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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
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How to Drain a House 
 
 Practical Information 
 
 for Householders 
 
 Y ^ BY 
 
 J- 
 
 GEO. E. WARING, Jr., M. INST. C. E. 
 
 Consulting Engineer for Sanitary Drainage. 
 (Newport, R. I.) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1885 
 
^y 
 
 ?.„v. 
 
 Copyright, 1885 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 <*$• 
 
 W. L. Mershon & Co., 
 
 Printers and Electroiypers, 
 
 Rah way, N. J- 
 
 £60/1*. 7-2*0?/ 
 
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 Y. 
 
 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 
 
PREFA TOR Y. 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 only so long 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- 
 
VI PREFA TOR Y. 
 
 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, her 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. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 Prefatory : Our Enemy the Drains, . .3 
 
 I. House-Drains and Health, . . 1 
 
 II. Drains of the Average House, . .12 
 
 III. The Policy Adopted, . . .22 
 
 IV. The Healthfulness of the House, . 24 
 
 V. Foundation and Cellar, . . .29 
 
 VI. Foul Drainage, . . . .51 
 
 VII. Specific Advice — as to Plumbing, . 55 
 
 VIII. The Sewer-Gas Question, . . .62 
 
 IX. How the Simplification of Plumbing will 
 
 Affect the Plumber, . . .67 
 
 X. Main Line and Main Traps, . . 72 
 
 XI. Fresh-Air Inlets, . . . .78 
 
 XII. Material and Construction of the Main 
 
 Drain, . . . . .81 
 
 XIII. The Soil-Pipe, . . . .85 
 
 XIV. Ventilating Cowls on Soil-Pipes, . 92 
 XV. Traps and Trap Ventilation, . . 96 
 
 XVI. Putnam's Trap, . . . .115 
 
Vlll. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 XVII. Plumbing Appliances, . . . 120 
 
 XVIII. Simplicity, Economy, and Convenience, . 124 
 
 XIX. Wash-Stands, . . . .127 
 
 XX. Water-Closets — the Dececo, . .131 
 
 XXI. Sinks — the Dececo Flush-Pot, . . 143 
 
 XXII. Overflows and Stop-Cocks, . .150 
 
 XXIII. An Example of Simple and Good Work, . 160 
 
 XXIV. Owners, Architects and Plumbers, . 164 
 XXV. Sewage Disposal for Isolated Houses, . 172 
 
 XXVI. Sub-Surface Irrigation, . . .194 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FIGURE. PAGE. 
 
 i. Gravel Drain under Cellar floor near Foun- 
 
 dation, 
 
 2. Tile Drain, with Muslin Joint, . . .34 
 
 3. The Top Finish of a Soil-Pipe, . . -93 
 
 4. The Crooks and Angles of Trap-Vent Pipes, . 105 
 
 5. Putnam's Trap, . . . . .117 
 
 6. The Dececo Water-Closet, . . -135 
 
 7. " " Flush-Pot for Sinks, . . 146 
 
 8. Hidden Overflow of Bath, . . .152 
 
 9. Standing Overflow and Plug for Bath, . 155 
 
 10. Field's Flush-Tank, .... 191 
 
 11. Settling Basin and Flush-Tank, (Plan) . 196 
 
 12. " " " " (Section) . 197 
 
 13. Details of Rogers Field's Siphon, . . 198 
 
 14. Branch Piece for Connecting the Tiles, . 206 
 
 15. Tile, . . . . . .209 
 
 16. Gutter, ...... 209 
 
 17. Cap, . . . . . . 209 
 
 18. Gutter, Tile, and Cap as Laid, (Section) . 209 
 
 19. Method of Laying Absorption Drains, . .211 
 
 20. Arrangement of Flush Tank and Drains for a 
 
 Small Lot, ..... 218 
 
 33 
 
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 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 
 
 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. Twenty 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 a 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- 
 
HO USE DRA INS A ND HE A L TH. 7 
 
 cede that, however much of elegance 
 and comfort may surround them in the 
 appointments of their homes, their mode 
 of life is neither decent, civilized, 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 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 
 
 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 DRAINS A ND HEAL 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 to 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, i. 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. 
 
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 conditions which constitute the main 
 feature of the practical sanitary question. 
 
DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 15 
 
 I 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 was 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 AVERAGE HOUSE. I J 
 
 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 A VERAGE HOUSE. 1 9 
 
 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 AVERAGE 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 life 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 and 
 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 POLICY ADOPTED. 23 
 
 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 
 suggestions 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 HEALTHFVLNESS 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 HEALTHFULNESS OF 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 per- 
 formed. No cost and no care would be 
 too great to prevent the constantly recur- 
 ring domestic calamities which have had 
 
28 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 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. 
 
 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 underdraining to the whole area about 
 
FO UNDA 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 
 several feet 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. 
 
 33 
 
 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 
 
 "7777-77777777 
 
 A 
 
 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 dedicated 
 to the public to the extent of its use under or within the 
 foundation-wall of buildings. 
 
FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 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 long 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 giving 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, and 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 CELL A R. 37 
 
 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 
 
38 FO UNDA TION A ND CELL A R. 
 
 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 AND CELLAR. 39 
 
 indeed, for some distance outside of it, 
 should even the rain-water conductors 
 deliver 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 changing barometric 
 pressure, the rise and fall of water 
 in the soil, and the action of winds, 
 
40 FOUNDATION 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 CELLAR. 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 resulting 
 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 gravel is finer and mixed with 
 
42 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 
 
 sand which, imposing by friction more 
 resistance to the movement of the air, 
 limits 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, we 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, 
 
FOUND A TION 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 flat 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 
 upon 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 ground 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 
 suffice to secure the early purification of 
 the ground, for the bacteria of putrefaction 
 — those universal scavengers — would soon 
 make away with the existing accumulation. 
 How far their action may modify the pres- 
 ent ill effects of the constantly renewed 
 underground filth we have as yet no 
 means of knowing. If we are wise we 
 
46 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 
 
 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 
 
FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 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 TION 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 organic 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 knowledge does 
 not carry us very far in this direction, 
 
SO FOUNDATION AND 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 understanding 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 DRAINAGE. 
 
 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. 
 
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- 
 
5 6 SPECIFIC AD VICE. 
 
 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, 
 
SPE CIFIC A D VICE. 5 7 
 
 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. 
 
5 8 SEE CIFIC A D VICE. 
 
 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. 
 
SPECIFIC AD VICE. 5 9 
 
 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 
 
60 SEE CIFIC AD VICE. 
 
 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. Such 
 restriction would limit very materially the 
 range of selection, and would lead to dis- 
 carding many things that are now in 
 common use. 
 
 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- 
 
SPECIFIC AD VICE. 6 1 
 
 victions in the most distinct way. What 
 I am endeavoring to convey is not 
 the well-known average opinion of engin- 
 eers and sanitarians — only my own 
 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. 
 
