet been devised against the ingress of sand or silt, which usually 34 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. finds its entrance at the lower part of the joint, flowing in with the water as it rises with the general water-level and flows off over the floor of the tile.^' Before the muslin will have rotted away the soil will become so compacted as not to follow the water into the tiles. FIG. 2. — THE DRAIN, WITH MUSLIN JOINT. Where tile drains are used, it is a mis- take to marry them to other materials. Tile alone or gravel alone will make a very good drain — tile and gravel to- gether, not nearly so good when per- * This use of muslin is patented, but it is hereby dedicnted to the public to the extent of its use under or within the foundation-wall of buildings. FO UN DA TIOiV A ND CELL A R. 35 manence is considered. Tiles should be laid on the bottom of a perfectly graded ditch, and should be compactly imbedded in the heaviest loam that is found in excavating. When covered to the depth of a foot, this clay should be well trodden down, so that if the tile could be taken out, leaving the earth undisturbed, we should find a complete matrix, or nidus, which had clasped it firmly at every point. The old marvel. How gets the water in ? is too lonof for discussion here. I beg the reader to take the word of an old drainer that it does get in — and get out — perfectly. The large pipe drains with wide joints, often with fractures ^Ivine access to ver- min — no less than the ''box drains," ''French drains," "blind drains," and various other antique devices for getting rid of soil-water — are costly, cumber- some, and in the long run, inefficient, $6 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. owing to their liability to obstruction. The amount of water that can ever be collected as a constant stream, except in the case of a very copious spring, even in very wet foundations, is extremely slight. A sand seam in the natural soil one-fourth of an inch thick is generally sufficient to carry it ; and it is such seams, carrying water in a slow but con- stant ooze, which usually produce our subterranean and surface springs. A tile an inch and a quarter in diam- eter will carry more water than can often be collected for a constant flow from the subsoil of half an acre of ground. A body of sand or gravel ten or twelve inches wide and of equal depth can not be so compacted, provided clay and loam be kept out of it, that it will not afford a free outlet for all the water that can reach it under these circumstances from the soil of an ordinary town lot. FO UN DA TION A ND CELLAR. 3 7 As a rule, the tile will be found to be much cheaper than the other mate- rial. It is better always that the depth of the drain should not be less than two feet below the level of the foot of the foundation. The more rapid the descent the better, but even two inches in a hundred feet, with perfect grading, will remove a very large flow. Indeed, if the drain has no fall, or even if it be depressed in places, provided it have a good and unobstructed outlet and well-protected joints, its surplus water will be discharged as soon as the general level of the water reaches the overflow point. Where the water is to be delivered to a sewer, I should in any case recommend the making of the outlet drain, or a part of it, with sand or very fine gravel. I should at least make a break ten feet long in the course of the drain, and fill this with such material — fine enough not to $8 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. allow the free transmission of sewer air to the drains under the house, which a con- tinuous tile drain would permit. I am aware that this recommendation is radi- cally different from what has generally been set forth ; but it long ago com- mended itself to my judgment, and has proven in practice to be entirely suc- cessful. It is a usual custom to connect the un- derdrains of a house with the drain carry- ing the foul water, and to connect with them, also, the rain-water conductors from the roof. In view of what we know of the ease with which the contained air of the subsoil may be contaminated, it is of the utmost importance, where the best results are sought, to deliver the under- ground water itself by an independent line guarded with absolute completeness against the possible invasion of sewage or foul air. Nowhere within the house, nor, FOUNDATION A^'D CELLAR. 39 indeed, for some distance outside of it, should even the rain-water conductors deliver directly into this system. By the means just described, the actual superabundant water of the soil may be removed. In connection with the foundation and cellar, two things else demand attention. The first is the carrying up of dampness through the foundations into the walls of the house, and the exhalation of watery vapor, which, in the case of a heavy soil, however well drained, is of considerable amount. These difficulties attach chiefly to clayey ground. The next is the entrance into the house of the aerial exhalations of the soil. Even a clay soil contains a large amount of air, and under different cir- cumstances, such as chano^inof barometric pressure, the rise and fall of water in the soil, and the action of winds, 40 FOUXDATION AND CELLAR. producing a strong draught in chim- neys, this air enters the cellar and the house. This difficulty, not serious in the case of stiff clay, increases greatly as the soil grows more porous and becomes more dry. For example : A pile of stones broken to the size of road-metal contains a very large amount of air, — how large we could determine by filling the voids with water and measuring its quantity. Every wind that blows, every change of tem- perature, every rise of water into the mass, drives out or changes a portion of this air. If at the bottom of the heap there lay a mass of carrion, its stench would be almost as perceptible as though the stones were not there. A bed of such stones sufficiently large and suffi- ciently compacted would make a dry, firm, safe foundation for a house — in many respects an excellent foundation. FO UNDA TION A ND CELL A R. 4 1 But if the atmosphere of the house were not separated from that of the interior of the mass of stones by something much more effective than even the usual cellar- bottom concrete, and if the carrion were putrefying beneath, the state of things would not be the worst possible only be- cause the obvious offensiveness resultino- from the putrefaction with the free inter- change of atmosphere between the house and the foundation would insure the im- mediate removal of the cause of the stench. This mass of broken stone, with its putrefying carrion below and its human habitation above, is only an exaggerated illustration of what exists universally over wide ranges of country. Houses are sometimes built on coarse gravel. Here the atmospheric interchange is almost as free as in the illustration given. Some- times the travel is finer and mixed with 42 FO UNDA TION A ND CELL A R. sand which, imposing by friction more resistance to the movement of the air, Hmits the interchange ; but interchange to the extent of free inhalation and exhalation always goes on. Nothing can prevent this from being active when chimneys are drawing strongly, while the house is sealed against the outer air ; when, indeed, as is so often and so widely the case on light soils, the whole practical ventilation of the house — that is, its intake of air — is from the ground under it, often flowing through and enriched by the various familiar fumes of ill-kept cellars. The putrid carrion, it is true, w^e do not find in such concentrated condition as to produce an insufferable stench ; but let us examine the case of a certain village. It is not necessary to name it. There is not a State in New England in which many of its parallels may not be found, FOimDAriON AND CELLAR 43 and, indeed, there is hardly a village in the whole country built on a porous soil where corresponding conditions do not exist. The village that I have in mind was built on a fiat deposit of gravel inter- mixed with very coarse sand, lying nearly level and extending in depth about fifteen feet to the permanent level of the adjacent tidal waters. It was a considerable village throughout the first half of the century ; then it began to expand into an important railroad town. It has now a large popu- lation and much wealth. It has a water supply, and ''all the modern improve- ments" — all except sewers. Its disposal of household waste of all kinds is not tipoii the soil, which would be obviously indecent, but into the soil, which has the supposed advantage of hidden indecency. The result must inevitably be a diffusion throughout the whole underlying ground- 44 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. work of the village of putrefying kitchen grease, and fecal matter and laundry slops, which can not fail to produce in the whole atmosphere of the gravelly earth a condition of marked contamination. Even in the milder season, however free the interchange between the air in the ground and the air over it, the air of so much of the grx)und as lies under houses can not be by any means ideally perfect. When the interchange between the outer air and the ground is cut off by frost, and when cellars and wells form almost the only means of communication, then the condi- tion is only infinitely worse. This description may seem at first read- ing too sensational, and dwellers on light soils will point with satisfaction to the relatively low death-rate that their com- munities furnish as contrasted with that of dwellers on damp clay soils, where this atmospheric interchange is practically in- FOUNDATION AND cellar: 45 operative. This is no fair response. The death-rate is comparatively low under these circumstances, not because of, but in spite of, the almost universal breathing of the products of putrefaction as exhaled by the soil into the house. Could this element be withdrawn, it can not be ques- tioned that, on the lighter soil, the death-rate, and in larger degree the sick- rate, would show a much greater contrast. The practical question now arises, how to meet this difficulty } If proper sewers were once provided, an absolute suppres- sion of all vaults and cesspools would suf- fice to secure the early purification of the ground, for the bacteria of decomposition — those universal scavengers — would soon make away with the existing accumulation. How far their action may modify the pres- ent ill effects of the constantlv renewed underground filth we have as yet no means of knowing. If we are wise we 46 FO UNDA TION A ND CELL A R. shall take the benefit of the doubt and cut off the supply of foul material. Sooner or later, we shall secure, by sewerage and a compulsory use of the sewers, the complete purification of the subsoil. In the meantime, the individual householder who has an anxious thought as to the condition of his Individual house, and who is now living subject to the influences of an evil due to his neigh- bors' many cesspools more than to his own single one, should seek some means to protect himself against enemies which his neighbors are willing to disregard. He will find his best protection in Isolating his house in the most effective way from the ground In which It Is founded. There is a common belief that stone walls laid In mortar, and cellar floors covered with a few Inches of concrete, effect such Isola- tion. This Is not the fact. Concrete floors and granite walls are as sponge to FO UN DA no y A .YD CEL LAR. 47 the penetration under slight pressure of atmospheric currents. To what degree walls and concrete floors filter out the impurities of the air passing through them we do not know. Not knowing, we will not trust. One of the safest materials for a cellar bottom, and for the exterior packing of foundation walls, is a clean, smooth, compact clay, one which may be beaten into a close mass, and which has a sufficient affinity for moisture always to maintain its retentive condition. When used in the damp atmosphere of a cellar or about a foundation, it seems to constitute a good barrier to the passage of impure air. In the cellar it may, of course, be covered with concrete for cleanliness and for good appearance ; but six inches of clay well rammed while wet will impede the movement of air to a degree with which ordinary cellar con- 48 FOUND A 7 VON AND CELLAR. Crete can furnish no parallel. Where clay is" not available, a good smearing of asphalt over the outside of the founda- tion-wall, and a layer of asphalt between two thicknesses of concrete for the cellar- bottom, will afford a complete though more costly protection. Asphalt used in substantially the same way, especially if in connection with a solid course of slate or North River bluestone, in the founda- tion above the ground level, will prevent the soaking up into the structure of the moisture of a heavy soil. The matters above touched upon are seldom discussed in works on house- drainage, except so far as the mere removal of surplus soil moisture is con- cerned, but their importance is not likely to be overestimated. There may be good grounds for the opinion of those who think that many of the minor ailments to which the FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 49 race is subject, and some of its more serious ailments as well, are due, not to the influence of an excess of filth in any form, but to the influence of an excess of moisture acting often on a little filth, or on a little oro-anic waste which would not be classed as filth at all. Such ailments prevail more especially in houses in which mold is prevalent, which on being closed soon acquire a musty smell, and in which stuffiness is a natural condition — houses where a general and all-pervading slight dampness is to be detected. This damp- ness may belong to the structure rather than to the climate ; for there are dry houses at the sea-side and damp houses on the mountains. The soil has an influence over the interior climate of the house, which is even stronger than external atmospheric conditions. Positive knowledore does not carry us very far in this direction, 5 o FO UN DA 77 ON A ND CELLAR. but the experience and observation of the world, especially where intermittent fevers and neuralgia prevail and where an ailing condition and low tone are the rule, have indicated very clearly that the wisest course for every man who would make his home perfectly healthy would be to separate it as completely as possible from all interchange of air or moisture with the ground on which it is built. CHAPTER VI. FOUL DRAINAGE. ANOTHER and even more important branch of house-drainage has come into general use within a comparatively short time. This is now attracting quite all the attention that is its due. Knowl- edge concerning it is advancing steadily, and on the whole satisfactorily. Mistakes have been made during the past dozen years even by the best of those who have had to do with it. Such mistakes have from time to time become recognized, and they have been remedied, until we are now approaching something like a fair understandinor of the fundamental requirements of house-drainage. Perhaps it would be too much to say that the practice of the art keeps any thing like 52 FOUL BRA IX AGE. even pace with the knowledge as to its principles. Neither the common usage of the best plumbers nor the average requirements of the boards of health of cities show any very considerable improvement over what was done in the better work of some years ago, save in better workmanship. Leaky joints in iron pipe, though still by no means uncommon, are less frequently found since attention has been given to testing joints underpressure. In the best work, the thorough ventilation of soil- pipes, furnishing an inlet as well as an outlet for the movement of air, is now generally adopted. Another step in ad- vance is marked by the abandonment or the much better construction of drains laid under cellar-bottoms. The greatest step of all — the step which Insured wide public benefit — was taken when municipal boards of health became FOUL DRAINAGE. 53 SO generally, so almost universally, inter- ested in the subject of plumbing regula- tions. These bodies have nearly every where established an effective control over all new work done, and often over the amendment of old work. The main point being gained, that all such work is to be executed according to rules and under such inspection as will secure the observance of the rules, it is only a ques- tion of time when the rules themselves shall be perfected. As they stand, these plumbing regula- tions permit some things which they will hereafter prohibit, and they require some things which they will hereafter, perhaps, not permit. In the latter category is the back ventilation of traps, and in the for- mer the use of '' pan " water-closets, of fresh-air inlets at the level of the side- walk, and of bends, cowls, and caps at the top of the soil-pipe. 54 FOUL DRAINAGE. However, in spite of all their imperfec- tions, the establishment of such regula- tions, and the rigorous enforcement of their requirements under actual inspec- tion, have marked the greatest progress that has been made for a long time past. It is to be remembered, in criticising these regulations, that they are necessa- rily made suitable for universal applica- tion. They are a very inadequate guide for the arrangement of the plumbing work of a large and elaborate house ; but they do constitute an invaluable guide and safeguard for work of a cheaper sort. The poor tenant, who was formerly at the mercy of his landlord, is now pro- tected by a system which must inevitably prevent the repetition of the infamous work of the cheap plumber of a few years ago. Note. — Fortunately, what is here said as to the com- mon usage of the best plumbers and the requirements of FOUL DRAINAGE. ^^ boards of health, is no longer true. Plumbers — of the belter class — have improved their methods and their work very greatly, and boards of health, so far as their need to regulate their requirements to the poorer classes will permit, are exerting a most beneficent influence over the house drainage of their towns. Board-of-health rules and regulations have been im- proving, year by year, and while they are still often far short of perfection, there is good reason to be satislied with the progress that is being made. " Pan " water-closets are quite generally prohibited, but the back ventilation of traps and the sidewalk air inlets still hold their sway. CHAPTER VII. SPECIFIC ADVICE. IT is no part of the purpose with which this book is written to discuss, even in a general way, the different methods and processes of house-drainage, nor the vari- ous theories and opinions by which dif- ferent writers on the subject are in- fluenced. It will be assumed that the reader will be satisfied to find here only the writer's own opinion, and a statement of the grounds on which that opinion is based. I shall therefore confine myself to saying what I advise doing, with the reasons therefor. I advise, above and before all, that in every house, large or small, the amount of plumbing work be reduced to the low- SFE CIFIC A D VICE. 5 7 est convenient limit ; that there be not two sinks or water-closets or bath-tubs where one will suffice for reasonable con- venience ; that under no circumstances shall there be a wash-basin or any other opening into any channel which is con- nected with the drainage system, in a sleeping-room, nor ordinarily in a closet opening into a sleeping-room. I should confine all plumbing fixtures on bed-room floors to bath-rooms. I should give each bath-room exterior ventilation, but I should never locate its pipes against an outer wall unless I could give adequate protection against frost, for the liability to danger from the freezing of waste-pipes, traps, etc., is greater than the liability to danger from an interior location — if the fixtures are all of the best sort, and if the room itself is sufficiently ventilated. I should always, so far as possible, 58 SPE CIFIC A D VICE. place the bath-rooms so nearly over each other on different floors, that they could all be connected by short waste-pipes with one vertical soil-pipe, or so that the soil-pipe could reach them with short off- sets. If bath-rooms or water-closets were required on all floors, or on any floor, in different parts of the house, I should serve each set with its own vertical soil- pipe, avoiding any considerable horizon- tal run, such as is at times resorted to in connecting fixtures at different points on different floors. I should try, so far as possible, to have every part of the plumbing work fully exposed to sight. It is occasionally neces- sary to run a soil-pipe or other waste- pipe in a position where it ought to be concealed ; but I should, when I could, avoid such situations, and when possible I should resort to some frank decoration of the pipe rather than to its concealment behind a casing. SPE CIFIC A D VICE. 5 9 Wherever pipes pass through floors in going from one story to another, I should make an absolutely tight blocking of the channel. As generally arranged, the soil-pipe and other pipes run through bungling openings In the floor concealed behind carpentry of one sort or another, and the pipes themselves are boxed in so that the whole system constitutes a free run-way for vermin, and a free chan- nel for the diffusion from cellar to garret, and between floors and behind partitions, of whatever foul air an ill-kept cellar and closet-fixtures may produce. The diffusion throughout steam-heated and ill-ventilated rooms of the floating results of hidden decomposition is appa- rent to a fresh nostril in many a " first-class house." There is no minor item connected with house-drainage that is productive of such an obvious improvement in the atmosphere of the rooms as the shutting off of this means of intercommunication. 