REESE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Deceived ^Accession No. 3 /J . Class No. ,1894- DWELLING HOUSES DWELLING HOUSES THEIR SANITAKY CONSTBUCTION AND AKKANGEMENTS BY W. H. COBFIELD, M.A., M.D. OXON., F.R.C.P. LOND. HON. A. R.I. B. A., AND HONORARY SANITARY ADVISER TO UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL. PROFESSOR OF HYGIENE AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN UNIVERSITY COLLEOE, LONDON; MB:DICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH FOR ST. GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE; PAST PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH ; VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SANITARY INSTITUTE; ' MEMBRE D'HONNEUR " OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF PUBLIC HEALTH OF BELGIUM; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF HYGIENE OF FRANCE, AND OF THE HUNGARIAN SOCIETY OF PUBLIC HEALTH; HONORARY CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF HYGIENE OF ITALY; FELLOW OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF SWEDEN. FOURTH EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON H. K. LEWIS, 136 GOWER STREET, W.C. 1898 PREFACE, THE following chapters were delivered as a Course of Cantor Lectures before the Society of Arts. The lectures were largely illustrated by specimens borrowed from the Parkes Museum of Hygiene, at University College, and many of the illustrations are selected from those in the catalogue of that museum, others being chosen from those in " Our Homes," with the kind permission of Messrs. Cassell and Co. The work has been carefully revised throughout, and a number of special illustrations added. My thanks are due to Dr. H. E. Kenwood for kindly preparing the Index. It is hoped that the book may be useful as a short and practical exposition of the means by which dwelling houses may be made wholesome. This, the Fourth Edition, has been again carefully re- vised throughout by the Author. W. H. C. 19 Savile Row, W. July, 1898. TABLE OF CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. PAGE Climate i Aspect Vegetation Soils, pervious and impervious . . 2 Subsoil Water Enteric (Typhoid) Fever Cholera ... 3 Damp Soils Consumption Rheumatism Ague Drainage . 4 Cloaca Maxima Surface Gutters Made Ground ... 5 Proximity of Buildings New Streets Foundations Basement Floor . . 6 Basement Walls Damp-proof Course 7 Dry Area Walls Materials 8 Cement Chimney Flues Down Draughts in Flues . . 9 Flooring, Ventilation under Roof 10 Conical Ventilators Rain-Water Gutters . . . .11 Rain- Water Gutters and Pipes Lightning Conductors Weather-Cock Anemometer 12 Floors Skirtings Wall Coverings, Tiles, Plaster Paint Dryers 13 Wall Paper Ceilings Woodwork Finish .... 14 viii. CONTENTS. CHAPTEK II. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. PAGE Effects of Respiration 15 Limit of Respiratory Impurity Quantity of Air required Cubic Space 16 Overcrowding Ventilation Winds 17 Silvester's Plan Action of Chimneys ..... 18 Ventilation by Windows 19 Apertures for Admission of Pure Air 20 Dr. Hinckes Bird's Plan 21 Direction in which Air ought to be admitted Filtering Boxes 22 Currall's Ventilator Sash Fasteners Venetian Blinds . . 23 Louvres of glass, of wood Swinging Sashes .... 24 Double Windows Casement Windows Cooper's Ventilator . 25 Openings in Walls or Doors Sherringham Valve . . 26-27 Stevens's Drawer Ventilator 27-28 Jennings's " Inlet" Perforated Zinc 28 Iron Grating Currall's Door Ventilator 28 Vertical Tubes Water Tray 30 Filtering bags Ellison's Conical Ventilators Pritchett's Paving . - . . . 31 Exit Shafts and Valves Cowls 32 Fixed Cowls Revolving Cowls . . . . . -33 Arnott's Valve 34 Boyle's Exit Ventilator Air Flues 35 Mackinnell's Ventilator Railway Lamps .... 35 Candles and Lamps Gas Burners Escape for Products of Combustion 37 Benham's Globe Light 38 Sun-Light Ventilators Benham's Globe Light Electric Light 39 Gallon's Grate Manchester School Grate .... 40 CONTENTS. ix. PAGE " Calorigen " and " Euthermic " Stoves 41 Thermhydric Grate 42 Gas Stoves 43 Refuse of Gas Works Gas Stoves Leggott and Marsh's Grate 44 Verity's System of Artificial Ventilation Hot Water Ap- paratus . 