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 
 
THE SE WER-GA S Q UESTION 63 
 
 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 invari- 
 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 
 
64 THE SE WER- GAS QUES TION. 
 
 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 
 
THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. 65 
 
 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 completely 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 
 
66 THE SE WER- GAS QUE S TION. 
 
 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 
 
68 SIMPLIFICA TION OF PL UMBING. 
 
 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 good 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 
 
SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING. 69 
 
 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 
 
70 SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING. 
 
 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- 
 
SIMPLIFICA TION OF PL UMBING. 7 1 
 
 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 between 
 the house and a public sewer has been 
 much discussed, and is still determined 
 by no rule. There should always be such 
 
THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 73 
 
 a trap between the house and a flush- 
 tank or a cess-pool. I am inclined to the 
 belief that there should not be such a trap 
 in 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 
 
74 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 
 
 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, (#.) 
 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- 
 
THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 75 
 
 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. Without 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. 
 (6.) 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- 
 
76 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 
 
 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 
 
THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. JJ 
 
 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 XL 
 
 FRES H-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 
 
FRESH-AIR INLETS. 79 
 
 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 
 
80 FRESH-AIR INLETS. 
 
 to windows and doors. With well-flushed 
 pipes, as already said, the constant though 
 often slow movement of air through 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 danger 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- 
 tage. Although thus laid in the ground 
 and used as a drain, iron pipe is not, like 
 earthenware pipe, imperishable ; still the 
 greater certainty of tightness, and correct 
 
82 MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 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 
 
MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 83 
 
 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 together 
 above ground and connected with the 
 main line before leaving 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 underthe cellar floor, I should not 
 counsel the following of the usual recom- 
 
84 MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 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 with 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 
 
86 THE SOIL-PIPE. 
 
 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 calking 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 
 
THE SOIL-PIPE. 87 
 
 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 may be 
 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 difficult to locate a 
 slight leak than when the water test is 
 used. 
 
 I think it may be accepted as a well- 
 
88 THE SOIL-PIPE. 
 
 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 will 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 
 
THE SOIL-PIPE. 89 
 
 rust. Doubtless a rust closure is a per- 
 manent one. 
 
 I am no.w experimenting with a soil-pipe 
 joint which promises to be successful. It 
 is a turned or ground joint, which is her- 
 metically tight when first put together or 
 which in a very short time becomes so 
 from rusting 
 
 These experiments are not yet quite so 
 far advanced that it would be expedient 
 to describe here the details of the method. 
 
 There are two grades of soil-pipe 
 known 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 circumfer- 
 ences 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 
 
90 THE SOIL-PIPE. 
 
 between one side and another. A very 
 slight difference is a serious matter in 
 common pipe. In extra-heavy 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 discharged through it. 
 
 There is, however, another considera- 
 
THE SOIL-PIPE. 91 
 
 tion 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 
 an almost complete 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. 
 
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 WIS IN SOU-PIPES. 93 
 
 every deviation from the straight line 
 obstructs the current by in- 
 creasing 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 $L 
 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. 
 
94 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 WIS IN SOIL-PIPES. 95 
 
 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. 97 
 
 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, 
 I have never been able to look upon it 
 with favor. There is no doubt that un- 
 der many circumstances it does good, but 
 I believe that on the whole it does more 
 harm. 
 
 Not only as confirming my own view. 
 
98 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 
 
 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. 99 
 
 become reduced in size, or entirely closed 
 by the accumulation of foul matter thrown 
 into it during the use of the trap, (c.) 
 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. 
 
TOO TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 
 
 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. ioi 
 
 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 
 
102 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 
 
 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-pipe. 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. 1 03 
 
 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 
 
104 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. 
 
 105 
 
 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. 
 
106 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 of actual work, 
 or in any such illustration to be found in 
 sanitary journals, he will see that the dif- 
 ference between a straight line and a coil 
 three feet in diameter is as nothing com- 
 pared with what constantly occurs in 
 practice where the vent-pipes turn in and 
 out and up and down, and are interrupted 
 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. 1 07 
 
 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 
 
108 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 
 
 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 unventilated, 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 unventilated 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. 
 
TEAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 109 
 
 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 capillary 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. 
 
no TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 
 
 Another curious experiment was tried 
 to determine the influence of the venti- 
 lating opening in retarding the flow 
 through the trap by friction. The retard- 
 ation was found, as a general result, to 
 be about thirty per cent. This is, of course, 
 a reduction to that extent of the power of 
 the stream flowing through a trap to 
 overcome the tendency to form deposits. 
 
 It would naturally seem a strange pro- 
 ceeding on the part of a writer to go back 
 to the discarded practice of former times, 
 and to advise now what he condemned, 
 and condemned with good reason, a few 
 years ago. I am tempted to do some- 
 thing very like this. I say tempted to do 
 it, for I am not in my own mind entirely 
 satisfied that it is best to do it. It is best 
 certainly to state my own present notions 
 on the subject, leaving the reader to form 
 his own conclusions as to the proper decis- 
 ion to make in the matter. 
 
TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. Ill 
 
 It was formerly an almost universal 
 practice, especially in work done by 
 plumbers not acting under professional 
 advice, to trap the wastes of the bath and 
 the wash-basin by connecting them with 
 the water-closet trap below the water 
 level. This was very urgently and very 
 properly condemned. The water-closet 
 trap was generally filled with a filthy 
 mass containing more or less semi- 
 solid fecal matter in a state of active 
 decomposition. There was often little 
 more flushing effect in the discharge of 
 the closet than that produced by tipping 
 the pan-full of sealing water on to the 
 side of the container and letting it run 
 slowly down into the trap. In most cases 
 all that was removed was what had 
 become fluid by putrefaction and macera- 
 tion. The addition of warm water from 
 a bath or basin greatly aggravated the 
 putrefaction of such of this matter as 
 
112 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 
 
 might remain, and of the adhering slime 
 of the sides of the trap. The heat thus 
 produced aggravated the pestiferous con- 
 dition of the contents of the iron receiver 
 itself. The waste-pipes of the bath and 
 basin were fouled by the set-back of filth. 
 
 So long as traps were in that condition, 
 the argument against such a method of 
 trapping other vessels was absolute and 
 unanswerable. But in decent modern 
 work, water-closet traps in such condition 
 no longer exist. Where two quarts of 
 water were formerly used, we now use two 
 or three gallons, and the larger quantity 
 is all discharged in the time formerly re- 
 quired for the smaller ; so that the flush- 
 ing is complete and the water of the trap 
 is always clean. This entirely reverses 
 the conditions and answers all of the 
 arguments originally advanced against 
 the method under consideration. 
 
 My own attention was called to this 
 
TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 113 
 
 in a house which I recently leased 
 for a few months' occupation. It was 
 necessary to make some changes in the 
 plumbing work, but it was desirable to 
 make them inexpensive. There was a 
 good 4-inch lead trap under the water- 
 closet, firmly secured beneath the floor. 
 The bath and basin were also trapped by 
 it. To make a radical change would be 
 costly. The opinion of the plumber 
 coincided with my own, which was that 
 with a hopper closet with most copious 
 flushing — at least five times the volume 
 of the contents of the trap being dis- 
 charged through it at each use of the 
 closet — the sealing water after use must 
 be at least entirely safe as a seal for 
 the other vessels. I determined to try 
 the experiment. I watched it closely 
 throughout the whole winter and found 
 the arrangement entirely unobjectionable. 
 It is true that the waste-pipes in both 
 
114 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 
 
 cases were three or four feet long and 
 doubtless they were somewhat coated with 
 soap and other impurities, but there was 
 no circulation of air through them. The 
 slight gaseous result of decomposition was 
 so diluted that at no time, even after the 
 bath-room had been tightly closed all 
 night, was there any other odor than is 
 usually delivered into the room by the 
 overflow pipes of the bath and basin 
 through which there is a circulation of 
 air. 
 