6o SPECIFIC ADVICE. I should use only extra-heavy soil-pipe, or pipe at least with extra-strong hubs, so that the lead calking can be driven so tightly home as to make leakage under any pressure absolutely impossible. I should try to avoid the placing of plumbing fixtures of any sort In the cellar of a house, unless they could so be ar- ranged as to deliver Into a soil-pipe or drain not concealed under the floor. In exceptional cases, where an underground drain Is necessary, I should not follow the regulations and lay a mason-work trench with a movable cover, so that ac- cess to the pipe could be gained at pleas- ure. I should have the pipe laid In an open trench, and so thoroughly calked that under a pressure equal to the height of one story not a drop should escape at any joint ; and then, a safe conduit being secured, I should inclose it In a concreting of the best cement, embracing SFE CIFIC A D VICE. 6 1 it SO completely and so securely that If the Iron should rust out and be washed away, the cement Itself would constitute a safe channel. I should make It a chief aim to secure for all needed fixtures the greatest sim- plicity, and for all waste-pipes the greatest absence of complication. I should use sinks without grease-traps, bath-tubs without inaccessible overflows, wash- basins free as far as possible from fouling places, and water-closets without valves, connecting rods, or machinery. This suggestion Is a radical one, and it will fail of acceptance in many most respectable quarters. There can be, however, no question as to the propriety of expressing one's firm con- victions In the most distinct way. What I am endeavoring to convey is not the well-known average opinion of en- gineers and sanitarians — only my own 62 SPECIFIC ADVICE. Opinion. This may be entirely wrong : but It is the outgrowth of the best thought that I have been able to give the subject, and It must be conceded that no harm will result to the health of the people If It Is followed out In practice. Note. — In connection with the instructions given in this chapter, attention is called to the note to Chapter XIII, concerning the Durham system of piping. It is still my opinion that grease-traps, of the kind gen- erally used, are a nuisance, and that their use should not be permitted. There is another sort of grease-trap now available, however, which obviates the deposits which it is the purpose of the old grease-trap to cause. This is the " Siphon Eduction " trap, made by Flushtank Com- pany, Richmond, Ind. Grease and other floating mat- ters are retained temporarily, and at regular intervals an automatic flushtank, which discharges a copious stream through a flushing rim, washes everything clean. CHAPTER VIII. THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. THE main purpose of house-drainage, as we now understand it, is to remove all such wastes of domestic life as are suited for transportation in running water with the greatest completeness and with the greatest attainable safety. To secure this object, the drainage system must be so constructed as to carry away, completely and immediately, every thing that may be delivered into it ; to be con- stantly and generally well ventilated ; to be frequently and thoroughly flushed ; and to have each of its openings into the house guarded by a secure and reliable obstacle to the movement of air from the 64 THE SE WER- GAS QUES TION Interior of the drain or pipe Into the room. It Is no longer a question of '' sewer- gas." Wherever the offensive exhala- tions designated by this term exist, wher- ever the effluvium of putrid waste may be detected, there is inevitably defective arrangement, or defective workmanship, or both. It Is no longer to be considered the best policy to shut off sewer-gas from the house by confining it to the sewer. The true course should be to seek the seat of the evil and to remove Its cause. The foul air in a defective sewer or In a defective house-drain — and It more often originates in the latter — is Invarl- ably the result of the accumulation and retention of filth — its retention for a long enough time to allow it to enter Into putrid decomposition. There Is but one proper way to cure It ; that Is, to prevent THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. 65 the accumulation. Such removal is to be secured only by thorough flushing, either by a copious stream accompanying the discharge, or by frequent periodic wash- ings sufficient to sweep all deposits away. No flushing will prevent some sliming of the pipes, but good ventilation, will take care of this. All drains, soil-pipes, and waste-pipes should be absolutely tight, not only against the leakage of liquid, but against the leakage of air ; they should be so reached, in every part, by a flushing stream of one sort or another, that deposit and accumulation will be impos- sible ; they should be as thoroughly ventilated in every part as the safety of the water-seal will permit. The exterior drain, and ultimately the sewer into which it delivers, should have the same general characteristics, it being under- stood that the freest possible ventilation 66 THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. is to be given to both sewer and house- drain, by the admission of air from with- out and the delivery of air to the open sky, without the possibility of its entering the house at any point, in any manner, or at any time. All fixtures should be so trapped that the exclusion of the air of the drain should be assured, but at the same time in such a manner that at each use of every fixture all the filth that it deliv- ers shall be carried com.pletely away, the trap being immediately refilled with fresh water. Such are the leading sanitary require- ments of house-drainage. These being secured, it is a matter of little sanitary consequence whether the fixtures them- selves are cheap or costly, simple or elaborate, ornamented or plain. As, however, these appliances are devoted to the meaner uses of the household, good THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. 67 taste would indicate that their most appropriate '' elegance " is to be secured by making them and their belongings as simple as possible, and as inexpensive as the securing- of the best results will allow. They should be conspicuous, if at all, by their purity and cleanliness. Having thus set forth the general principles that should govern the con- struction of the drainage work of houses of all classes, we may next consider its details. CHAPTER IX. HOW THE SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING WILL AFFECT THE PLUMBER. A CHIEF obstacle to the simplification of the plumbing works of a house arises from the mistaken commercial In- stinct of the plumber. It looks at first blush as though any thing tending to cut down the amount of their work must be injurious. So far as the present force of good plumbers is concerned, it seems to me that their business interest lies entirely in the other direction. New houses are being built with great rapidity and old houses are having their plumbing work re- arranged more and more thoroughly every SIMP LI PICA TION OP PLUMBING. 69 year. Certainly the work is increasing much faster than is the number of plumb- ers qualified to do it properly. If the present profusion of plumbing appliances is adhered to, the only possible way in which construction and repair can be done will be by increasing the number of plumbers, faster, much faster, than material for the making of ^6'6><3f plumbers will present itself. Of course, the number of men engaged in this handicraft must increase constantly, but the more the amount of work in each house can be reduced the better and longer hold will the present force of good master and journeymen plumbers and the well- trained future addition to that force be able to do all of the good work offering within their reach. They are suffering now very greatly from competition with inferior and unprincipled men. The more rapidly the amount of work to 70 SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING. be done Increases, the more will this com- petition work to their disadvantage. If this suggestion is sound, the best course for the better plumbers to adopt in the interest of their own business will be to approve of and to recommend such a reduction of the amount of work in each case as will enable them to manage the growing number of cases. It is appropriate in this connection to offer a distinct recognition of the fact that practically, so far as the interests of the whole people are concerned, the plumbing fraternity are by far the most influential of all house sanitarians. Engineers, physi- cians and health officers accomplish much by their influence with individuals, and by the exercise of their professional and official functions ; but they reach after all only a limited section of the community. The plumber on the contrary makes his influence felt on every hand. Where an SIMPLIFICA TION OF PL UMBING. 7 1 engineer or a sanitarian has to do with the drainage of one house, a plumber in good practice has practically the absolute control of a hundred houses. Ninety-nine men out of one hundred would receive the suggestion of a theoretical sanitarian in a very gingerly way, while they would accept without question the dictum of a practical plumber. Plumbers of the better class are fast coming to recognize the fact that the prosperity which this popular confidence brings to them, carries with it a serious public responsibility — a responsibility which, as a rule, they are endeavoring to meet in a spirit that is at least rare with men of other crafts. It is not universal with them. Another responsibility falls upon those who undertake to instruct architects, house-owners, and plumbers themselves as to the proper management of house- 72 SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING. drainage, i. e., the responsibility that attends an interference with plumbers' work. It is not only important to pre- scribe what should be done, but it is im- portant to do this in such a spirit, and with such clearness, as to carry persua- sion and conviction to the minds, and to engage the willing interest, of these ubi- quitous guardians of the health of the household. It is mainly because of this responsibility that I am anxious to assure those whose interests lie in the construc- tion of house-drainage works that the simplification of drainage systems which I so earnestly advise is in no respect inimical to the best business interests of the trade. CHAPTER X. THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. IN arranging the details of house-drain- age the main line Is always first to be considered. It begins at the sewer, or flush-tank, or — in barbarous Instances — at the cess-pool ; passes through the house by such a course as may be Indi- cated by a judicious compromise between directness and convenience, past the loca- tion of the highest fixture that Is to dis- charge Into It, and then passes out through the roof for free ventilation. The question of a main trap betw^een the house and a public sewer has been much discussed, and Is still determined by no rule. There should always be such 74 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. a trap between the house and a flush- tank or a cess-pool. I am incHned to the behef that there should not be such a trap ui the case of discharge into a sewer, unless it be especially foul. If it is only a great cess-pool, holding the accumu- lated deposits of a street or larger district, or if its interior atmosphere is at all com- parable in offensiveness with that of a cess-pool, then a trap will be desirable ; but if it has such an atmosphere as will admit of the entrance of workmen, and If its contents are carried forward in Its cur- rent with reasonable completeness, I in- cline to the opinion that, even If no other house connected with it aids in its venti- lation, it will be better that the single house under consideration should be con- nected without a trap. I have reached this conclusion slowly and in opposition to the opinion of many of the best engineers. The objections THE MAIN LIiYE AND MAIN TRAPS. 75 ordinarily raised against the practice are that by it '' the sewer-gas is laid on " to the house ; that contagious diseases exist- ing in other houses connected with the sewer will communicate their infection directly to any house not so cut off ; and that, as a matter of common policy, one man alone should not ventilate a sewer that is used without ventilation by neigh- bors. There are two arguments against this, and they seem to be controlling ones, {a?) The purpose to be secured is the greatest practicable purity of the drains and pipes of the particular house, and, while it is true that a trap will shut off the air of the sewer, it is also true that the trap itself, unless the course of the drain is very steep and its flushing very copious, may not only form a seat of decomposing filth, but will so set back the flow as to cause a deposit of foul material for some dis- 6 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. tance along the drain on the house side of the trap. If the sewer is not extremely offen- sive — more offensive than a critical in- vestigation made a few years ago showed most sewers in New York city to be — there will be less stench coming from a current of air flowing from the sewer without a trap than will be devel- oped in the house-drain itself with a trap. The absence of the trap will secure a pretty constant and effective current of air from the sewer through to the top of the soil-pipe. With the trap, a suffi- cient current can be established by the use of a well-placed fresh-air inlet ; but the immediate seat of decomposition in and behind the trap will continue active. (^.) All the cry about sewer-gas being " laid on," and about the intercommuni- cation of diseases from one house to another by means of the sewer, is the out- THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 77 growth of a condition that Is now hardly tolerated, and that certainly Is not con- templated In this paper. In the older work, there was either no ventilation whatever to the drainage system of the house or It was very Inefficient. The water used, though perhaps not less in amount then than now, was not so used as to secure a good flushing effect, while the stability of traps was then little thought of. Pressure of any sort being brought to bear on the atmosphere of the sewer, foul air escaped into house-drains and found no other means of relief than by forcing traps or by working its way out at defec- tive joints. Under such circumstances, the argument in favor of the trap was a strong one. Now, house-drain and soil- pipe are tight, ventilation is very free and complete, the effect of a pressure on the air of the sewer is not to be feared, traps 78 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. are reliable, and, in the best work, joints are absolutely tight. Under such conditions the safeguard supposed to be furnished by the exterior trap is not needed — assuming always that the sewer Is a reasonably clean one. Its condition will always be improved by the ventilation furnished by the untrapped drain. CHAPTER XI. FRESH-AIR INLETS. IN the case of country houses, not dis- charging into sewers, the trap is a necessity. Wherever a trap is used, there must be on the house side of it an inlet for fresh air. There can be no real ventila- tion of the drainage system if it is open only at its top. A bottle can not be ven- tilated by removing its cork, nor will a chimney draw if it has no opening at the bottom. A copious inlet for fresh air, working in conjunction with a wide open- ing at the top of the soil-pipe, will insure a free movement throughout the whole system that will accomplish an adequate ventilation, not only of the main channel 8o FRESH- AIR INLETS. ■ itself, but, by the diffusion of gases, of short branches connecting fixtures with it. Most of the directions given insanitary journals and books for the arrangement of fresh-air inlets, especially In cities, seem to have been made without due regard to their liability to become obstructed by rubbish, and especially to become entirely closed by accumulations of snow. Many such