45-46 CHAPTER III. WATER SUPPLY. Characters of Drinking Water Hard and Soft Waters . -47 Advantages of Soft Water 48 Clark's Process for Softening Water Porter-Clark Process Atkins's Process 49 Quantity required Sources of Water Rain Shallow Wells 50 Springs and Small Streams Aqueducts River Water . . 51 Artesian Wells Distribution 52 System of Intermittent Service, Dangers of System of Con- stant Service, Advantages of . . . . . 53 Danger with System of Constant Service 54 Water Meters Lead Pipes ....... 55 Wrought Iron Pipes Cisterns 5 6 Self-cleaning Tank Ball Valve 57 Waste- Pipes Closed iron tanks A public water-supply should be uncontaminable Double Supply 58 Purification of Water by Filtration- Action of Filters . 59, 60 Average Quality a fallacious guide 60 Filtering Materials Cistern Filters Silicated Carbon Filter 61, 62 Spongy Iron Filter 63 Aerating Filter 63, 65 Pasteur-Chamberland Filter Berkefeld Filter .... 66 Rain-Water Filter Diseases spread by Impure Water . 66, 67 x. CONTENTS. CHAPTER, IV. REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTER. PAGE Dust Kitchen Refuse 68 Value of Dust Dust Receptacles 6g Galvanised Iron Dust-bins Conservancy Systems Midden- heaps and Cesspools 70 Cesspools 71 Emptying of Cesspools Large Midden-heaps .... 72 Improvements in Conservancy Systems 73 Dr. Bayliss's Plan Morell's Cinder-sifting Ash-closet . 74, 75 Moser's Closet, &c. Dry Earth System 75 Objections to Dry Earth System 76, 77 Uses of Dry Earth System 77 Summary of Conclusions with regard to the Conservancy Systems 78 Water- Carriage System 79 Slop-Water in Country Places 79 CHAPTER V. SEWERAGE MAIN SEWERS AND HOUSE BRANCHES, TRAPS, VENTILATION, &c. Slop-water Rogers Field's Flush Tank . . . . 80, 81 Sewers Stoneware Invert 82 Pipe-Sewers Flushing Junctions Ventilation ... 83 Cesspools Brick-Drains Contamination of Soil, &c. Rats . 84 Contamination of Food Course of House-Drains Various Joints 85 CONTENTS. xi. PAGE Stanford's Joint Fall of House-drains Size of Pipes Junc- tion with Main Sewer Water-traps 86 Dipstone Trap 87 Siphon Traps Inspection Openings Air Inlet Manhole . 88 Kenon Trap and Air Chamber 89, 90 Ventilation of House-drains 90, 91 Rain-water Pipes Surface Gulleys Basement Drains . 91, 92 Various Gulleys Bell-trap 92, 93 Antill Trap 93, 94 Siphon Gulley with Inlet 94 CHAPTER VI. WATER CLOSETS, SINKS, AND BATHS ARRANGEMENT OF PIPES, TRAPS, &c. Long Hopper Water Closet 95 Supply from drinking water cistern or from water main Short Hopper Closet ........ 96, 97 Waste-preventing Cisterns 97 Hopper Water Closet with waste-preventing cistern and seat- action arrangement .98 " Artisan " Closet Household Closet Wash-out Closets 99, 100 Fowler's and Duckett's Closets " Pan " Closet . . , 101 Container D-trap 101, 102 Effects of Foul Air on D-traps Gascoyne's Trap . . .103 S-trap, P-trap, "V-Dip" Trap, " Anti-D" Trap Safe Tray Waste-Pipe of 103, 104 Waste-Pipes of Cisterns Valve-Closets Overflow of Basin . 105 Flushing-rim Trap on Overflow-pipe 106 Varieties of Valve Closets 107, 108 Ventilation of Valve Box Disconnection of Overflow-pipe . 108 " Plug " Closets 109,110 xii. CONTENTS. PAGE Trapless Closets no Siphonic Closets no, in Waste-preventing Valves and Cisterns . . . 112, 113 Siphon action Water-waste-preventers .... 113,114 Regulator Valves Bellows Regulator . . . . 114, 115 Disinfectors Flushing Apparatus connected with Door or Seat 115 Soil-pipes: Lead, Iron, Zinc, &c 116 Soil-pipe casing Stoneware Soil-pipes Perforation of Lead Soil-pipes Zinc D-trap 117 Ventilation of Soil-pipe Ventilation of Traps . . . .118 Prevention of Siphonage Disconnection of Branch Soil-pipes Ventilation of Water-Closets Slop Sinks . . .119 Housemaid's Sinks Scullery Sinks Fat Trap . .119, 120 Grease-Gully with Automatic Flush Tank . . . .121 Waste-Pipes of Baths " Safe" Tray Disconnecting Traps Conclusion 121, 122 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIG. PACK 1. Stoneware Damp-proof Course . . '. "... 7 2. Conical Ventilators . . ... ". ' it 3. Plan of Costless Ventilation - . . . . .21 4. Currall Ventilator (as fixed to window) .... 