 Let me repeat that I do not to-day 
 advise a return to this old method, but I 
 believe that it is worthy of careful consid- 
 eration. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 putnam's trap. 
 
 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 being 
 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 
 
n6 PUTNAM'S TRAP. 
 
 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. 
 
PUTNAM'S TRAP. 
 
 Ii 7 
 
 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 
 
 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 
 
Il8 PUTNAM'S TRAP. 
 
 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 seem 
 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. 
 
PUTNAM'S TRAP. 119 
 
 If the Putnam trap is not the success that 
 I trust to its being, these perhaps will 
 remain our best resource for a time. 
 Whether compelled by local law to venti- 
 late traps or not, I should not depend on 
 ventilation, in the conviction that the 
 simple 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. 
 
PL UMBING APPLIANCES. I 2 1 
 
 It seems to me on reflection, however, 
 the only justification for the writing of 
 this book is to communicate to the public 
 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 ten 
 years ago was an extremely crude one, 
 and in which perfection has as yet by no 
 means been attained. 
 
 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 
 
122 PL UMBING A PPLIA 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 UMBING APPLIANCES. 1 2 3 
 
 demand for the attainment of additional 
 security against the invasion of drain-air, 
 and has literally run 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 general 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 
 almost universal with the tight, unven- 
 tilated inclosed spaces 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 WA SH-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 ring and 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. 1 2 9 
 
 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. 
 
 The only really cleanly device that I 
 have yet seen is what is known as 
 " Weavers Waste," where the plug fits 
 closely into the outlet, forming part of 
 the bottom of the basin, and is opened by 
 being raised from below. It does not get 
 over, and it may slightly aggravate, the 
 objection to the hidden overflow ; but it 
 does enable us to wash in a clean vessel. 
 
 I am now experimenting with a small 
 fixed basin which is simply an earthenware 
 funnel without plug or overflow. At its 
 top stands a movable wash-bowl to be 
 filled from the supply-cocks in the usual 
 manner. The bowl is emptied by pour- 
 ing its contents into the funnel. That 
 this will prove a practical success is not 
 yet demonstrated. 
 
13© WASH-STANDS. 
 
 Since the publication of the above in 
 the Century Magazine, two or three de- 
 vices to avoid the hidden overflow have 
 come to my notice. One of them, the 
 invention of Mr. A. W. Hoffman, of Buf- 
 falo, is an actual stand-pipe, substantially 
 the same as the standing overflow of the 
 bath-tub illustrated on page 155. Its pecu- 
 liarity is that, instead of standing straight 
 up in the middle of the basin, where it 
 would be in the way, it follows the curve 
 of the side of the basin opening at the 
 usual position of the overflow holes — 
 which he omits — and is quite out of the 
 way. It is entirely removable, like the 
 bath-tub overflow, and it constitutes the 
 only plug at the outlet. It is worth 
 trying. 
 
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 is still the 
 great favorite of landlords and of build- 
 ers, and which, in spite of its complication 
 and intricacy, is still, owing to the great 
 demand for it, sold more cheaply, and 
 therefore more widely, than any other. 
 
132 WA TER- CLOSE TS. 
 
 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 
 
WA TER- CL OSETS. 133 
 
 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 
 
1 34 WA TER- CLOSE TS. 
 
 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 
 
WA TER-CLOSE TS. 
 
 *35 
 
 depends for its discharge is due to the 
 use of an outlet weir below the floor, 
 which is the invention of Mr. Rogers 
 
 FIG. 6.— 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- 
 
136 WA TER-CLOSE TS. 
 
 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 y 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 Y. 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 flowing through 
 the long limb of the siphon, in an irregu- 
 lar stream, carries the air with it, and 
 
WA TER-CLOSE TS. 137 
 
 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. 
 
138 WA TER-CLOSE TS. 
 
 It has undergone few changes 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 1881. 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 
 being tested with the rough use and rough 
 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 
 
WATER-CLOSETS. 139 
 
 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 matter, lubricating 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 
 
14° WA TER- CL SE TS. 
 
 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 flooring - 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 
 
WA TER- CLOSE TS. 141 
 
 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. 
 
 I would by no means imply that there 
 are not a number of other very good 
 closets in the market besides those here 
 described. I have had in use in my 
 own house, for five years, a closet which 
 holds a reasonable depth of water 
 in the bowl, which has a high overflow 
 
142 WA TER-CLOSE TS. 
 
 point, and of which the contents are 
 driven out by a strong jet of water shoot- 
 ing up the outlet pipe and over the over- 
 flow. With careful attention, largely 
 made necessary by the improper shape of 
 the bowl, this closet is so satisfactory 
 that I have not thought it worth while to 
 take it out and substitute the Dececo. 
 There are other closets holding water to 
 a considerable depth by the same method 
 of elevating the overflow point and dis- 
 charged by one means or another which 
 are quite acceptable. 
 
 It is possible that my decided prefer- 
 ence for the Dececo is only an incident of 
 paternity — but it is a decided preference 
 nevertheless. 
 
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- 
 
 — ;? 
 
 _, w ~~ ■ 
 
 FIG. 7. — 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 burned in 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 filling 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 sufficiently open to allow a rapid 
 flow. 
 
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 degree 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 
 
O VERFLO WS AND STOP-COCKS. 151 
 
 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 
 
152 VERFL OWS AND S TOP- CO CKS. 
 
 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. 8. — HIDDEN OVERFLOW OF BATH. 
 
 the waste-pipe is shut off from the drain- 
 age system, and which has incidentally 
 the effect of retarding the flow of water 
 through the waste-pipe. If we suppose 
 
OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 153 
 
 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 slowly 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- 
 
154 O VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 
 
 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 
 
OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 
 
 155 
 
 overflow-pipe B and its perforated screen, 
 and using for the closure of the waste- 
 outlet A y as a substitute for the ordinary 
 plug, a pipe fitting into the outlet and 
 
 00 
 
 FIG. 9. — 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. Unless 
 
156 VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 
 
 Hoffman's overflow prove successful, such 
 a substitute for the ordinary overflow is 
 not applicable to wash-bowls as now 
 made. It may be made available for pan- 
 try sinks if the pipe can be so placed in a 
 corner as not to interfere with the proper 
 use of the vessel. If its universal adop- 
 tion for bath-tubs could be secured, a 
 very wide-spread source of mild nuisance 
 would be done away with. Fortunately, 
 it is far cheaper than any arrangement for 
 which it is a substitute. It is one of its 
 incidental uses that it enables us to get 
 rid of the dirty chain attached to the 
 ordinary bath-plug. Weaver's waste, 
 which is one of the best devices for clos- 
 ing the outlet of an ordinary wash-basin, 
 is also arranged for the bath. In neither 
 case does it in any respect modify the 
 objection to a foul overflow. 
 