inlets In New York, at the edge of the pavement or at the face of the curb, are sometimes blocked for days together in bad winter weather. Becoming ob- structed from any cause, their efficiency stops, and for the time being the security that they should afford is withdrawn. There is really no good reason for placing this opening at a distance from the house. I have never known annoy- ance resulting from the Inlet pipe being brought out at the face of the foundation wall, preferably, of course, not too near FRESH-AIR INLETS. S'x to windows and doors. With well-flushed pipes, as already said, the constant though often slow movement of air throucrh them so reduces the offensiveness, which a few years since was thought to be inevitable, that, although there might be a slight outward puff when closets or baths are discharged, no annoyance results. CHAPTER XII. MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. WHETHER the soil-pipe passes through or under the foundation of the house, unless the wall be old enough for all dancrer of settlement to have passed, it should be carried through an arched opening to prevent its dis- turbance if settlement does occur. In any case, the iron pipe should be con- tinued for nearly or quite a full length (five feet) outside of the foundation wall. It may be continued further with advan- taore. Althouorh thus laid in the crround and used as a drain, iron pipe is not, like earthenware pipe, imperishable ; still the greater certainty of tightness, and correct A/ A TERIA L A ND CONS TR UC 7 ION. 83 grading, if due only to the better class of workmen by whom it is done, is a strong argument in its favor. After reaching solid ground that has not been disturbed in excavating for the foundation, a care- fully laid and rigidly inspected earthen- ware drain is to be preferred. After the drain passes inside of the foundation wall it is better, where it is not necessary to connect with fixtures in the cellar, that it should be carried in full sight, along the face of the cellar wall or suspended from the floor-beams, to the point where it is to turn up as a vertical soil-pipe. This is advisable because here as much as any where else in the house, it is important to be able to inspect the joints, and to know always the condition of the work. If, however, it should be necessary to make connection with a water-closet or other fixture in the cellar, it is better that 84 MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. the main channel should run under the floor to or near the location of such fix- ture, in order that all or nearly all of its length may constitute a part of the main line, thoroughly flushed and thoroughly ventilated, like the rest of the system. If there are several vertical soil-pipes, it will suffice, of course. If one of them is carried down for the cellar connection, and the others can be carried too^ether above ground and connected with the main line before leavinor the house. A branch only ten or twelve feet long, run- ning to a servants' closet In the cellar, even if provided with adequate upward ventilation, is not likely to keep In nearly so good condition as it would if carrying also the discharge of closets and baths above. Whenever It becomes necessary to lay the drain under the cellar floor, I should not counsel the following of the usual recom- • MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 85 mendation to lay an iron pipe in a mason- work trench, with a cover that may be removed for inspection. It should be protected as hereinbefore described. CHAPTER XIII. THE SOIL-PIPE. IT is a generally accepted rule, and a good one where space suffices, to use no short turns — technically, '' T branches " and ''quarter bends." Two one-eighth bends, or a Y branch and a single one- eighth bend, give a more gradual and therefore better change of direction. So, in the attachment of water-closets to vertical soil-pipes, it is usual and better to make the connection w^ith Y branches. Where space does not suffice, however, a half Y answers a sufficiently good pur- pose, and even a T branch (right angle) is less objectionable than it was when THE SOIL-PIPE. . 87 flushing was less copious than now. The soil-pipe throughout its whole length, horizontal as well as vertical, should be so secured with hangers and clamps or hooks and with supporting posts that it will be rigidly fixed in its position. From the beginning of the work, every joint should be made with a view to being tested under hydraulic pressure. If the workman has this in view, the test will generally discover few leaks. As ordi- narily made, especially where the whole circumference of the pipe is not easily accessible to the calkinor tool, a test will almost invariably disclose serious leakage. In every case the test should be made, and every semblance of a leak should be calked until thoroughly tight under pres- sure. In making this test, the simplest way is to close all openings into the pipe with disks of india-rubber compressed between two plates of iron forced together 88 THE SOIL-PIPE. with a screw. Such plugs can be fastened so tightly as to hold a head of fifty feet. There is no special advantage, however, in applying this force ; for if joints are to leak at all, they will leak usually under a head of a few inches, and always under a head of a few feet. It is generally most convenient to test the vertical pipes story by story, the plugs being inserted through the water-closet branches. Another satisfactory test which maybe applied after all fixtures are attached, is made with an air-pump and pressure- gauge, such as gas-fitters use. If the gauge stands firm even under a slight pressure for an hour together, the work may be accepted as tight. The principal drawback is that, if the joints are not tight, it is much more difificult to locate a slight leak than when the water test is used. I think it may be accepted as a well- THE SOIL-PIPE. 8q grounded rule that no prudent owner should receive and pay for his plumbing work until all of the iron waste-pipe has been tested, by one or the other of these methods, under the personal observation of the architect or his plumbing expert. There is probably no occasion to fear that work once made tight w^ill develop leaks for many years, the tendency to rust after a time, even with tar-coated or enameled pipe, being rather to close such slight leaks as may exist. The fear has sometimes been felt that sand-holes and slight imperfections in cast-iron soil-pipe may lead to the per- manent injury of the work. Ordinarily, this is not a real danger. Where pipes have been tested before erection by being filled with water in single lengths and rejected because of slight leaks, it has been found that a few hours later such leaks have become entirely closed with 90 THE SOIL-PIPE. rust. Doubtless a rust closure is a per- manent one. The use of cast-iron for soil-pipe and minor waste-pipes is still almost univer- sal. They are jointed with lead, which should be of sufficient amount to fill the joint entirely full at a single pour- ing. This lead is then tightly driven home with a steel caulking iron, and so packed closely against the walls of the pipes. There are two grades of soil-pipe knowm to the trade, ''common" and '' extra-heavy." If common pipe has suf- ficiently strong hubs to stand heavy calk- ing, and if the outer and inner circtunfer' cnces are concentric, there is no reason why it may not be trusted for very long service ; but it is difficult to maintain the core in a perfectly concentric position, and even in the best pipe there is gener- ally a slight difference of thickness THE SOIL-PIPE. 91 between one side and another. A very slight difference is a serious matter in common pipe. In extra-heavv pipe, un- less the eccentricity is very obvious, even the thinner portion will be thick enough for safety. This thicker pipe, however, is sometimes weakened by air bubbles in the mass. To detect these, the pipe should be tested by sharp hammering over its whole surface. In ordinary work in private houses, a diameter of four inches has been adopted as sufficient for the soil-pipe. So far as the mere water-way is concerned, this diameter is ample, even when roof water is admitted from very large houses. Indeed, for most cases a diameter of three inches will furnish a sufficient water-way ; then, again, the smaller the pipe the more thoroughly it is flushed by the stream discharo^ed through it. There is, however, another considera- 92 THE SOIL-PIPE. tlon that is Important. The siphonic action, or suction, produced upon lateral branches by the discharge of water through the main shaft, is in inverse pro- portion to the diameter of the pipe. The sudden discharge of a water-closet using three or four gallons of water through the three-inch soil-pipe might, under favorable circumstances, produce a considerable vacuum in the branches. The same volume flowing through a four-inch pipe would have a less effect, and through a five-inch pipe still less. Practically, where there are no fixtures higher than the fourth story, and where the admission of air from the top of the soil-pipe Is very free, four Inches may generally be regarded as a safe size.' Note. — For a long time what is known as tlie Durham system of soil and waste piping was too imperfect in its details to satisfy the requirements of the best work. Mr. Durham has now, however, greatly improved the THE SOIL-PIPE. 93 castings used for jointing liis pipes ; has substituted steel for wrought iron ; and has perfected his system in all its details. It is now much the best method of piping, and, especially as it is not very much more costly, it ought to supplant the use of cast-iron pipes in all but the cheaper classes of plumbing. The whole work is thoroughly galvanized, inside and out, all the joints are screwed together with deep threads, and, aside from the better practical result, it has a much better appearance, which is not a small matter now that it is the rule to leave all the piping exposed to view. As a rule, the single pipes are long enough to reach from floor to ceiling, and the joints and branches are out of sight under the floor. In the reconstruction of the plumbing of the United States Capitol at Washington, in 1893, I used the Dur- ham system exclusively. There was over a mile and a half (8582 feet) of piping, ranging from 8-inch to 2-inch, The work was necessarily very complicated, and there were no fewer than 4742 joints. Every part of the system was tested under an air pressure of 10 pounds per square inch, and every joint was screwed up until it was abso- lutely tight ; 2008 feet of the pipe (from 3 inches to 5 inches diameter) is of brass, iron-pipe thickness, and 1422 feet of this — all that is in sight — is nickel-plated. The remaining pipe, in the cellar, is of heavy galvanized steel. CHAPTER XIV. VENTILATING COWLS ON SOIL-PIPES. THE upward extension of soil-pipe for complete ventilation is a matter of much importance, and one that has been considerably bedeviled by invention. Experiments instituted to demonstrate the utility of different caps or ventila- ting cowls have not yet been carried to a complete scientific result ; but they have sufficed to establish two important points. One is, that every ventilating cowl of whatever kind, and of whatever effective- ness during positive winds — when no cowl is needed — is invariably an obstruc- tor of the movement of air during calms or under light winds. It is known that VENTILA TING CO WLS IN SOII-PIPES. 95 every deviation from the straight line obstructs the current by In- creaslnor the friction. There- fore, the cap or bend or cowl, one or another of which Is almost always used, Is of no real utility In a high wind, and Is an absolute obstructor during light winds and calms. The best result will always ^ be obtained by running the soil-pipe straight up to a certain elevation above the roof — more or less according to the exposure — and leaving it entirely open at the top. To prevent Intentional or accidental introduction of ob- structing objects. It is a good practice to Insert, and to secure, Into the open mouth the ordinary spherical wire-basket that FIG. 3. — THE TOP FINISH OF A SOIL- PIPE. 96 VENTILATING COWLS IN SOIL-PIPES. IS used to keep leaves from obstruct- ing the outlets of roof gutters. The other point is, that a universally effective increase of the movement of air is secured by increasing the diameter of the pipe at its upper end. Theoretic- ally, the lower down the enlargement begins, and the greater it becomes at the top, the better will be the current pro- duced. Practically, it seems to suffice to increase the diameter of the single upper length of pipe. This is most con- veniently done by using an '' increaser," from four inches to six inches, just under the roof, and to a set length of six-inch pipe at the top. The owner and the architect, and all who are interested in securing good work, should bear constantly in mind the importance of making this main channel for ventilation and for drainage abso- lutely and permanently good from bot- VENTILA TING CO WLS IN SOIL-PIPES. 97 torn to top. This being assured and tested, the various fixtures or plumbing appliances may be connected with its branches. CHAPTER XV. TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. TRAPS, constituting one of the most essential elements of plumbing work, have for some time past occupied the care- ful attention of all who are interested in the improvement of house-drainage. Few who have applied their ingenuity to the subject have failed to invent and patent a '' sewer-gas " trap. I took out a patent for a trap of this sort myself some years ago — probably one of the least successful of the whole list. The best of the efforts of others, thus far, have been only meas- urably successful. I am still using one or two of them in my own work, because they are passably good, and because TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 99 nothing else has offered that seemed bet- ter. The successful accomplishment of the object In view offers probably the most hopeful field to which sanitary Inven- tors can now turn their attention. Devices Intended to meet existing diffi- culties have not all been confined to the form and construction of the trap Itself. Much the most widely recommended and successfully enforced effort to meet the difficulty has been to supply what Is known as the '' back ventilation " of traps. Hav- ing known of the early failure of this device, before It was generally recom- mended to the public and taken up In the compulsory regulations of health boards, and having carefully watched Its develop- ment, I have never been able to look upon It with favor. In some cases It does good, but I believe that on the zuhole It does more harm. Not only as confirming my own view, ICO TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION, but as an illustration of very thorough and careful experimental work, attention may properly be called to an investigation carried on for the City Board of Health of Boston, by J. Pickering Putnam, Esq., an architect of that city. These investi- gations have been set forth quite fully in illustrated communications to the "Ameri- can Architect," which papers certainly mark a very important step forward in sanitary literature. The deductions to be drawn from these investigations are these : While a sufficient vent-hole at the crown of a trap will prevent its contents from being withdrawn by siphonage (suc- tion), insufficiency in such an opening, resulting from whatever cause, defeats the purpose for which it was made. Insuffi- ciency may be due to several things. (^.) The opening may originally be made too small. (^.) It may, and very often does, TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. lOl become reduced in size, or entirely closed by the accumulation of foul matter thrown into it during the use of the trap. (^.) As its efficiency is due entirely to the ad- mission of air fast enough to supply- the demand for air to fill the vacuum caused by water flowing through some portion of the pipe beyond the trap, it is not only a question of having an opening large enough to admit the air, but of having an adequate current led freely to the open- ing. As the opening is into a portion of the drainage system that is unprotected by a trap, it can not, of course, communicate with the interior atmosphere of the house ; it must be connected by a pipe either with the open air outside of the house, or with the air of the upper part of the soil-pipe, above all fixtures. The ability of this pipe to transmit air in the volume required de- pends on its size and on its directness. 102 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. A one-inch pipe, one foot long, for exam- ple, may admit air fast enough, while a longer pipe of the same diameter, or a smaller pipe of the same length, would not do so. One or other of the defects above indi- cated may very easily defeat the object, and, in so far as the opening may be decreased by the accumulation of waste matters, the object, which is fully secured while the work is new, may be perma- nently defeated by a condition that occurs after a little use. What seemed originally to be adequate security may become un- trustworthy in time. Then, again, the trap to which such back ventilation is applied depends for its efficiency on the permanence of its water-seal. A water-seal which has no other exposure to the air than it gets un- der ordinary circumstances, will not be so reduced by evaporation as to lose its value TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 103 for a considerable period ; but with back ventilation, a current of air is established through the pipe in the immediate vicinity of the trap, and evaporation becomes more rapid, destroying the seal by remov- ing the water, in a very short time. It was an unsealing due to evaporation that first caused me to discard the method. I believe, most firmly, that when the system of back ventilation, as now practiced, is applied to all the traps of a house, the destruction of the seal, by evaporation, will be much more to be feared than it would be in the same set of traps by siphonage only, if not vented. Traps are also frequently emptied of their water by capillary attraction. When a rag, a bit of string, a matting of hair, or any other porous substance having one end immersed in the trap, has the other end extending over the bend and leading into the discharge pipe, traps 104 TRA PSA ND TRA P VEN TIL A TION. having a seal of only the ordinary depth may be emptied In a short time by this action alone. In other cases, and even where the traps are considerably deeper, the capillary material, by Increasing the evaporating surface, greatly Increases the liability to evaporation In the presence of the current of air produced by the vent- ing-plpe. While, therefore, this capillary action Is not an Infrequent source of the failure of a trap which Is not ventilated, Its effect Is much more serious when the trap Is ventilated. Mr. Putnam's experiments were con- ducted In logical order. He first demon- strated that the air rushing through the trap to supply a vacuum caused by a flow In the piping beyond carries the water with It as a matter of course. Some of this water, striking against the walls of the trap. Is thrown back to Its original position, so that the whole vol- TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 105 ume of sealing-water is rarely removed with a single motion, whatever the form of the trap. However, he found that, sooner or later, under a sufficiently con- tinued movement of air, the water, even in a deep trap, might be so with- drawn as to break the seal permanently. The time required for this depends very much upon the number of surfaces of the wall of the trap tending to throw the water back into it. It was found that, of the common traps, the ordinary *' pot " or '' bottle" trap offered the greatest ob- stacle to siphonage. It was assumed that " the severest test for siphonage to which a trap could possibly be subjected in practice would be that which would be sufficient to siphon out an eight-inch pot- trap or a ventilated S trap constructed in the usual manner." The apparatus used was strong enough to destroy in one second the seal of a io6 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. one and one-quarter inch S trap, with a one and one-quarter inch vent-opening at the crown, having a one and one-quar- ter inch smooth lead pipe, sixteen feet long, connected with it ; and to siphon out an unventilated pot-trap eight inches in diameter, having a seal four inches deep. It was shown by this apparatus that a re- duction of diameter of the vent-pipe, or an increase in its length, lessened the stability of the trap. It made a marked difference whether the pipe was straight or was bent into a coil three feet in di- ameter. It would seem from the descrip- tion that the vent-opening was as large, and the vent-pipe described above as large, as short, and as straight, as would ordinarily be found in practice ; and it was shown that the seal was, in nearly every case, easily destroyed. The experiments demonstrated that none of the ordinary traps can withstand TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 107 ,^- ' ■■• 'A FIG. 4. — THE CROOKS AND ANGLES OF TRAP-VENT PIPES. Note. — The shaded pipes are the vent pipes. The arrows show the direction of the air current as moving to prevent siphonage. D. Wash-bowl, A. Water-closet. B. Bath. C. Bidet. io8 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. a not unusual siphonic action, even with what would be considered adequate ven- tilation. These experiments were repeated in a great variety of ways with the same general result. If the reader will examine the tortuous course of the various pipes shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 4) of actual work, or in any such illustration to be found in sanitary journals, he will see that the difference between a straight line and a coil three feet in diameter is as noth- ing compared with what constantly occurs in practice where the vent-pipes turn in and out and up and down, and are inter- rupted by frequent branches to such an extent as to increase very greatly, indeed, the difficulty of the rapid passage of air through them. I have seen a single vent-pipe, having three branches on each of two upper floors, carried down by an irregular course with sharp turns to the TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 109 traps of a bath, a sitz-bath, a bidet, a wash-stand, and a water-closet on the floor below. Aside from this serious objection, it is not every plumber who is able to keep his head in carrying out such complicated work, and we frequently see a distinct ''by-pass" leading from the drain directly into the apartment. In tests of capillary action, the follow- ing results were obtained : Strips of hair- felt, closely resembling the matted accu- mulation of short hairs which forms so large a proportion of deposit in traps and pipes, were used, having one end immersed in the water of the trap and the other hanging over the bend. Other materials were similarly used. The result of the experiments, as affecting the question of ventilation, is thus set forth : '' To test the loss by capillary attrac- tion on ventilated S traps, as compared no TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION, with the loss on the same where unventi- lated, an S trap having a seal of four and five-eighths Inches was arranged as before with jute half filling the trap. With the trap attached to a waste-pipe, and con- nected with the drain In the ordinary manner, but unventllated, the loss by capillary attraction was as follows : * In the first five minutes, one-half Inch ; In the first forty-five minutes, one Inch ; In twenty-four hours, three Inches ; In three days, three and one-quarter Inches ; In four days, three and three-eighths, Inches. Thereafter no perceptible change took place. It made no perceptible difference whether the basin side of the trap was opened or closed, showing that evapora- tion in an unventllated trap is practi- cally almost Imperceptible. * A part of this was probably due to the absorption of the water by the fibers of the jute. — G. E. W., Jr. TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. Ill The experiment was then repeated on the same trap ventilated at the crown into a cold flue, with the following result : In one hour, one and one-eighth inch had been removed ; in five hours, one and seven-eighths inch ; in twenty-two hours, two and a half inches ; in two days, three and one-quarter inches ; in three days, three and a half inches ; in four days, three and three-quarters inches ; in five days, four inches. Thus the loss continued at the rate of about one-quarter inch a day by evaporation, after the outer end of the jute mass had entirely dried up. This evaporation was nearly double what it would have been had it not been assisted by the capillaiy attraction. From this we see that ventilation greatly increases the danger arising from capillary attrac- tion, often rendering the latter dangerous in cases where, without ventilation, the seal would not have been broken. 112 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. Note. — My experience and observation during the years that have passed since the foregoing was first pub- lished, have fully confirmed my earlier opinion that the back ventilation of traps does, on the w^hole, more harm than good. In any case, there is no longer any excuse for requiring it, and the sooner boards of health cease to require it, the better it will be for all concerned — except, perhaps, the plumber. There are now perfectly safe anti-siphon traps in the market, and in the very rare cases where these cannot be used, the McClellan mercury-seal air inlet answers every purpose. CHAPTER XVI. NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. AS an incidental result of his experi- ments on siphonage, Mr. Putnam, by gradual stages, arrived at the invention of a trap which seems to be a practical one, and which, subjected to tests that were sufficient to break the seal of any ordinary trap even with fair back-ventilation, main- tained its seal undisturbed without beinor o ventilated. The theory followed is this : Siphonage is due to the rapid movement through the trap of air driven in by atmospheric pressure, to fill the partial vacuum formed by the withdrawal of air from the pipe beyond the trap by the inductive effect of flowing water ; the first 114 NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. tendency of the current thus produced is to carry the sealing-water with it. In a perfectly smooth curved trap the removal of the water may under strong suction be complete and almost instan- taneous ; In traps of irregular form, where the water in its course strikes against the wall of the trap, it is thrown back or de- flected from its course ; when so thrown back a portion of the water is still carried on by the current of air, but another portion falls away from the current and resumes its position in the trap. If a suf- ficient number of deflecting surfaces are presented in the course of the current of air, the whole of the water, after a certain portion of the seal has been removed, is retained, and the complete unsealing of the trap can not occur. Mr. Putnam's trap, the form of which is illustrated herewith, stands, in its normal condition, almost entirely full of water. NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. US Under strong siphonic action about one- half of this water follows the air toward the drain ; this amount being removed, the deflecting surfaces of that portion of the apparatus thus emptied suffice to rob FIG. 5. — PUTNAM S TRAP The complete trap is shown at a. Its different parts are shown in the cuts b, c. and d. The parts c and d may easily be removed for cleansing without the aid of a plumber. the air-current of its spray, and under no test that has yet been applied, with an open-topped soil-pipe, can the seal be broken. The interior of the trap is well exposed to view, and the arrangement for cleaning in case of need is simple. The trouble of an occasional unscrewing Ii6 NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. of the glass cap to remove an obstruc- tion would be a very small price to pay for the absolute security which Mr. Putnam seems to have achieved.* This trap, or something like it, may probably come into universal use for wash-stands, baths, and laundry-tubs, — for urinals, also, where separate urinals are used. For water-closets it cannot take the place of the exposed trap of which the bowl constitutes one arm. For kitchen and pantry sinks I consider my own device better. I have been using for some years past one form or other of mechanical trap, usually Bower's or Cudell's. They seemed to be the best heretofore available, but they have never been entirely satisfactory. * Since the above was written, I have tested Mr. Putnam's trap, finding it effective in withstanding siphonage, and sub- stantially self-cleansing. It seems to me the best trap that I have seen. It is entirely and permanently effective. NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. 117 Continued experience with the Putnam trap has shown it to be much better than either of them. Another excellent non-siphoning trap is the ** Puro," made by The Dececo Co., of Boston. It has a smooth in- terior of easy curves, without angles or corners lying outside of the line of current, all parts of which are sub- ject to the direct scouring action of the flow. The outlet side of the trap is en- larged so that it will hold enough water to afford an efficient seal after air has been drawn through the trap, and the tendency of this enlargement to retard tlie flow and prevent the effectual scour- ing of tlie walls is overcome by the use of a semi-circular deflector, so formed and situated as to serve a three-fold purpose : (i) It divides the flow and, while leaving enough to keep the bottom of the trap scoured by Its centrifugal force, it diverts Ii8 NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. the rest obliquely toward those parts which, without it, would be unscoured because away from the flow line ; (2) it prevents a retardation of the flow by contracting the waterway at the point of FIG. 6. greatest head ; and (3) by breaking up the mass of water In the trap, it enables incoming air to reach the crown more quickly than It could if it had to struggle up through a solid body of w^ater, thus saving to the trap a large amount of sealing water. This deflector, it will be NON-SIPHONIC TRAPS. II*^ noted from the cut, Is not presented at right angles to the line of flow, but so obtusely as to offer but the slightest resistance. It cannot be regarded as an obstruction — it Is rather a guide. As made. It Is a component part of the trap. In fact, the Puro trap, of whatever form and whether of brass or lead, consists of a single casting, excepting, of course, the trap-screw. The absence of separable parts makes this trap very durable. Whether compelled by local law to ven- tilate traps or not, I should not depend on ventilation, In the conviction that the sim- ple S trap, as ordinarily constructed and as ordinarily ventilated, is totally unreliable. If compelled by law to construct the prescribed '' back-ventilation " I should be tempted, after its completion, to make the system inoperative by closing the main ventilation pipe at some point near its upper end. CHAPTER XVII. PLUMBING APPLIANCES. CONCERNING patented apparatus, it is proper for me to explain the fact that in the following pages, among other things, I set forth somewhat in detail in- ventions of my own, which are patented, and by the sale of which I should profit. Such a course is naturally open to criti- cism, and such a position is always one of embarrassment. It is the usual course to describe the various appliances in com- mon use, mentioning one's own only inci- dentally, and this would doubtless be thought by many persons to be the proper one for me to pursue. PLUMBING APPLIANCES. 12 1 It seems to me on reflection, however, that the only justification for the writing of this book is to communicate to the pubHc the best advice I have to offer. My attention has been given for many years to details of house-drainage as a matter of business, not of philanthropy. I have had occasion to study closely, and to adopt and discard, one after another, a long series of plumbing appliances — things that have come up and gone down in the rapidly Improving art which twenty years ago was an extremely crude one, and in which perfection has not yet been attained in all details. I might describe this succession of Im- provements, and indicate the quality, promise, and defect of each. Such infor- mation may be found, by those who desire It, very well set forth In the rather copi- ous modern literature of the subject. The space at my disposal here would hardly 12 2 PL UMBING A PPIIA NCES. suffice for a bare cataloguing of plumb- ing Improvements. My own devices were in no case in- vented with a view to securing a valuable patent, nor for any other purpose than to improve my own professional practice. The few of these devices which have ap- proved themselves to my later judgment, and which I am now introducing in my work, I have patented to secure an Inci- dental commercial advantage. I shall therefore describe them without hesita- tion and without further comment, treat- ing them exactly as I treat such of the Inventions of others as I believe to be good. I shall trust to the good sense of the reader not to misunderstand my mo- tive. Special appliances for carrying out the plumber's art In the drainage of houses are to be numbered by hundreds. Inven- tion has taken advantage of a growing PL UMBTNG APPLIANCES. 1 23 demand for the attainment of additional security against the Invasion of draln-air, and has literally rim wild. *' Sewer-gas " has been made to do full duty as a cause of public alarm. The shops and the cat- alogues and the professional papers and books are full of an embarrassing variety of all manner of devices. Many of these Inventions are great Improvements on their predecessors, but many are their predecessors under new names and with new complications. Few of them have been made with regard for what seems to be the most imperative need of the work — simplicity. CHAPTER XVIII. SIMPLICITY. WE should especially seek the greatest possible simplicity, not only in detail but in oreneral scheme. While the market offers a separate vessel for each possible separate use, the wisest course seems to be to reduce the number of ves- sels and to concentrate the various uses as much as may be. For example, I should, whenever possible, avoid the need for urinals, slop-sinks, and hoppers, by constructing the water-closet in such a manner as to supply all of these demands in a convenient and acceptable way, thus securing, incidentally, the most frequent SIMPLICITY. 125 change of Its trapping-water and the most frequent flushing of its outlet. The urinal Is almost Invariably the most odorous vessel in the house. The slop-hopper is generally a receptacle for rags and rubbish, in a dark, out-of-the- way, uninspected closet ; and the sink for drawing water is, in less degree, open to similar objection. With a self-closing faucet for drawing water, there need be provided for the protection of the ceiling below only such simple means of outlet — like a safe-pipe opening through the ceiling of the base- ment or over a sink or a water-closet cis- tern — as will carry the slight drip that may come from an accidental leak. Or- dinarily there Is no serious objection to arranging to draw water through the bath-cock, if this Is placed, as it should be, at the top of the tub. Objections to this concentration of 126 SIMPLICITY. uses, and to the abandonment of the pro- vision of a separate vessel for each sep- arate use, are confined mainly to trade journals, published in the interest of manufacturers and plumbers whose profits, it is thought, might be affected by the reduction. Their argument is that ''cost is secondary to ample convenience." While it is important to avoid unneces- sary cost, the economical argument is the least of all the reasons for what is here proposed. The real and controlling argu- ment is based on the great advantage of having the fewest possible points requir- ing inspection and care and to secure the most frequent possible use of every Inlet into the drainage system. Reasonable convenience being always kept in view, three water-closets In an ordinary house are much better than half a dozen ; and the same principle holds throughout the whole range of plumbing appliances. CHAPTER XIX. WASH-STANDS. STATIONARY wash-stands, where they should be used at all — in bath- rooms and lavatories mainly — should, like all other fixtures of the kind, have the space under the slab fully exposed to view, so that the trap and all pipes may be seen at all times, and so that neither by acci- dent nor by stealth may there be created the hidden untidy condition which is al- most universal with the tight, un ventilated, inclosed spaces once so generally used. The basin itself, as now constructed, has a hidden overflow which it is very difficult, if not impossible, to cleanse, and it has generally either a plug and chain to close 128 WASH-STANDS. its outlet, or a side plug- operated by a knob above the slab. Both of these are wholly objectionable. The links of the chain and the rinorand attachments of the plug become fouled with soapy matters, and it is difficult to cleanse them. Prac- tically, they are generally nasty. To shake a filthy chain in a basin of clear water would be a very untidy pre- liminary to ablution. This is substantially what we do when we let water run with some force directly into a basin in which a dirty chain is hanging. The side plug seems to be much nicer ; it is really less nice. There is a befouled waste-pipe leading from the outlet to the plug, in communication with a slime-coated overflow channel rising above the plug. This pipe it is practically