 Stop-cocks need no special notice in 
 this paper, except in connection with 
 
VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 1 5 7 
 
 bath-tubs. Most, if not all, of the En- 
 glish 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 
 drawing 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 
 objection to the arrangement should have 
 been so generally overlooked. This bot- 
 
158 OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 
 
 torn 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. Water 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 
 thus far devised is one by which the 
 water is drawn through a faucet above 
 the water-line, and by which the outlet is 
 
O VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 1 5 9 
 
 closed by a stand-pipe serving as the only 
 overflow of the tub. 
 
 Laundry trays, as they are now almost 
 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 any thing 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 wood, 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 multipli- 
 cation and complication 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, and four laundry- 
 tubs. The main soil-pipe runs under the 
 basement 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. 161 
 
 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 
 
162 AN EXAMPLE OP 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, 
 and considering the long lateral waste- 
 
AN EX AMBLE OF GOOD WORK. 163 
 
 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- 
 
WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 65 
 
 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. 
 
166 WNERS, 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 
 
WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 67 
 
 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. 
 
168 OWNERS, ARCHITECTS, PLUMBERS. 
 
 The criticism here is in no sense 
 against the plumber nor against the 
 architect, but against the sy 'stem. 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 might 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 
 
WNER S y AR CHITE C TS, PL UMBERS. 1 6 9 
 
 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. 
 
170 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. 1 7 1 
 
 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 FOR ISOLATED HOUSES. 
 
 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 3 
 
 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 
 
1 74 SE WA GE 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 finds 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 DISPOSAL. 1 75 
 
 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 longer exist. The sanitary fra- 
 ternity 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 the disposal 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 
 
176 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. There is little doubt that the agents 
 of destruction in this case are the bacte- 
 ria of putrefaction, 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 conditions favorable to the 
 growth of these bacteria. Aeration is a 
 necessary condition 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. 177 
 
 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 waste 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 
 
178 SEWAGE 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, must necessarily be accomplished 
 in a hidden and inodorous manner. The 
 sanitary result would probably be com- 
 plete if they were delivered intermittently 
 over the surface of a lawn. Other 
 considerations 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 the 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 7 9 
 
 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. This was 
 about 1868. Later, Mr. Rogers Field 
 adopted a modification of the same 
 device in disposing of the liquid wastes 
 of cottages at Leatherhead, 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. 
 
180 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 
 
 The writer, in connection with his resi- 
 dence at Newport, adopted Mr. Moule's 
 device as soon as it was made known, and 
 added Mr. Field's improvement 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 obstruction 
 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 every thing not deposited in 
 these was delivered to the drains, which 
 were laid under a lawn adjoining the best 
 
SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 8 1 
 
 rooms of the house and a piazza that was 
 much used. The net work of drains 
 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 
 
1 82 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. From that 
 time to this, the operation of the system 
 has been completely successful. It has not 
 been used in winter, but it has since been 
 demonstrated that there is no reason why 
 it might not be. 
 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 183 
 
 At the Hotel at Bryn Mawr, Pa., a sys- 
 tem 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 
 property. The change was made to avoid 
 legal proceedings threatened by the 
 adjoining owner. A little difficulty oc- 
 curred at first from an unequal distribution 
 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 is now com- 
 pletely successful. 
 
 At the Woman's Prison at Sherburn, 
 Mass., where about 30,000 gallons of 
 sewerage is delivered per day, the con- 
 ditions are 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 has been on the whole successful 
 
1 84 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 
 
 though, owing, as is believed, to sluggish 
 drainage through the heavy subsoil, the 
 amount of drain tile used, 20,000 feet, 
 has at times proved inadequate to the 
 work. The difficulty has not yet been 
 completely solved, nor is it certain that 
 even more thorough drainage will enable 
 the small area available to cope with 
 the very large volume delivered. It is 
 not unlikely that under the circumstances 
 the only possible solution will be to im- 
 prove the drainage of the ground as much 
 as possible and to restrict the amount of 
 water used in the establishment as much 
 as is consistent with a proper working of 
 the closets, laundry-tubs, etc. 
 
 However, the difficulties which have 
 arisen in this place have but an indirect 
 bearing upon the problem now in hand. 
 There are few individual houses, so far 
 separated from each other that their best 
 relief may not come by public sewerage, 
 
SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 85 
 
 which have not sufficient ground about 
 them for the successful application of this 
 system. 
 
 So far as the disposal of slop-water is 
 concerned, in the case of houses of the 
 smaller class, where expenditure in con- 
 struction must be reduced as much as 
 possible, I can not do better than to 
 repeat here directions given in a paper 
 prepared for the West Ewing Improve- 
 ment Association and published by them 
 in 1880: 
 
 THE DISPOSAL OF KITCHEN SINK WASTE, 
 
 Chamber slops and laundry water, is a question which 
 has engaged the study and ingenuity of the world for 
 many years. I believe that, so far as isolated 
 country-houses are concerned, it has been perfectly 
 accomplished by the system known as " sub-surface 
 irrigation." This system is susceptible of much 
 elaboration, and may be carried out in an expensive 
 manner ; but its essential results may be secured 
 with an expense so trifling that not even in the 
 smallest tenement-house need its cost be an obstacle 
 
1 86 SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 
 
 to its adoption. It is based on the fact that the 
 surface soil which is within the reach of the roots 
 of grass or other plants, and of the action of the 
 atmosphere, is a very active destroyer of organic 
 matter. A cotton rag buried a few inches under 
 the surface is very soon entirely consumed by this 
 action ; and all decomposable matter so placed is 
 destroyed by oxidation or slow combustion as com- 
 pletely, though less rapidly, as when it is thrown into 
 the fire. In order to make this process continuous, 
 it is necessary that there should be free access of 
 air into the pores of the soil. In the case of liquid 
 wastes, it is necessary that the discharge be inter- 
 mittent, for when a constant small stream runs into 
 the ground, saturating a small area, the entrance of 
 the air is prevented and the oxidizing action is 
 retarded. With even a few hours' interval between 
 the two discharges, the water settles away into the 
 ground, which acts as a filter, holding back all of 
 its impurities, and its descent is followed by the 
 entrance of fresh air, which immediately attacks 
 and destroys -the retained organic matter. If the 
 liquid is thrown on the top of the ground, it pro- 
 duces in a short time a puddled condition of the 
 surface which prevents the free entrance of air. It 
 is, therefore, desirable to introduce it into the soil 
 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 187 
 
 below the surface, allowing it to soak away in so 
 gradual a manner that no puddling of the earth can 
 take place. This introduction into the earth is by 
 the use of common agricultural drain tiles with open 
 joints, laid not more than ten inches below the sur- 
 face. The intermittent action is secured by deliver- 
 ing liquid wastes into these tiles, not constantly, 
 but from time to time. 
 