impossible to cleanse. Its filth is constantly undergoing decomposition. Whenever the bowl is emptied It becomes filled with air ; when WA SH-STANDS. I 29 the plug is closed and the bowl is filled, this air is driven in bubbles with some violence into the bowl. Not infrequently flakes of the sliming matter come with it. Note. — There has now come into quite general use a " standing- overflow " for the wash-basin, which obviates these old objections. The bowl is made to slope, not toward the center, but toward the back, at a point under the edge of the slab. The outlet is placed here, and it is plugged with a short pipe, serving also as an overflow. It is raised and low- ered by a simple lever above the slab, and it may be removed for cleansing. It is a great improvement on all that preceded it. A new waste — the " Hale," opening at the center of the bowl, after the old manner— is actuated by a lever working from below, so that the basin remains smooth and unobstructed. The overflow is through the side of the bowl near the top, but it is freed from the objection set forth in Chapter XXII by the fact that the discharge does not set back into the overflow channel, having a tendency, rather, to draw a current of air through it. It is a simple and excellent device. In my own house I use the high " pantry-sink " cock for the supply of the wash-bowl, which favors the cleanly Mohammedan practice of v/ashing in running water. CHAPTER XX. WATER-CLOSETS. WATER-CLOSETS have, naturally, been the subject of more ingenuity, and of more argument, than any thing else connected with the subject of house- drainage. It is hardly necessary at this late date to say any thing to the limited public which reads on such subjects about the absolute inadmissibility of the almost universal pan-closet, which was so lately the great favorite of landlords and of builders, and which, in spite of its compli- cation and intricacy, was, owing to the great demand for it, sold more cheaply, and therefore more widely, than any other. WA TER- CLOSE TS. 1 3 1 It is enough to say that those who care for safety in drainage works should neither adopt it in new construction nor retain it where it already exists. It is not, and it can not be made, a safe water-closet. To a greater or less degree, the objections to it hold in the case of every other closet in the market which has, anywhere in the course of its outlet, any thing of the nature of a valve or moving part. It is not an overstatement of the uni- versal conviction of skillful sanitarians to say that the range of unexceptionable water-closets is limited to such as have a free water-way from the bowl to the soil- pipe, depending for their trapping, and in some cases for their holding of a bowl- ful of water, on an elevation of the over- flow point. These may be classed in a general way as ''hopper " closets. The simplest form of this closet is a funnel- shaped vase reaching from the floor to 132 WA TER-CLOSE TS. the seat. At the bottom it is connected with an S trap, having a depth of seal generally of from three-fourths of an inch to an inch and a half. This is a cheap and good utensil for the commoner uses. It is made of earthenware or of enameled iron, and in its best form its rear portion is nearly or quite vertical. What is known as the '' short hopper," made of iron or of earthenware, has a shallow bowl, with a trap rising at its side and entirely above the floor. These are the best of the cheap closets. Pursuing the intention already an- nounced, to avoid any thing like a cata- loguing of plumbers' supplies, and referring to what has already been said about my own inventions, I give here- with, as an illustration of the better class of closets, a vertical cross-section of the Dececo closet with its trap and discharg- ing siphon. In this closet I have tried WA TER-CLOSE TS. 133 to overcome the objections to the mechanical or valve closets, while retain- ing the very great advantages of a deep bowlful of water for the reception of deposits and for the suppression of odor. The closet has a seal about four inches deep, a depth of water of nearly seven inches, disposed in the most useful way, and a sufficient submersion of the front part of the bowl. While it is possible under strong siphonage to reduce the depth of its water considerably, it is not possible, under any conditions that can occur in practice, to break its seal, the rising limb being sufficiently large to give an adequate passage to a continuous stream of air without removing the water to such a point as to unseal the trap. It has the further advantage that its seal is in full view and is always under control. When it seems to be right it is right. The peculiar operation on which it 134 WATER-CLOSETS. depends for its discharge is due to the use of an outlet weir below the floor, which is the invention of Mr. Rogers FIG. 7.— THE DECECO WATER-CLOSET. Field, an English engineer. It is, in fact, a modified Field's flush tank. The outer or discharging limb of the syphon reaches down into the weir- WA TER- CLOSE TS. 135 chamber. The depth of seal Is the dis- tance from the surface of the water in the bowl to the top of the intake X, and this is regulated by the height of the overflow point O. The closet is supplied with water through an ordinary flushing-rim, connected with a service-box or cistern overhead. The cistern is operated by a pendent pull. When the pull is drawn down, a copious supply of water flows Into all parts of the bowl through the flushing-rim, washing it completely and raising the level of its water rapidly. The surplus overflows at O faster than it can be discharged over the weir-top T, without rising so high as to close the opening at V. This closure shuts off the air In the siphon from the air In the soil- pipe, with which it Is ordinarily in com- munication. The water flowlnof throuorh the long limb of the siphon, In an Irregu- lar stream, carries the air with It, and 1 36 WA TER-CL OSE TS. there Is soon established a strong siphon action, which continues until the water in the bowl, Into which a strong stream con- tinues to flow, descends below the top of the Intake X. Then air Is admitted at this point, and the flow through the siphon is checked. The discharge at T continuing, the water in the weir-chamber soon falls sufficiently to allow air to enter at Y and empty the siphon. The water in that part of the siphon between X and O falls back and establishes an Im- mediate hydraulic seal at the intake. The service-box Is so arranged that after the main supply is stopped a small stream continues to be discharged Into the bowl until it Is filled to the height of the over- flow point. It was evident from long and success- ful experience with Field's flush-tank, that the principle on which this closet Is constructed is a perfectly correct one. WA TER- CLOSE TS. 1 3 7 It has underorone few chancres since its original construction three years ago, and the several hundred closets now in use are invariably satisfactory, so far as reported. The first ones made, five in number, were set up in the White House after the removal of the President in t88i. They are still perfectly successful in their work- ing. After ample trial for servants' use, and for more than a year in a girls' board- ing-school, an experimental one is now beine tested with the rougrh use and rouorh handling of the operatives of a spinning- mill. It has, during the seven weeks since it was put in, given complete satisfaction. So far as I can see, this closet accom- plishes perfectly every purpose for which a water-closet, slop-hopper, or urinal is required. In practice, It uses at each opera- tion over two and a half gallons of 138 WA TER- CLOSE TS. water, which gives a thorough flushing to the soil-pipe and drain, while it has the great advantage of sending a good part of its water into the soil-pipe in ad- vance of the foul matters, lubricaing their passage through the whole drainage sys- tem. Although this considerable volume of water is essential to Its complete efficiency, the closet may be emptied by pouring Into It suddenly less than two quarts of water. A large pail of slops thrown In as rapidly as possible fails to overflow It, and barrels of water might be poured through It In succession as fast as the three-Inch outlet can discharge it. The setting of water-closets In the best manner Is most easily secured when hop- per or other plain closets are used ; that is, closets with no machinery under the seat. By the best manner, I mean such setting as requires the minimum of car- pentry, preferably nothing whatever but WA TER-CLOSE TS. 139 a single well-finished hard-wood plank with a hole through it, resting on cleats at the sides and hinged to be turned back out of the way. It is better that there should not even be a cover to the hole. The entire closet, inside and out, should be as thoroughly exposed to view, to ventilation, and to perfect cleansing as possible. If the floor and back and side walls be covered with glazed tiles — preferably white — so much the better ; but a cheap and satisfactory setting is secured by a slate floorine with hard-wood finish around the sides. Even oil-cloth on the floor, and the ordinary base-board and plaster at the sides and back, answer a very good purpose ; the great thing is to have a perfect exposure to sight and to air. The costly housing-in of the closet by a close seat and cover and a close riser in 1 40 WA TER. CLOSE TS. front may serve a very good purpose as an ornamental piece of cabinet-work, but it too often covers a condition of things that no fastidious housekeeper would knowingly tolerate. Sloppage, leakage, and the tainted air rising through the irregular holes left for the soil-pipe, unite to make this space untidy and in every way objectionable. Some sort of housing-in is necessary with closets which have machinery about them, but the whole class of hopper closets may be entirely free from any thing or any con- dition to make such concealment desir- able. It is possible that my decided prefer- ence for the Dececo is only an Incident of paternity — but It Is a decided prefer- ence nevertheless. Note. — The foregoing- remarks on water-closets are left as they were written in 1885. So far as general principles are concerned, they are as true now as they WA TER- CLOSE TS. 1 4 1 were believed to be then, but the general practice has changed greatly. I am disposed to take to myself some measure of credit for this change. It has been largely due to the modern method of setting the closet, which was first ap- plied in work that I arranged for the late E. F. Bowditch of P^ramingham, Mass., early in 1879. Before that time, the water-closet was concealed by carpentry, in the sup- posed interests of decency, and for the protection of the mechanism by which the water-supply was furnished. The closet at Mr. Bowditch's was a simple " long hop- per," standing like a white vase on a flooring of white tiles. The walls were tiled to the height of the seat, which was a single ash board, twenty inches wide, rest- ing on cleats at its ends, standing free of the tiling at the back by some inches, hinged to turn up against the back wall, and having a hole without a cover. The previous practice having been to conceal, in the most shame-faced manner, everything connected with a water-closet, the practice was here inaugurated of exposing everything in the frankest way — exposing it to perfect ventilation and inspection, and incidentally shutting off the foul-air way, by which cellar air and the exhalations of foul sloppage a1)out enclosed closets, sinks, basins and baths, had been freely distributed throughout the house. This arrangement necessitated the use of a pendent- chain pull to discharge the supply-tank above, and for- tunately it made the old system of valve supply impossible. 142 WA TER-CLOSE TS. In fact, it inaugurated the practice, now almost universal, of exposing all fixtures as freely as possible — even bath- tubs now standing on their own feet, with a full sweep of air about them. An absurd tendency is still retained, in a certain class of minds, to use a fiap cover over the seat of the closet ; but this relic of immodesty will pass in time, and the bowl will then in all houses, as now in the best, have the benefit of inspection and freer ventilation. The " pan " closet has given place to the " washout " for cheaper work, and this is a vast improvement. The Dececo has many imitators, and it may fairly be said that house-drainage has undergone a complete and most beneficent revolution within the past fifteen years. CHAPTER XXI. SINKS. KITCHEN and pantry sinks are used for the discharge of matters which in their original condition are not offen- sive. They are, therefore, in the popular estimation, of much less serious conse- quence to the sanitary condition of the house than are water-closets. This tem- porarily different condition, however, of the matters which they receive, very soon gives place to a similar condition of the matters which they have discharged. After a little retention, putrefaction sets in, and the refuse food of the sink becomes as offensive and objectionable as does the digested food of the water-closet. 144 SINKS. In the one case as In the other, It Is very Important to secure a complete removal of all foul matters well beyond the house before putrefaction. The liability to de- tention and deposit Is much greater In case of the sink than in the case of the closet, for the reason that, with much less flushing, there is discharged through its waste-pipe a considerable amount of heated and temporarily liquefied grease. This grease passes the strainer of the sink and Is unnoticed, but, as it cools along Its course. It attaches Itself to the sides of the pipe in constantly increasing accumulations, until the channel Is often nearly or quite obstructed. It Is by no means pure grease that Is thus attached. In Its congelation there are Involved par- ticles of highly putrescible matters, and the ordinary kitchen-sink waste-pipe Is the seat of a constant decomposition — mostly beyond the trap, and for this reason not SINKS. 145 especially noticeable — but especially foul nevertheless. Not to get rid of the putrefaction, but to prevent the obstruction of the pipe, there have been invented various forms of grease-trap, having for their purpose the hardening of the grease under condi- tions which will allow it to be removed. These grease-traps would answer a better purpose than they do if we could depend on their being regularly attended to; but so long as water will flow from the sink, servants will give themselves but little trouble about such accumulations. No accumulation for longer than a single day should be tolerated. I have employed a device that has now been in considerable use for several years, which seems to meet the requirements of the case quite completely. There is built beneath the sink, and in connection with it, a '' flush-pot " large enough to hold 146 SINKS. several gallons of water. Its top is cov- FIG. 8 THE DECECO FLUSH-POT FOR SINKS. ered by a strainer, about eight inches in SINKS. 147 diameter, and pierced with large holes. This constitutes a portion of the floor of the sink. The outlet of the flush-pot is closed with a plug, like a wash-basin plug, which is attached to a spindle rising through the strainer. The outlet is con- nected with the drain by a small pipe, having a common trap, which is useful only during the short periods when the plug is withdrawn. Ordinarily, the outlet stands closed. Water thrown into the sink flows through the strainer, leaving all coarser substances to be brushed up and bitmiedin the range.'^ Little by little, the flush-pot becomes filled, and during this slow process most of the grease becomes congealed. When it is nearly full, the water can be seen, even before it reaches the strainer. Then *This simple cremation of the worst elements of house-garb- age costs no money and little trouble. It solves one of the difficult domestic problems. 148 SINKS. the spindle and plug are raised and held up until the gurgling of air through the trap indicates that the pot is empty. Then the outlet is closed and the fillina- begins again. The strainer and spindle may be lifted out together, exposing the whole interior of the flush-pot, which may thus be given a daily cleansing and kept in as good order as any other iron vessel in the kitchen. The theory of the success of this ap- paratus is very simple. There is abso- lutely nothing running through the waste- pipe except during the moment when the flush-pot is being discharged, and then the whole mass flows with such force as to carry every thing with it. At my own house, having occasion to inspect the main drain (diameter three inches), I found that neither a copiously supplied water-closet nor a bath-tub had such flushing effect as had the discharge SINKS, 149 of the flush-pot in the kitchen. Its flow filled the drain more than half full with a stream of good velocity. In the first application of the flush-pot to pantry sinks, it was given about the same capacity with that of the kitchen sink. As, however, it is desirable to fill the pantry sink for washing dishes, it be- came necessary to waste the large volume needed to fill the flush-pot. To avoid this Its capacity has now been reduced to about one gallon, which is enough to in- sure a good flow from the ordinary accu- mulated drippings of the sink. When the sink Itself is filled, its contents as well as those of the flush-pot constitute an abundant flushing volume, the strainer being sufliclently open to allow a rapid flow. Note. — This device has not come into general use. It requires some personal attention, and this cannot be depended upon with changing cooks. I find it most 150 SINKS. satisfactory in my own house for both kitchen and pantry. Experience has shown, however, that the frequent stoppage of sink-traps and waste-pipes of large size is chiefly due to the fact that the small stream flowing through them has not suf^ficient force to keep them clean. After use for a certain time, the gradual accumulation of congealed grease on the walls of the pipe closes the passage almost entirely. We have, then, not a direct channel with smooth metallic walls, but a tortuous and h-regular one, winding through a mass of deposit. The detachment of parts of the decomposing mass may at any time cause complete obstruction. Then follows the use of potash to " cut " a passage through it, or of hot water to melt the grease. This being troublesome, a costly and elaborate " grease-trap " is sometimes used to hold back the offending material. All goes well for a time, until the trap itself becomes filled, save for the tor- tuous waterway above described. In time the grease- trap, which servants are sure to neglect, as well as the pipe it was intended to protect, is cleaned out by the plumber, and a fresh start is taken. The real remedy is to make the trap and pipe so small that the natural flow from the sink will keep it always clean. I have not dared, in the face of the universal belief that a pipe that is liable to become obstructed should therefore be made large, to advise the use of kitchen wastes less than one and a quarter inches in SINKS. 151 diameter. Two inches is generally thought to be as small as is safe. It is my own conviction, however, that it would be safer to make the diameter less thaJi one inch. This idea has had curious confirmation in a case that has just come to my notice. In 1885 I put in a kitchen waste-pipe, of lead, at Princeton, N. J., which was one and a half inches in diameter. It ran directly down through the floor and then continued horizontally (ap- proximately) across the kitchen about twenty feet. In Fig. 9. time the floor timbers rotted and the springing of the floor flattened the pipe. After eight or nine years the house was converted into " Evelyn College," with some thirty students, the family, and servants— all living in the building, and all served from this single kitchen. In 1894 an inspection of tbe plumbing was called for. It was found that this waste-pipe had — surely some years before — been jammed almost flat. A section of it was cut out, and its end was smoothed to make a type from which Figure 9 was printed. It seems incredible, but through this small slit the kitchen-sink wastes of a household of about forty persons flowed for some years without anyone knowing that iis original water-way had 152 SINKS. been contracted. The area of the cross-section of this flattened pipe was not more than three-tenths of an inch. The chances for good service would have been much better with a circular section half an inch in diam- eter, and I verily believe that a waste-pipe of this size, protected by a strainer with quarter-inch holes, would be safer than a larger one. We often find the winding chan- nel through the greasy deposits of a 2-inch pipe to be less than this. The world seems to have a curious infatuation in favor of some sort of " grease-trap." In Chicago its use is compulsory. As generally constructed, it is a sanitary nuisance, and I know of only one device of the sort that I would use. This is the " Eduction " grease-trap, made by Flushtank Company, of Richmond, Ind. Its deposits are torn out and washed away by a frequent strong flush. For my own use, I should prefer a very small waste-pipe, protected by a good strainer and a Pure trap. CHAPTER XXII. OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. OVERFLOWS, Intended for the safe removal of surplus water from bath- tubs, wash-bowls, etc., are necessarily on the house side of the trap. They are practically never reached by a strong flushing stream, and their walls accumu- late filth and slime to a deeree that would hardly be believed. They constitute the nastiest element of modern house-drain- age of the better order. Perhaps they are not a serious source of danger, but they are, more often than any other part of the plumbing work, except the urinal, the source of the offensive drain-smell so 154 O VERFL WS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. often observed on first coming into a house from the fresh air. In the stationary wash-basin as at pres- ent arranged, there seems to be no easy way to get over the difficulty, a difficulty which of Itself should be a sufficient rea- son for excluding these fixtures from sleeping-rooms. The basin overflow is objectionable for substantially the same reason that the bath-tub overflow is ob- jectionable, though perhaps to a slighter degree owing to the smaller surface exposed to the accumulation of deposits.* The concealed overflow of the bath-tub may, fortunately, be dispensed with, and In this case the difficulty inseparable from the arrangement may be obviated. It will, perhaps, be instructive to illustrate by a diagram the reason why the usual hidden overflow is so objectionable. In this cut, A Is the waste-pipe at the bottom of the tub, by which Its contents *See the " Note " at the end of Chapter XIX. O VERFL O WS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 155 are discharged on the withdrawal of the plug. B is the overflow pipe, its connec- tion with the tub being through a per- forated screen. C is the trap by which FIG. 10. — HIDDEN OVERFLOW OF BATH. the waste-pipe is shut off from the drain- age system, and which has incidentally the effect of retardinof the flow of water through the waste-pipe. If we suppose 156 O VERFL OWS AND S TOP- CO CKS. the tub to be filled to the level of the overflow and its waste-plug to be removed, the water will immediately rise in the overflow pipe to very nearly its height in the tub. It is of course impregnated with the impurities of the water in the bath. Furthermore, the lighter particles of organic matter flowing through the waste will, some of them, rise by their levity into the overflow pipe. The water rushes up into this pipe with much force, but it descends only very slovv^ly as the level in the bath descends, so that at each opera- tion there is a tendency to deposit adhe- sive matters to its walls. What is so de- posited decomposes and escapes little by little in a gaseous form through the per- forated screen into the air of the room. There is a free circulation of air through the pipe when the plug is out. The amount of these decomposing mat- ters is somewhat increased, though prob- O VERFL OWS AND S TOP- CO CKS. 1 5 7 ably not very much, by floating particles passing through the screen when the overflow Is performing Its legitimate func- tion. This Is the simplest statement of the proposition, and this Is perhaps the least objectionable form of hidden overflow. Where the waste-pipe Is closed at the bottom of the overflow by a plug or valve attached to a spindle rising through the overflow-pipe — a very favorite device with some plumbers, and already described In connection with wash-bowls — the diffi- culty Is In every way aggravated and the amount of fouled surface Is much In- creased. The Inherent defect here Illus- trated attaches to every overflow of this general character connected with any part of the plumbing work. In the case of a bath-tub it may very easily be avoided, as shown In the next diagram, by doing away entirely with the 158 OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. overflow-pipe B and its perforated screen, and using for the closure of the waste- outlet Ay as a substitute for the ordinary plug, a pipe fitting into the outlet and FIG. II.— STANDING OVERFLOW AND PLUG FOR BATH. rising to the height desired for the water in the bath. If the upper end of this pipe be given a trumpet-shaped opening, its capacity will be increased. OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. I59 Stop cocks need no special notice In this book, except In connection with bath-tubs. Most, If not all, of the Eng- lish earthenware bath-tubs Imported Into this country, and many even of the plan- ished copper, and enameled iron tubs made here, are furnished with an Ingeni- ous device for delivering the supply near the bottom of the tub In such a manner as to mix the hot and cold water at the delivery and to admit the supply with little noise. The last may be an advan- tage. The first may be perfectly accom- plished by delivering the hot and cold water through a single nozzle at the top of the tub In a convenient position for drawlnor water for other uses. There are doubtless many cases where the bottom delivery of the supply may be free from sanitary objections, but they are fewer than would be supposed, and It seems strange that the frequent serious l6o OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. objection to the arrangement should have been so generally overlooked. This bot- tom delivery is substantially a cock for drawing water, and all who use such cocks for filling wash-bowls must have noticed a frequent indraft of air when the cock is open. Sometimes when water is being drawn from the lower part of the supply-pipe, the head in the upper part is annihilated, and if a cock is opened the water falls in the supply-pipe, air rushing in to take its place. The indraft of air is not of much con- sequence, but the indraft of a pipeful of dirty water from a bath-tub does not sug- gest a pleasant modification of the quality of the water supply of the house. In this case, as in many others, an apparent mechanical improvement, securing only incidental benefits, should be discouraged. In my judgment the only perfectly safe and satisfactory arrangement for baths OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. l6l thus far devised is one by which the water is drawn through a faucet above the water-hne, and by which the outlet Is closed by a stand-pipe serving as the only overflow of the tub. Laundry trays, as they are now ahiiost universally arranged, are hardly to be regarded as a conspicuous element of the sanitary works of a house. There are few cases in which we find anything about them that is seriously objectionable. With them, as with sinks, water-closets, and wash-basins, it is best to avoid all unnecessary carpentry. It is, of course, best that they should be made of some other material than wood — either slate, soapstone, cement, or earthenware. Earthenware tubs, supported on galvan- ized iron legs and surrounded by a sim- ple border of hard w^ood, seem to ask for no Improvement. CHAPTER XXIII. AN EXAMPLE OF SIMPLE AND GOOD WORK. SIMPLICITY in house-drainage, and a marked contrast to the multipH- cation and compHcation so often found in the better class of buildings, are illus- trated in the case of a very fine and costly house, the plumbing of which I am now superintending. It has in the basement one kitchen- sink with the flush-pot, one servants' water-closet, and four laundry-tubs. The main soil-pipe runs under the base- ment floor near both of these ; it is of extra-heavy iron, with the joints leaded, and tested, under water pressure, to absolute tightness. It is then, so far as it lies below the floor, completely AN EXAMPLE OF GOOD WORK. 163 encased in Portland cement mortar, and this, again, in well made concrete ; it turns up near the laundry-tubs, and near the ceiling it receives a branch pipe com- ing from a lavatory on the floor, twenty- five feet away ; it then passes through the floor and receives the waste of the flush-pot of the pantry-sink ; rising to the ceiling, it receives the waste of a bath- tub and wash-stand on one side, and on the other the waste of a Dececo water- closet and wash-stand ; passing through the next floor, it receives the wastes of the fixtures in the servants' bath-room — a straight hopper closet, a bath-tub, and a wash-stand ; above the ceiling of that room, its four inches size is increased to six inches, and it passes with this larger diameter a short distance through the roof, its top being closed by a large wire basket inserted in the hub of the six-inch pipe ; the branch pipe under the ceiling 164 AN EXAMPLE OF GOOD WORK. of the cellar is connected with a Dececo closet and a wash-stand in the lavatory, and is continued up, without other con- nections, to its increaser and a six-inch top joint through the roof. This is the full complement of the drainage appliances which, in accordance with modern ideas, it was thought neces- sary and wise to introduce into a house which, even five years ago ^^ would have had twice as many closets and baths, and at least four times as many wash-basins, to say nothing of two or three urinals and one or two house-maid's sinks. The whole cost of the work to be done, including all hot and cold water-supply, and the outside connection with the sewer of six roof-water conductors, is just about one thousand dollars. Under the old method, supposing the same material and workmanship to be used, * 1880. AN EXAMPLE OE GOOD WORK. 165 and considering the long lateral waste- pipes and hot and cold water and cir- culation pipes of the different baths and basins, the cost would hardly have been less than twenty-five hundred dollars. The saving of cost effected is, in my judgment, of much less consequence than the simplicity secured. CHAPTER XXIV. OWNERS, ARCHITECTS AND PLUMBERS. IT has already been said that the character and arrangement of the plumbing work of modern houses are much more controlled by plumbers than by any body else. This is generally quite as true with reference to houses built under the advice and direction of archi- tects as in other cases. There are a few architects who take a lively interest in sanitary works, but they are very few. The fact is, that an archi- tect is, generally, either disqualified or disinclined, by nature or by training, for the minute attention to hidden details which the proper control of house drain- OWNERS, ARCHITECTS, PLUMBERS 167 age would require of him. It is not to be expected that a man who has made himself a safe guide and leader of public taste, who has acquired a mastery of the engineering problems involved in safe and economical construction, and who has learned how to contract a client's desires to the requirements of space and of price, should have been able to keep himself au courant with the rapidly growing improvements of an art, which, twenty years ago, was only a trade. As a matter of fact, the architect rarely knows or cares any thing about the plumbing of a house beyond the selection of the spaces to be given to its fixtures. He gives the plumber a rough idea as to where certain fixtures are to be placed, and as to their general style. Beyond that — I am not speaking of all architects, but of architects as a class — he is gener- ally indifferent to the whole business. i68 IVNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. The result is — as it may be. Some plumbers are capable of writing good specifications and some are not. It by no means always happens that the best plumbers and the best architects work in conjunction. I write more feelingly on this subject, because I have recently, in more than one instance, on being called to take charge of the drainage of very fine houses already in course of construction, had the plumb- ing specifications submitted to me. They happen in all cases to have been written for places where the Board of Health has established no formula for the work and has furnished no printed blanks. Not one of them would have done fair credit to an intelligent plumber of the year of our Lord, 1870. In every case an unnecessary amount of work would have been done and much of it would have been unsafe when it was done. The O WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 69 question often comes up, in the practice of an engineer of sanitary drainage, as to whether or not to change such work as these specifications provided for, it being already constructed and in operation. No one who knew the first rudiments of the business, would think of introducing it into a new building. In one case, I was called to a house so near completion that all of its main pipes had been put in place, and a wilderness of pipes they were. I recommended that they be removed, all but one of them, and that a fresh start be taken. The owner referred the question, as owners so often will, to the arbitration of dollars and cents. An estimate, made by the plumber who had done the work, showed that it would be somewhat cheaper to wipe it all out, begin again, and follow my plans, than to finish what he had begun, according to his own. 1 70 WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. The criticism here Is In no sense against the plumber nor against the architect, but against the system. If an architect tells his client that he prefers to have an expert to take charge of the plumbing, the client may object to pay- ing an extra fee or, as it seems to him, two fees for the same work. The archi- tect, of course, can not be expected to pay for the extra services, so he follows the old course of turning the matter over to his plumber, and, very properly, justifies himself with the sufficient plea of Usage. As an incidental result, the owner gener- ally pays considerably more for the toler- able work that he gets than he would pay, fees included, for the more perfect work that he mJght get. Another point in this connection is of great Interest. It is being actively dis- cussed by the better plumbers and by the sanitary journals. It is that plumbing O WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 7 1 work should, at least, never be done at second hand. That is, that the whole job should not be given to a contractor, allowing him, in his turn, to contract out the plumbing work. Indeed, this results so generally in positive injury to the health of the people that it would seem a proper subject for legislative prohibition. Naturally, all that the building con- tractor is responsible for is, that water shall flow and waste shall run, without bursting the pipes or destroying the ceil- ings, until after the house has been accepted and taken off his hands. His only connection with the enterprise is a business connection and his only motive is his business interest. He builds the house to make money on it, and the more cheaply he can get the architect's require- ments for water-closets, baths, tubs, sinks, etc., complied with, the more money he will make. 172 WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS, While this course of sub-letting is bad enough In the case of houses built for immediate sale, or In the case of tenement houses, It Is in a certain way explicable ; but that any man who Is building a house for his own occupation, should permit this vital element of Its safety as a habita- tion, to become the object of dicker and flint-skinning between two men who care only to make what money they can out of it, is most incomprehensible. If it is suspected that what Is here written is written with a view to the pecu- niary interest of my own profession, with its rapidly growing membership, I confess at once and most frankly that the suspi- cion is well founded. I should not have taken the trouble to write this book for the questionable compensation It offers in the way of copyright. I have written it because I think it may advance the inter- ests of engineers. If that should be . WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 173 thought an improper or a selfish motive, let me say that I trust it will also, and in much greater degree, advance the inter- ests of all who live in houses which have or which need drainage works of any kind. That it will also benefit the better class of plumbers, ought not to be doubtful. CHAPTER XXV. SEWAGE DISPOSAL. THOSE who live In isolated houses, in the country and In the smaller towns, generally solve the whole prob- lem of sewage disposal by the simple formula, '' Out of sight, out of mind." The universal remedy Is a hole In the ground Into which every thing in the shape of liquid wastes is delivered. The only criticism that most people apply to the apparatus relates to the frequency with which it requires to be emptied and to the cost of the operation. What goes on In the cesspool, and In the ground about it, is entirely unheeded. So long as the overflow is disposed of, SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 7 5 the devil may care what the hidden pro- cesses