 In the case of a small tenement-house, where 
 only two or three pailfuls of waste liquid are pro- 
 duced in the course of the day, this absorption 
 drain need not be more than forty feet long. It may 
 be one continuous line of pipe, or it may be several 
 shorter pipes branching from one main line, accord- 
 ing to the space devoted to the use. It may lie 
 under the grass near a row of currant bushes, under 
 a grape-vine trellis, under a grass-plat, or elsewhere. 
 Opening into it, there should be a box large enough 
 to hold a pailful of water ; and the joints of this 
 box, as well as the space around the pipe leading 
 from it, should be made tight. It may be covered 
 in winter as a protection against frost ; but in sum- 
 mer it will be better that it should have a full 
 exposure to the air. A wire cloth or other screen 
 should be provided at its top to act as a strainer to 
 hold back coarse matters which might obstruct the 
 
1 88 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 
 
 pipe. From time to time this strainer, which should 
 be movable, can be emptied into the swill-barrel, 
 or its contents may be thrown upon the manure 
 heap, or buried in the ground. The liquid which 
 passes the strainer will enter the pipe, leach out 
 into the ground and be purified. The arrangement 
 described will be quite sufficient to receive the con- 
 tents of one or two wash tubs ; but it should not be 
 connected with the kitchen sink delivering only a 
 small flow. Whatever is thrown into it should go 
 with a rush, so as to reach as far as possible through 
 the whole length of the drains. 
 
 For houses of larger size, producing a greater 
 amount of waste, the length of drain should be from 
 one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet, includ- 
 ing all branches, according to the size of the family 
 and the freedom with which water is used. A uni- 
 form distribution through this length of pipe can 
 not be secured by throwing into it a pailful at a 
 time. Some arrangement should be adopted which 
 will retain water to the amount of a barrelful or 
 more, and which will, when the tank becomes full, 
 deliver the whole contents suddenly. The appara- 
 tus best adapted for this use is known as " Field's 
 Flush Tank." A much cheaper arrangement can be 
 made at home, which, while not having the advan- 
 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 189 
 
 tage of the Field automatic siphon, will secure the 
 same result, if attention is given to opening and 
 closing its outlet by hand. The construction of 
 this tank is very simple. It is made of plank, and is 
 divided into two compartments by a grease-catcher, 
 which will prevent congealed grease, floating sub- 
 stances and heavy matters from passing into the dis- 
 charging chamber. It also has a spatter-board, to 
 prevent the disturbance of the sediment, and a screen 
 to hold back coarse matters. It is, in fact, a flush- 
 ing tank with a grease-trap intervening between it 
 and the source of supply. This interposition of a 
 grease-trap is covered by a patent of my own ; but 
 permission is hereby given to any member of the 
 West Ewing Improvement Association to use it, 
 without charge. The size of tank indicated in the 
 sketch is sufficient for three hundred feet of drain. 
 The capacity of its second or discharging chamber 
 may be proportionately reduced or increased as the 
 length of drain is made greater or less. The grease- 
 trap may be attached to any waste-pipe from the 
 house, or it may be filled by pouring into it the 
 contents of chamber pails, wash tubs, slop pails, etc. 
 The grease-trap serves to hold back all obstructing 
 matters. The outlet of the discharging chamber is 
 closed by a plug of wood, or by an india-rubber 
 
190 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 
 
 ball ; the stopper being attached to a chain, by 
 which it may be lifted whenever the discharging 
 chamber becomes full. After the chamber has 
 discharged itself, this outlet should be tightly 
 closed. To make this arrangement automatic in its 
 working, it is only necessary to substitute for the 
 plug the Field Patent Siphon shown in Fig. 10. 
 
 A little judgment will be necessary in adjusting 
 this apparatus to the lay of the land. If the absorp- 
 tion ground is to be placed at some distance from 
 the house — and it should never be nearer than 
 fifteen feet to any well from which drinking water 
 is taken — it may be connected with the flush-tank 
 by a vitrified pipe with very securely-cemented 
 joints. These joints should first be packed with 
 oakum, or with rags, to prevent cement from run- 
 ning to the inside of the pipe and making rough 
 points to arrest foreign substances passing through 
 to them, and they should be covered with a good 
 band of the very best hydraulic cement — the joints 
 not being covered with earth until it is quite certain 
 that they are absolutely tight. This precaution is 
 especially necessary in passing near a well. The 
 absorption tiles should be two inches in diameter, 
 and only one foot long, in order that the joints 
 may be frequent. 
 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 
 
 191 
 
 Description of Field's Flush-Tank. — It is 
 intended to be placed immediately outside of the 
 walls of the house, and to receive all of its liquid 
 wastes. It is made entirely of earthenware or of 
 cast iron. The liquids pass through the grating of 
 the pan (B), and are discharged through a trap 
 which prevents the contained air of the tank from 
 escaping. (C) is a socket for a ventilating pipe to 
 
 FIG. IO.— FIELD S FLUSH-TANK. 
 
 carry this contained air to the top of the house. 
 The tank holds about twenty or thirty gallons. 
 This has no outlet save through the siphon (D). 
 The outer end of the siphon enters a discharging 
 trough, (F), which is made to turn to the right or 
 left, so that its mouth may be directed as required 
 
192 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 
 
 to connect the tank with the line of outlet pipes. 
 This trough is of a peculiar shape which assists 
 small quantities of liquid in bringing the siphon 
 into action, instead of merely dribbling over the 
 siphon without charging it, as they otherwise would 
 do, and has a cover which can be removed to give 
 access for cleaning. 
 
 When the tank is entirely filled, the pouring in of 
 a few extra quarts of water, which is sure to occur 
 at some time during the day, brings the siphon into 
 action, and it flows copiously until the tank is 
 emptied to the depth below which solid matters are 
 permitted to accumulate, to be occasionally cleared 
 out on removing the pan (B). 
 
 As the sink pipe discharges over the grating of 
 the trapped inlet (B) outside the house, the connec- 
 tion between the drains and the house is completely 
 broken, and any entry of foul air from the drain is 
 rendered impossible. The top of the tank is per- 
 fectly closed by means of the water joint around 
 the cover, and the cover is readily removed when 
 required. The inlet, moreover, forms a basin, 
 which may be used for throwing down slops outside 
 the house. 
 
 When used for the disposal of house slops where no 
 regular system of sewerage exists, the flush-tank 
 enables all house refuse to be removed inoffen- 
 sively — the bed-room slops being thrown down the 
 basin at the top of the tank outside the house — and 
 thus where earth or other dry closets are used for 
 the excreta, this apparatus supplies a complete san- 
 itary system of drainage. The concentration of the 
 flow of the sewage effected by the sudden discharge 
 of the tanks forces the liquid rapidly along the 
 pipes, and prevents their being choked. The 
 liquid can thus be distributed over a sufficient area 
 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 193 
 
 of ground to give full opportunity for the soil to 
 purify it. The tanks are ordinarily made to con- 
 tain twenty or thirty gallons in addition to space 
 for deposit. 
 