of disposal are. Unfortunately, the devil does care, and much of the worst work that he effects, in his assault on the health of his unwitting subjects, has its starting point in the common cesspool. The worst sewer in the world is rarely so bad as the usual cesspool. In comparison with it, a sewer that would be regarded as very foul is purity itself. The cesspool works its injury chiefly in three directions : A. It holds an accumulation of filth of the worst character, in a state of active putrefaction, giving off gases pro- duced by a decomposition that takes place under conditions of the worst sort. These gases can not be entirely sup- pressed while a channel remains open for the admission of liquid to the cavern. Unless delivered into the atmosphere, which they inevitably taint, they find 176 SEWAGE DISPOSAL, their way back more or less directly into the drainage system of the house. B. In so far as the walls of the cess- pools and the surrounding earth are per- meable to their passage these gases pol- lute and poison the ground air, and if near the house, this may find its way from the earth into the cellar. C. Its liquid leachings and ooze, en- riched with the soluble productions of a fatal putrefaction, travel through porous soils, through gravel or sand streaks in heavy ground, and through fissures in rocks to pollute the water of wells and springs even at a considerable distance. If the fraternity of sanitarians through- out the world are in accord on any one point, it is that the common cesspool, even under the best conditions, is abso- lutely inadmissible. Surely no house- holder having the least regard for the health of his own family, or for that of SE WA GE DISPOSA L. 177 his neighbors, once realizing the inevitable condition, will tolerate its perpetuation. Fortunately it is no longer necessary that, even In connection with the simplest and poorest house, this dangerous nuisance should exist. The sanitary fraternity are also in full accord as to the general principles of an improved mode of disposal. What concerns us, in this connection, is a proper means for getting rid of the organic refuse and filth contained in the liquid wastes — including those of the water-closet and kitchen sink — of isolated houses which have at least a small area of land connected with them. The principle on which the best dis- posal thus far devised is based is this : The aerated upper layers of the soil are a universal destroyer of whatever organic impurities may be deposited on the sur- face or Intermixed with the earth. Dead 178 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. organic matter Is completely destroyed by natural processes of oxidation and nitrification, wherever, under natural con- ditions, it is exposed directly or indirectly to the action of the atmosphere in the soil. The agents of destruction in this case are the bacteria of decomposition, those all-pervading micro-organisms, whose increase, growth, and life involve the combination of atmospheric oxygen with the elements of organized matter, a combination always set up under con- ditions favorable to the growth of these bacteria. Aeration is a necessary condi- tion of the process. When urine or other foul liquid is thrown on to the surface of the ground, it sinks into it and deposits on the surfaces of Its particles the organic Impurities which it contains. Its water, descending still further, has become essentially puri- fied. As the water sinks away, air enters SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 179 to take Its place, and every particle of soil that Is coated with the waste matters is surrounded with air rich In oxygen. The bacteria, present In all fertile soils, combine the two — much as the respira- tory process of higher organisms com- bines the oxygen Inhaled by the lungs with effete matters of venous blood. This Is a slight and popular statement of the results of recent scientific Investi- gation. The process Is a continuous one. The destruction of one dose of wastes being accomplished the destroyers are ever eager for more. For their success- ful and continued operation It Is only necessary that the w^aste matters should be supplied and that air should be fur- nished alternately. This is the principle on which Is based the success of the sys- tem of sewage purification by broad irrigation and by intermittent downward filtration. It is as effective in taking care 1 80 SB WA GE DISPOSAL. of the waste of a city as of that of a single house, the difference being only a difference of degree. In the case under consideration, the disposal of the wastes of a single dwell- ing, generally on land very near the house, may be accomplished in a hidden and inodorous manner. The sanitary result would be complete If they were delivered Intermittently over the sur- face of a lawn. Other considerations sometimes make it important that sewage be kept out of sight and that the distribution of the wastes be beneath the surface. The Rev. Henry Moule, the Inventor of the Earth-Closet, seeking means for disposing of liquid wastes of the house- hold, for which his closet Is not suited, laid agricultural drain tiles along the foot of a grape-vine trellis, leaving their joints open, so that the slops reaching the SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 8 1 drain could escape freely Into the ground. The Influence of this subsoil irrigation on the growth of the vines and of grass was very marked and the disposal was complete and continuous. Later (1868) Mr. Rogers Field adopted a modifi- cation of the same device in disposing of the liquid wastes of cottaores at Shen- field, Essex, England. He added the Important improvement of a flush-tank In which the liquids were retained until it became full, the whole volume being then rapidly discharged into the tiles. This was a great advance. It secured the uniform distribution of the liquid throughout the whole length of the drains and gave ample time, while the tank was refilling, for the water to settle completely away, allowing air to enter and complete the destruction of the impurities before the next discharge. 1 82 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. The writer, In connection with his resi- dence at Newport, adopted Mr. Moule's device In 1869, as soon as It was made known, and added Mr. Field's improve- ment soon after the publication of his process. At first, a little difficulty resulted from the delivery of grease and flocculent matter into the tiles, leading to the ob- struction of their joints. Early in the experiment, It usually became necessary as often as once a year to lift the tiles and wash out their accumulations. This led to the Interposition of a settling basin to retain all of these coarser matters. Later the settling basin was placed on the house side of the flush-tank to prevent the dis- turbance of the deposits in the former by the vigorous discharge of the latter. The house was provided with earth closets, but everything not deposited in these was delivered to the drains, which were laid under a lawn adjoining the best SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 183 rooms of the house and a piazza that was much used. The net work of dranis began not more than fifteen feet from the edge of the piazza and the furthest corner of the section was not more than fifty feet away. The system worked most satisfactorily for eleven years, when the construction of a sewer in the adjoining street made it no longer necessary to use it. During the whole period of the experi- ment, the condition of the tiles and of the soil immediately adjoining them was frequently examined. If the opening were made immediately after the discharge of the tank, the earth near the drains had a decided odor, but all other times, even close to the open joints from which the discharge had been copious, there was absolutely nothing to suggest impurity. A handful of earth which a few hours before had been saturated with the foul 184 SEWAGE DISPOSAL, liquid had no other appearance or odor than that taken at the same depth from a part of the lawn entirely beyond the influence of the system. This method of disposing of waste liquids has been used by many engineers and on hundreds of places in different parts of the country. So far as known, wherever the details of the system have been properly regulated, the result has been entirely satisfactory. In 1876, in connection with the sewer- age of Lenox, Mass., there being no other available means of outlet, a large flush- tank was built at the upper corner of a field near the village, and 10,000 feet of absorption drains were laid. This system was used until another outlet was pro- vided in 1892. Whenever it was prop- erly cared for it was completely suc- cessful. At the hotel at Bryn Mawr, Pa., a sys- SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 185 teni even larger than that at Lenox has been in successful use since 1881. Here, the sewage had formerly been delivered into a brook which ran through private propert}^ The change was made to avoid legal proceedings threatened by the adjoining owner. A little difficulty oc- curred at first from an unequal distribu- tion of the flow and because of the steep grade necessarily given to some of the drains. These defects were remedied and the working of the whole system has since been satisfactory. At the Woman's Prison at Sherburn, Mass., where about 30,000 gallons of sewage were delivered per day, the con- ditions were extremely difficult. Only a small area of land at considerable eleva- tion could be reached, and this was of a very unfavorable character. The system here was on the whole successful, though owing, as is believed, to sluggish drainage 1 86 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. through the heavy subsoil, the amount of drain tile used, 20,000 feet, at times proved inadequate to the work. Some years ago a public sewer was constructed into which the prison drain now delivers. There are few individual houses so far separated from each other that their best relief may not come by public sewerage, which have not sufficient ground about them for the successful application of this system. Although it was not the intention to enter in this volume so far into the practical technicalities of work as to use any considerable number of diagrams in illustration, it is thought that, as the system under discussion, though largely used In a few Eastern neighborhoods, is still little known over the country gener- ally, it will be proper to make an excep- tion here, and to reproduce from a descriptive article, published in the SEIVAGE DISPOSAL. 187 American Architect for March, 1892, the diagrams accompanying it. Figure 12 shows the construction of the double-chamber tank. The settHng- chamber A is 3. small, round cistern with a wide throat — not less than eighteen inches diameter — to facilitate the removal of Its scum and deposit. It receives sewage from a pipe turned down through the dome and barely trapped against the return of air — if deeply trapped, grease accumulates and obstructs the drain ; with this slight 1 88 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. trap, the flow from an ordinary house suffices to keep it free. It overflows through a deeply-trapped pipe Into the discharglng-chamber D. It is divided by a wall into two chambers, the top of the wall being just at the overflow line. The compartment B, on the Inlet side, has its water considerably agitated by the inflow. Before the dividing-wall was adopted, this agitation was communi- cated to the contents of the whole cham- ber, and flocculent matters, which would settle to the bottom or float to the top in still water, were carried over by the cur- rent into the discharglng-chamber. This agitation is now confined to the compart- ment B, from which the liquid portion flows to the compartment C in a thin sheet over the top of the wall, in such a manner as not to disturb the contents of this second compartment, allowing floc- culent solids to settle quietly to its bot- SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 189 torn. Under some circumstances, per- haps due to a higher temperature in the sewage, and this to its larger amount, the decomposition of the sediment and of the scum is sufficiently active to prevent accumulation to an injurious amount. In such cases, the settlinor-chamber need never be cleaned. This is not to be depended upon without occasional inspection. In the majority of cases it is necessary every few months to bail out the chamber and get rid of its accumula- tions, which should be buried or dug into the ground at once. The liquid overflow from the settling- chamber A to the discharging-chamber D represents practically the full amount of sewage brought down by the drain. The discharging-chamber should be made large enough to hold the product of at least twelve hours ; there is no objection to Its retaining twenty-four 190 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. hours' supply, — a longer retention would lead to too much putrefaction. This chamber is furnished with an automatic siphon ; the one shown is what is known FIG. 13. THE RHOADS-WILLIAMS SIPHON vzy as the Rhoads-Williams siphon. Its de- tails are shown In Figure 13. It depends for Its action on the sudden releasing of compressed air contained between the Inflow from the tank and SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 191 the deep trap near the outlet. When the pressure is sufficient to force the water In the blow-off trap a, a, to the bot- tom of this trap, the air pressure Is released, and the head of water, which It had held in the tank, forces a full flow into the siphon and brings it rapidly into action. Air is Introduced for the break- ing of the siphon after the main flow has ceased by the admission of air from the drain through the pipe b, b. These siphons are sold by flush-tank dealers. The siphon is located entirely outside of the tank. This obviates the serious fouling of the siphon itself, which has always been a source of difficulty when it was placed within the tank. Its opening into the tank is funnel-shaped so as to take the flow rapidly, and to make sure that there will be no obstruction from such minor solid matters as the sewage may contain. It is not ordinarily found 192 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. necessary to clean out the discharging- chamber, matters which would otherwise accumulate within it being held back in the settling-chamber. The outflow is a slightly putrid sewage containing more or less fine flocculent matter, not enough to interfere with the proper action of 2-inch absorption-drains. These absorption-drains may be placed at a greater or less distance from the tank as the tank may be at a greater or less distance from the house. They are made of ordinary round 2-inch tile in one-foot lengths, laid in earthenware gutters, their joints being open about one-fourth inch, and being protected against the entrance of earth by the loose-fitting cap laid on the top. The gutters and caps are of larger radius than the outside of the tile, so that prac- tically the whole joint is available for the escape of sewage into the ground. The SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 193 surface of the gutter on which the tile is laid should be ten inches below the finished surface of the ground. In a reasonably porous surface-loam, it will suffice to have one foot of tile for each gallon of the contents of the discharg- ing-chamber. The tile, caps, and gutters are shown in Figure 28. If the soil is heavier, the length must be increased. An impervious clay is not well suited, under any circumstances, for this use, but where nothing else is avail- able there should be at least three feet of tile per gallon. The tile may be one continuous line, or a number of shorter lines, connected with the 4~inch main leadinor from the flush-tank. The tiles need not be more than three feet apart, though twice this distance is not unusual. In fact, the system is in this respect a very flexible one, and can be adapted to land of any shape or inclination. The 194 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. fall of the main line from the tank to the absorption-drains should not, especially after coming within 20 feet of the first line of tiles, have a fall of more than 4 inches to 100 feet. Its joints should be cemented, and the branches for connection with the tile lines should come out from the bottom of the tile, not from the middle, as is usual with branches of vitrified pipe. Special pieces for this purpose are to be ob- tained from the dealers. The absorp- tion-lines themselves should have a fall of not more than 2 inches per 100 feet : more than this gives a tendency to an accumulation of sewage at the far end of the line, and if the line is long, to a breaking out of the sewage at the surface. Figures 14, 15, and 16 show three dif- ferent methods of applying this system, according to variations of the o^round. SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 195 In each case the dotted lines are con- tour-lines showing differences of eleva- tion of one foot. In Figure 14, the flush-tank A receives its sewao^e from the sink-drain leading^ from a corner of the house. Its dis- FIG. 14. FIG. 15. FIG. 16, charge is through a direct line to the point c, starting at the tank at a depth of three or four feet below the surface and coming to within a foot of the surface at the point c. At the point c the main drain is turned at an angle and has three different outlets, to be used, one at a 196 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. time, in alternation. The first one com- municates with two parallel drains at the bottom of the field, these having a sufifi- cient combined length to receive the whole discharo^e of the tank. The sec- ond one runs parallel to the first, to two absorption drains corresponding with the first two. The third communicates with the other system of three parallel lines, which are shorter, having about the same aggregate length as the two of the other systems. They are carried around nearly parallel to the contours to secure the requisite slight fall. In Figure 15 the flush-tank is fed by two drains from the house and connects, as shown, with three series of three drains each. The land is much more nearly level, and the nine absorption- drains are in ground having a total fall of only one foot. In Figure 16 the flush-tank is fed by a SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 197 single drain, not straight, and connects with its alternating gate. There are two series of drains, four on one side of the field and four on another, while a third line connects with the series of three shorter drains on each side of the medial line. The flush-tank may be placed in any position and at any distance from the house, and the field may be at any dis- tance from the flush-tank to which a proper fall can be obtained. One modification of this system, which will obviate much of the difficulty by requiring a greatly reduced retention of solid matters, where