 These directions should be carried out 
 with some modifications, as described in 
 the following pages. 
 
 For houses of a better class, where a 
 larger outlay can be afforded and where 
 the best results are desired, the details of 
 the system as developed in extensive 
 practice should be closely adhered to. 
 The arrangement of the appliances pro- 
 vided for the work by Drainage Con- 
 struction Company, which controls the 
 patents relating to them, are set forth in 
 the following chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 
 
 THE principle on which sewage is puri- 
 fied and its foul matters destroyed, 
 in all forms of irrigation disposal, whether 
 by broad surface irrigation, by intermittent 
 downward infiltration, or by sub-surface 
 irrigation, have been already explained. 
 So far as the sub-surface system is con- 
 cerned, it is essential to success that 
 the sewage should be delivered inter- 
 mittently and at considerable intervals ; 
 that it should be delivered near to the 
 surface of the ground ; and that the 
 ground should be, naturally or artificially, 
 so well drained that water will descend 
 
S UB-SURFA CE IRRIGA TION. 1 95 
 
 through it readily ; and that it should be 
 of a sufficiently porous character for air 
 to enter it freely. 
 
 The essential element of the system is 
 a flush-tank which will retain all sewage 
 issuing from the house during the inter- 
 vals between two successive discharges 
 into the drains. This ought not to be 
 less than twenty-four hours ; where the 
 soil is not very free and porous, it should 
 be extended, to as much as three days, ac- 
 cording to the increasing closeness of the 
 soil. 
 
 The tank should be automatic in its 
 action, z. e., it should not require watching 
 or manual operation. There are a num- 
 ber of tanks which answer the purpose. 
 The most simple and effective that has 
 come to my notice is the one, described 
 in the last chapter, invented by Rogers 
 Field, Esq., C. E., of London, which 
 has a self-acting siphon, brought into 
 
 t 
 
198 
 
 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 
 
 action and " broken " after the discharge 
 by the simple movement of the liquid flow- 
 ing into and out from it. 
 This tank, as modified 
 in practice, is shown in 
 S! ^figures 11 and 12. Its 
 .j siphon is shown more in 
 
 3 . . 
 
 detail in figure 13. It 
 consists essentially of 
 the following elements. 
 (1) A 2-inch iron pipe set 
 with its hub downward at 
 the bottom of the tank 
 
 FIG. 13. — DETAILS OF ROGERS FIELD S SIPHON. 
 
 and reaching to the height to which the 
 tank is to be filled. (2) A 6-inch iron pipe 
 set with its hub upward and closed at the 
 top with a casting (X) carrying a handle 
 
SUBS URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 1 9 9 
 
 leaded into place after the usual manner 
 of soil pipe jointing. The lower end 
 of this 6-inch pipe rests on three (3) 
 standards rising from a circular piece at 
 the bottom of the tank. One of these 
 standards is shown at Y. This constitutes 
 the siphon proper, the annular space 
 between the 6-inch pipe and the 2-inch 
 pipe being the receiving limb, and the 
 2-inch pipe being the discharging limb. 
 The water enters between the standards 
 Y, rises to the top of the 2-inch pipe, flows 
 over into it and is discharged through it. 
 The lower end of this pipe delivers into a 
 Rogers Field weir Z, a single casting of 
 peculiar construction so arranged that 
 with an abundant flow the outlet of the 
 2-inch pipe is sealed. The contained air is 
 removed by the falling water, setting up 
 a true siphonic action which continues 
 until the liquid in the tank is reduced to 
 the bottom of the 6-inch pipe — the intake 
 
2 oo SUBS URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 of the receiving limb. At this point 
 air is taken into the receiving limb and 
 the flow through the siphon is stopped. 
 The contents of the 2-inch pipe continue 
 to flow out through the weir-piece Z in 
 which the water soon falls and admits air 
 into the discharging limb. This causes 
 the siphon to become completely emptied 
 and no further flow can take place until 
 the tank is again filled to the overflow 
 point. 
 
 In constructing the flush-tank, the siphon 
 is set in its center for convenient access 
 to it through the manhole over it. The 
 receiving limb is so arranged that it can 
 readily be lifted for opening the dis- 
 charging limb to inspection. In replac- 
 ing it, care should be taken to rest it 
 securely on the three standards Y. 
 
 Were the flow from the house pipe de- 
 livered directly into the flush-tank, it 
 would carry with it paper and other sub- 
 
S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 2 o I 
 
 stances which would soon obstruct the 
 narrow water-way of the siphon and the 
 small drain tiles in the irrigation field 
 beyond. To obviate this difficulty, I 
 introduced some years ago a settling 
 chamber to receive the house drain with 
 an overflow point below the constant 
 water line, so that the discharge into the 
 flushtank might be only from the com- 
 paratively clear liquid lying between 
 the floating scum at the surface and the 
 deposit of solid matter at the bottom. 
 
 It was found in time that even this 
 was not sufficient, a strong flow from the 
 house drain stirring up the deposited 
 matters and causing them to be carried 
 through the overflow pipe in sufficient 
 quantity to interfere with the proper action 
 of the drains. 
 
 As a further improvement I constructed 
 in the settling chamber a vertical wall 
 rising to the waterline and built level at 
 
2 o 2 S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 the top. This seems to accomplish all 
 that is needed. The disturbance caused 
 by the house drain is confined to the first 
 division of the settling chamber from 
 which the surplus flows over the top of 
 the wall in a thin stream, which does not 
 disturb the deposits on the side from 
 which the flush-tank is fed. 
 
 The inlet from the house drain into the 
 settling chamber is turned down below the 
 water line, constituting a trap. The whole 
 arrangement is sufficiently shown in figures 
 1 1 and 1 2, being a plan and section of the 
 two chambers and their appurtenances. 
 
 The discharging chamber, or flush-tank, 
 requires atmospheric pressure to drive its 
 contents through the siphon. This is 
 sufficiently supplied through the imper- 
 fect fit of the manhole cover, but as this 
 may become obstructed with ice or dirt, 
 the cover may be slightly perforated to 
 insure a constant supply of air. Natur- 
 
SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 203 
 
 ally, the atmosphere of the flush-tank is 
 foul ; but there is no circulation to bring 
 it into active communication with the 
 outer air. As the tank slowly fills, its 
 air will be forced out imperceptibly. I 
 have never known a case where the 
 amount of windage necessary to work the 
 tank led to any offense ; but as an extra 
 precaution, it is better, if the tank stands 
 very near to the house, to make a 2-inch 
 hole in the side of the collar a little below 
 the surface of the ground and to carry a 
 line of drain tiles to a fence or bush or 
 other convenient point, where it may be 
 carried above the surface. 
 
 Were the discharging chamber to be 
 absolutely tight, the only access for air 
 pressure would be through the settling- 
 chamber, but this would cause its level to 
 be carried down to the mouth of the 
 overflow, carrying scum into the discharg- 
 ing chamber, where the result would be 
 mischievous. 
 
204 S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 As an additional precaution, though 
 hardly a necessary one, the collar of the 
 settling chamber is made of 1 8-inch or 24- 
 inch vitrified pipe, reaching down to the 
 permanent water level. Its glazed sur- 
 face prevents the absorption of moisture 
 and impurities and the possible conse- 
 quent bacterial growth upon it. Where 
 the collar is built of brick it should be 
 smoothly plastered with cement on the 
 inside. 
 
 The outlet from the tank is made by 
 connecting a single length of 3-inch iron 
 soil-pipe with the end of the weir piece Z. 
 This carries it out beyond the wall of the 
 tank, where it is connected with 4-inch 
 vitrified pipe, with cemented joints, lead- 
 ing to the irrigation field, more or less 
 distant. 
 
 For protection against frost, it is better 
 that this pipe should be nearly or quite 
 two feet below the surface of the ground at 
 
SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 205 
 
 every point. It should have a regular 
 fall from the tank to the connection of 
 the drains, but the fall should be slight. 
 Four inches per ioo feet (i to 300) is 
 ample and is better than a steeper incli- 
 nation. 
 
 There are many cases of course where 
 the ground between the flush-tank and 
 the irrigation field can not be reached 
 on a reasonably direct line without much 
 greater fall. In such cases the steeper 
 fall should cease at least 20 feet above 
 the beginning of the drain tiles, and the 
 remaining distance should be carried on 
 a very slight grade so that the velocity 
 may be checked and the delivery into the 
 tiles made more gradual. 
 
 It is immaterial whether the drain tiles 
 branch out from the side of the main con- 
 necting pipe or from a cross drain into 
 which this enters. 
 
 It is very desirable that the whole 
 
206 
 
 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 
 
 system should be entirely emptied at the 
 end of each discharge. Therefore the 
 2-inch branches of the vitrified pipe which 
 are to connect with the 2-inch tiles should 
 
 SZCTION 
 
 Section 
 
 q 
 
 4 
 
 PLAN 
 
 BRANCH P/EC£ 
 
 FIG. 14. 
 
 come out, not from the middle of the 
 main pipe, as in sewer work, but from the 
 extreme bottom, as shown in figure 14. 
 Irregularities of the ground will some- 
 
SUB-SURFA CE IRRIGA TION. 207 
 
 times make it necessary to bring these 
 branch pieces very near to the surface. 
 In other cases it is necessary to start the 
 drain tiles out at a considerable depth. 
 
 The rule should be followed that all 
 joints should be uncemented which are 
 less than 18 inches from the surface, and 
 all should be cemented which are more 
 than that distance from the surface, no 
 matter whether they be joints of the 
 vitrified or of the tile drains. 
 
 The arrangement of the tiles in the irri- 
 gation field will depend entirely on the 
 formation of the surface of the ground. 
 They should have a very slight fall, as a 
 rule not more than 2 inches per 100 feet. 
 In level ground they may be laid straight 
 and exactly parallel to each other, while 
 in irregular ground they must follow 
 quite closely the contour of the surface. 
 Occasionally artificial grading is required 
 to prepare the field to receive them, but 
 
2o8 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 
 
 ordinarily by a sufficient deviation of 
 direction the lines can be made to accom- 
 modate themselves to the necessary slope. 
 
 They should lie on a bed, never more 
 than 1 2 inches and preferably not less than 
 10 inches below the surface and their fall 
 ought not to exceed 2 inches to 100 feet (1 
 to 600). 
 
 Theoretically, all that is required is to 
 lay 2-inch draining tiles, slightly open at 
 the joints, on a true grade and cover them 
 in the usual manner. Under the best 
 arrangement, however, it is at times 
 necessary to lift some of the tiles to 
 remove obstructions, and as the grading 
 must be very carefully done and care- 
 fully preserved, it is best to lay in the 
 bottom of the trench permanent earthen- 
 ware slabs or gutters, to preserve the 
 grade. Furthermore, for perfect freedom 
 of discharge, it is well to lay the tiles with 
 open joints of about one quarter of an 
 
SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 
 
 209 
 
 FIG. 15. 
 
 inch between them. Such a joint, if un- 
 protected, would soon be filled by earth 
 working in 
 from above, as 
 when the field 
 is walked up- 
 on. To pre- 
 vent this, a 
 narrow cap is 
 laid over each 
 joint. 
 
 The con- 
 struction and 
 combi nation 
 of these parts 
 of the irriga- 
 tion drain are 
 shown in the 
 illustrations. 
 Figure 15 is the tile, round, two inches in 
 diameter and twelve inches long. Figure 
 16 is the gutter of the same length, quite 
 
 FIG. 16. 
 
 SECTION OF 
 
 C* 
 
 %?*■ 
 
 FIG. 17. 
 
 QVTTER T/LE 
 4NO OAR 
 
 FIG. 18. 
 
2 1 o S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 shallow, and made of a larger radius than 
 the outer circumference of the tile, so that 
 it will close the joint only along the im- 
 mediate line at the bottom. Figure 1 7 
 is the cap, two and one-half inches long, 
 also of larger radius than the tile. Figure 
 
 18 is a cross-section showing the combina- 
 tion of these three elements, and figure 
 
 19 shows the manner in which they are 
 laid in the ground. 
 
 To illustrate more fully the manner in 
 which the whole system is applied we 
 will assume the case of a household of 
 ten persons, producing five hundred 
 gallons of liquid wastes per day, living in 
 a house from which the ground slopes 
 slightly toward an area, preferably of 
 grass land, about 60x75* feet square, and 
 
 * If the available ground is of restricted area the drains may 
 safely be placed at intervals of three feet, using one branch 
 piece and one plain piece alternately for the cross-drain. 
 
2 1 2 SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 the soil of which is of a light and porous 
 character. 
 
 Let the settling-chamber and flush- 
 tank be built fifty feet from the house, 
 preferably among shrubbery. The four- 
 inch house drain delivers into the first 
 compartment of the settling chamber, in 
 the manner shown in the cut, and the 
 sewage flows from this into the second 
 compartment and thence into the flush- 
 tank. The settling-chamber should hold 
 about two hundred and fifty gallons 
 and the flush-tank should have a capacity 
 of about five hundred gallons between the 
 bottom of the receiving limb and the top 
 of the discharging limb of the siphon. The 
 cover of the discharging chamber may be 
 perforated with four half-inch holes. 
 
 From the outlet of the siphon, a four- 
 inch pipe, laid with cemented joints and 
 about two feet or more below the surface 
 of the ground, leads to the edge of the 
 
S UB-SURFA CE IRR1GA TION. 2 1 3 
 
 irrigation field with an inclination of 
 four inches per hundred feet. At this 
 point it enters by an ordinary 4x4 X 
 branch into the side of a four-inch pipe 
 running at right angles to it. This pipe 
 is made of sections of plain pipe two feet 
 long with branch pieces to connect with 
 the tiles, one foot long, so that by placing 
 one branch piece between each two plain 
 pieces tile connections are furnished at 
 intervals of five feet. The drainage field 
 being sixty feet long we shall require, to 
 give the one thousand feet of drain neces- 
 sary under the assumed conditions, six- 
 teen branches occupying a width of 
 seventy-five feet. 
 