indeed a coarse screen may, in some cases, be made to hold back all that is necessary to retain, consists in the use of larger absorption- tiles, say 4-inch or 6-inch, with open joints, fully one-half inch wide and laid in coarse gravel or other very open 198 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. material just under the surface of the ground In two, or better, three series, each of which has sufficient capacity in its pipes to receive the entire contents of the tank at each discharge. The dis- charge being at intervals of from twelve to twenty-four hours, the liquid sewage with its soluble and its finer suspended impurities will have ample time to leak out into the soil; and during the period of intermission, while the other two series of drains are being used, worms* beetles, and other insects will consume, or decomposition will destroy, the rela- tively small amount of deposited matter, which, however, might be sufficient to obstruct 2-inch tiles. A still further modification consists in making the drains of similar large tiles of " horseshoe " shape, laid In a trench filled with coarse gravel or broken stone. The capacity of the tiles and of SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 199 the voids amono^ the stones In each series should be sufficient to receive more than the full contents of the tank. Cross-sections of 4-inch horseshoe tiles, laid In trenches filled with stone or gravel, are shown in Figures 17, 18, and 19. In Figure 17, the ground is supposed to be reasonably absorptive, like garden mold. In Figure 18, the natural soil is very heavy and non-absorptive, and is level or nearly so. It is thoroughly underdrained and is covered with sand or gravel in low ridges, being deeper at the absorption-drains than midway between them. The purification takes place entirely In this porous and well-aerated surface, the clarified water sinking into the drained ground below. In Figure 19, the land Is non-absorptive and has a decided slope. It should be well under- drained with tiles running up and down 200 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. the slope. The surface Is covered with sand or gravel, and is divided into sec- tions by banks of clay (under the sand) at the foot of each section. The sewage is delivered into a horseshoe tile, with FIG. 17. CLAYEY SOIL FIG. 18. broken stone, at the upper side of each section, and is purified (and its water is absorbed) before it reaches the clay bank below, or is held by this bank until it is disposed of. This question is often raised with SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 20I reference to the sub-surface system : " If the dire results of the use of the ordinary- leaching cesspool are so serious, why is it not just as bad to discharge the same materials into the ground by leaching drains?" The difference is radical. In the case of the cesspool, the leaching takes place almost entirely at such a con- siderable distance from the surface that the exclusion of air makes suitable bac- terial action impossible, while the de- livery through drains laid immediately under the sod is into aerated ground which is teeming with bacteria. 202 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. In the system described above, a cer- tain amount of putrefaction is inevitable, and putrefaction is always objectionable. When once Its fsecal matter is sub- merged, so as to prevent the exhalation of Its odors Into the atmosphere, /'r^^'/^ sew- age Is entirely inoffensive to the smell. It Is simply so much dirty water. It might be thrown in considerable quanti- ties on to a grass plat without other objection than that which would attach to the sight of its solid portions. Unless thrown so frequently and in such quanti- ties on the same spot as to saturate the ground, exclude the air, and so prevent proper bacterial action, it would produce no odor whatever, barring the trifling odor of exposed faeces. The same sewage re- tained for two or three days in a barrel, vault, or cesspool would enter into a state of offensive decomposition, and would con- stitute a nuisance of a serious character. SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 203 The real problem in the disposal of household sewage, and indeed of the sewage of large institutions, and even of towns, is to bring it into contact with a suitable oxidizing medium while in so fresh a condition as not to be offensive, and to make sure that the drains and other appliances through which it passes shall at no time become offensive. Offensive odor is, of course, chiefly to be guarded against ; but offense to the sight would also constitute an important objec- tion. No method has as yet been de- vised by which the whole process could be appropriately carried on on the front lawn of a dwelling-house. We have, however, arrived at a point where, even In a reasonably secluded back-yard, all of the conditions may be satisfied. Setting aside exceptional cases, where only the sub-surface system with a double-cham- bered Hush-tank would be acceptable, the 204 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. work may be done In a great majority of Instances by a system of surface disposal or of sub-surface disposal with large pipes, with an automatic flush-tank which may at all times be thoroughly aerated and which may be cleansed with suffi- cient frequency to prevent odor from its sliming. Especially In connection with such a flush-tank can the ventilation of the main drain and soil-pipes be main- tained with such completeness as to pre- vent the accumulation of odors In them. The objection to placing a flush-tank of this character quite near to a house Is rather fancied than real. The nearer It Is and the more con- stantly subjected to inspection, the greater will be the certainty of keeping it always in good condition. On the other hand, the farther from the house, the more will the solid parts of the sewage be broken up In transit, the less Impera- SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 205 tivewlll be the need for scrupulous clean- liness, and the less the care required ; civilized living, however, requires great care in all such matters. Civilization is only lately beginning to take cognizance of this requirement, and the public at large is still disposed to like best a sys- tem which calls no attention to itself, and of which the objectionable features are so hidden as to be easily forgotten. Even under their best development, such systems belong to the '' out-of-sight-out- of-mind" class. Accessibility and exposure to constant inspection, now universal in the best plumbing practice of the day, are equally desirable in the case of apparatus for the disposal of sewage outside of the house. The cesspool, the vault, and the double- chambered flush-tank will soon have be- come things of the past, among those who care for good sanitary conditions. 2o6 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. Their places will be taken by some de- vice having the essential features of the system described below, combining effi- ciency with the possibility of, and the de- mand for, perfect cleanliness. This be- ing accomplished, the *' horrid drains " will soon cease to exist, or to be thought about. It is not to be supposed that this pre- cise manner of applying the system will long remain the accepted one. But the principle of the arrangement seems to embody all the elements of permanence. This principle may be thus stated : Deliver the sewage as soon as pro- duced, through thoroughly flushed and ventilated pipes and drains, to a point outside of the house ; hold back its coarser substances by some form of screen which will allow everything to pass that can, in an unobjectionable way, be disposed of with the sew^age ; accumu- SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 207 late the reo^ular flow throuoh the drain in a receptacle large enough to hold the supply of a few hours, or of a day, as the case may be ; the receptacle becoming full, discharge its contents automatically, rapidly, and completely, on to the surface of the ground, or into drains immedi- ately below the surface, for Its final, complete, and inoffensive disposal ; arrange the screen and tank in such a way that they may be kept in a cleanly condition with little labor and without requiring the constant supervision and naeilinof of the master of the house. The appliances shown in the Figures 20 to 27, and the method of working described in connection therewith, seem to constitute a satisfactory application of this principle. Figure 20 shows a vertical, longitudi- nal section, Figure 21a plan, and Figure 22 a vertical cross-section of a new form 2o8 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. of flush-tank, of which the Inside meas- urements are, a width of one foot eight inches, a length of six feet, and a height of two feet. At a distance of four inches below the top on the long sides, a ledge two inches wide is formed by setting the brickwork of the walls that far back. This ledge is intended to receive wire- cloth screens twenty-four inches square, shown in Figure 24. The length of the tank may be increased to any number of multiples of two feet in order to obtain the desired capacity. A tank eight feet long would take four screens, a tank ten feet long, five screens, etc. The uniform width is maintained, as the screens are made only in the one size, and as they would be liable to sag if much wider between their supports. The bottom of the tank is so graded as to deliver its contents entirely at the center of the SEWAGE DISPOSAL 2IO SEIVAGE DISPOSAL. discharging-end, where there is a depres- sion equal to the receiving-height of the throat of the siphon at its narrowest part. At the end of the tank there is built a recess fifteen inches square to receive the screening-cage shown in ^^:p775;>^ fTTTTfTT Section A B Figure 23.* This cage is made of galvanized-iron-vvire cloth with i-inch meshes. It is entirely closed at the top and bottom and on three of its sides. One of its sides, that which is to be placed next to the inflowing drain, has * As shown in the illustrations, the sewage enters at one end of the tank and flows out at the other. It will be better to make the inlet and the outlet at the same end, so that deposits forming near the inlet will have the full flow to remove them. SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 211 an opening- at its top ten inches square. This cage constitutes a complete screen to withhold whatever will not pass a i- inch mesh, — paper and all solids of con- siderable size. The agitation of its con- tents by the inflow will break up much of the softer solid parts of the sewage FIG. 23. FIG. 24. and carry them through the meshes ; what will not so pass must be retained, because it would tend to obstruct pipes in the case of sub-surface delivery, and might make objectionable deposits on the ground in the case of surface delivery. These cages are furnished in duplicate, so that whenever one is removed for cleaning, another can be substituted for it immediately. The one 2T2 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. removed, after standing a few minutes, will have parted with all of its liquids, and its solid contents can be shaken out through the lo-inch opening and removed, or dug into the ground. When the cage and the covers, Figures 23 and 24, are all in place, the whole tank is sufficiently screened from observation and is protected against leaves and rub- bish which might otherwise get access to its contents. As often as experience shows it to be necessary, perhaps daily, the covering-screens, Figure 24, should be removed, after discharging the tank, and its walls and bottom should be thoroughly swept down, the sewage accumulated in its outlet being sufficient for such washing. As above indicated, the frequency with which this cleansing should be performed may vary according to nearness to, or remoteness from, the house, walks, etc. SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 213 Figure 29 shows the masonry con- struction of this tank, the material being brick, glazed on the inner face, and mar- ble or other slabs at the top. The tank is emptied, after its con- tents reach a certain height, by the ac- tion of a suitable automatic siphon, placed entirely outside of the tank, hav- ing a funnel-shaped inlet for the entrance of the sewage. This siphon will require no attention. Whenever the tank fills to the discharging-line, the whole accumulation will flow out rapidly, and when the flow ceases the siphon will "break," allowing no further discharge until the tank has filled aoaln. The tanks may be built of ordinary brickwork, laid and coated Inside and out with Portland cement, or with stone or concrete similarly coated. They may be cheaply but simply made, or they may even be lined and capped with white 214 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. marble. Another excellent material would be white or straw-colored glazed brick laid with close joints. Elegance of finish will not be altogether useless ; for the finer they are the more easily and the more certainly will these tanks be kept in good condition. In a few cases, all others so far heard from working satisfactorily, it was found that the flocculent matter passing the screen clogged the 4-inch absorption-tiles after a time. This was obviated by con- structing a settling-chamber, such as is shown at the left end of Figure 12, in the course of the drain from the house to the flush-tank. This may be necessary in other cases. For surface disposal, it has been clearly shown not to be required. Figure 25 shows the flush-tank, illus- trated in Figures 20 to 24, placed at some distance from the house, receiving SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 215 sewage from three house-drains, and deHvering its contents for surface dis- posal by the use of three alternating systems of surface gutters or barriers to 2 1 FIG. 2S. FIG. 26. equalize the flow. These sections are marked A, B, and C, the gates a, b, and c regulating the distribution. In A and B the sewao^e is delivered alonor- the 2l6 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. upper edge of gently sloping land. If the land is steeper, the gutters or barriers must be nearer together to equalize the , ^ flow. Water escaping from the upper gutter, or barrier i, is collected again for a uniform flow at barrier 2, and again at barrier 3. Disposal for section B operates in the same manner. On section C, the gutters or barriers being mucli longer, only two are needed. These illustra- tions are not drawn to scale, and are only in- tended to illustrate the general features of the process. The gutters or barriers must be absolutely horizontal, and so arranged that the sewage escaping from them will flow evenly over the land FIG. 27. SEWAGE DISPOSAL, 217 below. The distribution may require the cutting of a leader-furrow here and there in the grass with a spade. This method of surface irrigation removes absolutely all impurity from the sewage ; what becomes of it after it has passed over a sufficient area of ground is immaterial. If it escapes into the brook or other water-course, it will by that time have become purer than the water of the brook itself. In place of the gates a, b, and c, for changing the flow from one tract to another, I am now usine a cast-Iron dis- tributing chamber, shown In Figure 30. 2l8 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. Its operation Is indicated by Figures 31, 32, and ^^. The pipe A from the flush- tank deHvers into this, and from its opposite side run three lines, leading to three sets of absorption tiles, x, y and z. Flat plates, which act as deflectors, are hinged at h, h, fitting closely to the bot- tom of the chamber. When these plates are set as shown in Figure 31, the flow is SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 219 delivered to llnej^'. When turned to the position indicated in Figure 32, the sew- age is discharged into z. When placed as shown in Figure 2)?)y ^^^^ outlet x receives the flow. These distributing chambers are made by the Dececo Co., 146 High Street, Boston, Mass. Figure 26 shows a system in which the same tank is used, receivinor the flow from four house-drains, and delivering "Its sewage Into absolutely level, wide trenches, of suflicient length. In the case shown, there are two of these trenches returned on themselves to give sufificient length. They are marked a, a, a, and b, b, b. In connection with the same system, there is shown a system of surface irrigation on sloping land. The satisfactory use of the trenches, a, a, a, and b, b, b, requires land of very absorp- tive character, the more porous the bet- ter. The best of all is a very fine gravel. 2 20 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. As the trenches become filled on the dis- charge of the flush-tank, the liquid soak- ing away into the ground, there is left a felt-like coating on the surface, which requires either a sufficient intermission FIG. 30. of use to be destroyed by exposure to the air, or, what accomplishes the same purpose, a thorough raking of the sur- face from time to time into the material in which the trenches are cut. Figure 27 shows the same flush-tank surrounded by a screen of evergreens, SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 221 s, s ; two systems of sub-surface absorp- tion-drains similar to those shown in Figures 14, 15, and 16; and one system of surface disposal similar to those shown in Figure 25. The variation of details, such as the size and location of the flush-tank, the arrangement, location, and extent of the surface gutters, or barriers, the horizon- tal trenches, the sub-surface absorption- drains, etc., may be almost infinite, so that the character of the soil, the forma- tion of the surface, the use to which the land is to be put, the necessity for con- cealment, etc., may be accommodated in all cases. The flow from the flush-tank to the absorption-field is conveniently directed to the different sections by a simple gate-chamber made for the pur- pose. While gutters cut into the ground will be effective in collecting and equalizing 222 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. the flow, they have the drawback that they retain sewage after the flow ceases, and become odorous. The porous bar- riers (of broken stone, gravel, etc.) allow FIG. 33. the whole flow to pass with only such delay as is needed to equalize the dis- tribution. It is best to lay these bar- riers on a narrow strip of brick paving. It may with advantage be repeated SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 223 here that while this system of disposal seems to be as nearly perfect as is possi- ble in the present state of the art, no such system will withstand neglect. It affords a perfect solution of one of the most difficult and dangerous problems connected with life in districts where sewers are not available, and the com- pleteness of the result to be secured amply compensates for the slight amount of regular attention required.