 We will assume that the irrigation field 
 is brought to a uniform slope inThe direc- 
 tion in which the tiles are laid of two 
 inches per hundred feet, and that it has 
 an abrupt elevation of one or two feet at 
 its upper end to give sufficient covering to 
 the cross-drain. 
 
2 14 S UB-SURFA CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 Sixteen parallel trenches, sixty feet 
 long, should be dug from each branch- 
 piece of the cross-drain to the opposite 
 side of the field. It will be worth while 
 to bring these, by careful leveling, to a 
 very exact grade. Their depth should be a 
 little more than ten inches. In the bottom 
 of these, gutter-pieces should be laid and 
 firmly bedded in continuous lines. On 
 these gutter pieces let the tiles be laid, 
 beginning at the upper end. The joints 
 should be spaced by using a thick piece 
 of sole leather as a gauge. The cap- 
 pieces should be laid over the joints and 
 the whole should then be carefully 
 covered and filled in at the sides with 
 earth free from lumps or stones. After 
 the caps-are securely covered the rest of 
 the filling may be shoveled in and well 
 trodden down and the sods replaced. 
 
 If constructed with care and in strict 
 compliance with these directions, the 
 
SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 2 1 5 
 
 whole system may be relied on perma- 
 nently — perhaps perpetually — as an effi- 
 cient means for the disposal of whatever 
 liquid wastes the household may produce. 
 
 Like all other human appliances, how- 
 ever, the work will require some intelli- 
 gent supervision and care. It may or 
 may not be necessary from time to time 
 to remove the scum and sediment from 
 the settling chamber. Ordinarily the 
 flow through a 300-gallon chamber will 
 remove the solid matters, as they decom- 
 pose and become macerated, about as fast 
 as they are delivered. Sometimes this is 
 not the case, but the necessity for hand- 
 cleansing is very rare. A thick scum 
 forms almost immediately, but it rarely 
 becomes so thick as to interfere with the 
 proper flow of the liquid. 
 
 The flush-tank should be looked to 
 from time to time to see that it is dis- 
 charging properly ; but it rarely needs 
 
2 1 6 SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 further care than the occasional lifting 
 of the six-inch pipe and an inspection of 
 the discharging limb. 
 
 With regard to the irrigation field, it 
 needs no attention whatever, so long as 
 the tiles remain open. When they 
 become obstructed the fact is made mani- 
 fest by the cessation of the rank growth 
 over the active tiles, indicating a stoppage 
 which prevents the sewage from flowing 
 on through the remainder of the drains. 
 Sometimes, where the amount of drain 
 is insufficient, the sewage will rise to the 
 surface if an obstruction prevents its 
 flowing through the whole length of the 
 drains. In either case, it is only necessary 
 to dig down carefully to the level of the 
 gutter, remove a few of the pipes, clean 
 them out and replace them. The removal, 
 cleansing and replacing of one hundred 
 feet of drain ought easily to be done in half 
 a day, and the removal of such amounts, 
 
SUB-SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 2 1 7 
 
 where the work has been well executed at 
 the outset, is rarely required. 
 
 For smaller households, the amount of 
 sewage to be treated is less, of course, 
 and a much smaller irrigation area will 
 suffice, and a smaller tank. 
 
 A piece of ground fifty feet square, 
 having ten rows of tiles five feet apart 
 and fifty feet long, will suffice for even a 
 large household with an abundant water- 
 supply. For the better illustration of the 
 arrangement of this system, I give in 
 figure- 20 a plan for the work in the case of 
 lot fifty feet wide, with a depth of open 
 ground behind the house of somewhat 
 more than fifty feet. The leaching drains 
 may safely begin at a distance of even 
 ten feet from the back of the house, 
 requiring for the whole a clear area of only 
 fifty feet by sixty feet. With still smaller 
 households the length of drain may be 
 very much shortened. In my own case, 
 
n 
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 <D CP S3. 
 
 ^ranthJJp^ 
 
 soft. 
 
 FIG. 20. — ARRANGEMENT OF FLUSH-TANK AND DRAINS FOR A SMALL LOT. 
 
S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 2 1 9 
 
 where water-closets were not used, the 
 total length of irrigation drain was only 
 two hundred feet. 
 
 The length of tile required for a given 
 number of persons, or for a given amount 
 of sewage, depends on the porosity 
 of the soil, and thus far there has been 
 no sufficient experience to determine 
 what the variation should be for soils of 
 different porosity. Heavy clays are never 
 so well suited to the work as lighter 
 loams, but they can be made measurably 
 good by very thorough and deep drainage. 
 The working of the system in the case of 
 such clays can be very much improved 
 by filling the trenches, after the laying of 
 the tile, with sand, gravel, or fine cinders. 
 
 I have had all manner of soils to con- 
 tend with in the construction of these 
 works, and I have never yet found a 
 single case where, with a sufficient exten- 
 sion of the system — within reasonable 
 
2 20 SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 
 
 limits — a good result could not be 
 attained. The irrigation field connected 
 with the Woman's Prison, referred to 
 above, would be very satisfactory if the 
 amount of sewage delivered to it were in 
 proportion to the amount delivered by an 
 ordinary household. 
 
 There is one objection to this system as 
 described, which must not be ignored. 
 The settling basin is a cesspool. It 
 retains organic waste matter in a state 
 of noisome decomposition. It is, how- 
 ever, made perfectly tight, so that 
 there is no possibility of the escape of 
 its foul contents by leakage. Its water- 
 level is never changed, so that no press- 
 ure is brought to bear upon its limited 
 atmosphere, and it is traversed by a 
 stream of water amounting to fully twice 
 its capacity every twenty-four hours. 
 This stream removes its putrefying con- 
 tents as they are produced. The most 
 
SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 2 2 1 
 
 that can be said in its disfavor is that it is 
 worse than any necessary accompaniment 
 of disposal by a system of sewerage ; but, 
 except by regular sewerage, there has yet 
 been found no efficient way to obviate its 
 use. It certainly reduces the cesspool 
 nuisance to the smallest possible limits, 
 and I think we may safely trust it, con- 
 fined and guarded as it is, to produce no 
 exhalations which can do harm through 
 its tight cover or through the well-venti- 
 lated drains leading from it to the house. 
 The fresh-air inlet for the drainage sys- 
 tem of the house should be placed near 
 to the flush-tank, so that the whole 
 system may be thoroughly supplied with 
 air. 
 
 In the foregoing remarks, it has by no 
 means been attempted to give full direc- 
 tions for the guidance of house-drainage 
 
222 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 
 
 work, but rather to set forth certain 
 points for the information of house-build- 
 ers. The plumber is, and, with the gen- 
 eral public, will long remain, the final 
 authority in the decision of all questions 
 arising. The better plumbers — those 
 who keep themselves intelligently in- 
 formed as to improvements in their art — 
 will be a very useful authority ; all 
 plumbers, when brought face to face with 
 the average householder, are a masterful 
 authority, and their control is generally 
 complete. The information here given 
 may, now and then, either aid them to 
 better judgment, or enable their clients to 
 modify their practices in some important 
 respects. 
 
 THE END.