23 5. Sherringham Valve . . . . . . -27 6. Drawer Ventilator . ... . . . -27 7. Currall Ventilator (as fixed to door) 28 8. Vertical Tube Ventilator . . . . . . .30 g. Water Tray for Vertical Tube Ventilator . . . .31 10. Fixed Cowl . . . ...... . .32 11. Revolving Cowl . . . . . . . -33 12. Arnott Valve 34 13. Ventilating Globe Light 38 14. The Galton Ventilating Grate 40 15. Gas Calorigen 41 16. Thermhydric Grate 42 17. Thermhydric Grate (section) 43 18. Cesspool and Well 51 19. Decanter Filter 62 20. Silicated Carbon Filter 62 21. Spongy Iron Filter 64 22. Aerating Filter 65 23. Cinder Sifting Ash Closet 75 24. Field's Flush Tank 81 25. End of Flush Tank (inside view) 81 26. Invert Block 82 xiv. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIG. PAGE 27. A Brick Drain with Tile Cover and Rat runs ... 85 28. Dipstone Trap . . . . ' 87 29. Disconnecting Chamber ....... 89 30. Stoneware Siphon Gulley 91 31. Bell Trap 93 32. Antill Trap 94 33. Long Hopper Water-Closet (with supply-pipe direct from cistern) 95 34. Short Hopper Water-Closet, with P-trap .... 97 35. Hopper Water-Closet (with water-waste-preventing cis- tern and seat action arrangement) 98 36. Wash-out Water-Closet . . . . . . 100 37. Pan Water-Closet ........ 101 38. D-trap (with foul deposit in it) . . . . . 102 39. Anti D-trap 104 40. Valve Water-Closet and Anti D-trap ..... 107 41. Plug Closet 109 42. Siphon-Action Water-waste preventer . . . .114 43. Water-Closet Supply Valve (with bellows regulator) . . 115 44. Lead Siphon Trap ........ 120 45. Flushing Gulley ......... 121 DWELLING-HOUSES THEIR SANITARY CONSTRUCTION AND ARRANGEMENTS. CHAPTER I. SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. IT is only necessary for me to make a few introductory remarks about climate. Although few persons can choose what part of the world they will live in, a considerable number are able to decide in what part of the country they will reside. Other things being equal, the nearer a place is to the sea, the more equable is the climate, and the further inland the place is, the more is the climate one of extremes ; so that those who wish for a moist, equable climate, with warm winters and warm nights, will choose a place by the seaside ; while those who wish for a more bracing atmosphere will go further inland. In England too, as is well known, there is considerable dif- ference between the climate at various parts of the sea- board. Thus, the Western coast, being exposed to the winds which pass over the Atlantic, and to the action of B 2 DWELLING-HOUSES. the moist, warm air, which passes over the course of the Gulf Stream, has a warm, moist atmosphere, and a heavy rainfall, while the Eastern coast, which is swept by winds that have passed across Siberia and Kussia, and have only the narrow strip of German Ocean to pass over before they reach our coast, has a dry, bleak, and com- paratively cold climate. For the same reason, too, the aspect of a house, or the way in which it faces, is a matter of great importance in this climate, as is well known ; a southern aspect, for example, being warm and genial, whilst an eastern one is just the reverse. In the neighbourhood of forests, the air is damp during a great part of the year, from the enormous amount of evaporation that takes place from the leaves of the trees, and Humboldt tells us that the large forests on the banks of the Amazon are perpetually covered with mist. Other things being equal, a bare open country is drier and hotter than a well- wooded one. I will divide the soils, for sanitary purposes, into two kinds pervious and impervious ; those that allow water to pass freely through them, and those that do not. Per- vious soils are such as gravel, sand, and the less compact and softer limestones, which allow water to pass through their interstices, and chalk, in which the water for the most part travels through the fissures ; the typically impervious ones are the various clays, generally named from the localities where they are best known, as the London clay, Oxford clay, Kimmeridge clay. Most of SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 3 the metamorphic rocks and hard limestones are non- porous, but have a multitude of crevices, through which the water finds its way. The water which falls on the sur- face of the pervious soils passes readily through the soil, until it comes to some impervious stratum below, over which it accumulates and along which it flows, until it either finds outlet at the surface of the ground, where the impervious stratum crops out, or until it reaches the nearest watercourse ; so that above the impervious layer, which has arrested its progress through the rocks, there is a stratum of water of a depth which will vary with a variety of circumstances a stratum which can be reached from the surface of the ground by digging wells down to it. This water we call the " subsoil " water, or the ground water (grundwasser). In some instances, the im- pervious stratum just spoken of is placed in such a manner as to prevent the escape of the subsoil water at all, in which case the soil is said to be water-logged. The water which falls on the impervious soils, on the other hand, does not sink into the ground, but remains on the surface, or runs off if there be a suitable incline, and so such soils are necessarily damp. The diseases that are prevalent upon the pervious soils are enteric (typhoid) fever, and cholera during epidemics of that disease ; diseases, in fact, the poisons of which are chiefly communicated by means of drinking water ; and the readiness with which the subsoil water just mentioned can be contaminated by the percolation into it of foul matters from the refuse of habitations, combined with the 4 D WELLING-HO USES. fact that the people who live on such soils, generally drink water from wells dug in them, no doubt accounts for the prevalence of those diseases upon pervious soils. On impervious damp soils, on the other hand, con- sumption, the great plague of our climate, which kills more than half as many people as all the communicable fevers put together, is prevalent, and so are lung diseases of various kinds, rheumatism, and under special circum- stances, ague. It has been clearly shown that dampness of the soil under the houses is one of the factors in the production of consumption. Sir George Buchanan (see 9th Eeport of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council) demonstrated that in every instance where the level of the subsoil water in a town had been lowered, that is to say, where the distance between the basements of the houses and the level of the water in the soil had been made greater, the death-rate from consumption had decreased in one instance to the extent of not less than 50 per cent. so that there can be no question that it is extremely important for every one who can to live upon a dry soil. Where then the soil is not pervious to a considerable depth below the basements of the houses, so that the level of the ground water comes within a few feet of them, or where the soil being itself pervious, is naturally water- logged, or in the so-called impervious soils, which are of course all pervious to some extent, it is necessary to pro- vide means whereby the level of the water shall be kept below a certain minimum depth from the foundations of the houses. This is done by drainage, and by a drain SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 5 I mean a pipe or channel that is intended to remove the water from the soil. It must, therefore, be a pipe into which the water can get that is to say, it must be per- vious to water. The object of drains then is two-fold, to carry off the surface water, and to prevent the subsoil water rising above a certain height, for as soon as it rises to the level of the drains, it finds its way into them, and is carried away to the outfall at a lower point. Drains may, therefore, be made of stones placed together without cement, as was the case with the Cloaca Maxima, the great drain which was constructed by Tarquinius Priscus, the second king of Borne, to dry the ground around the Forum ; or of brickwork, with or without mortar ; or, as is very commonly the case, of pervious agricultural tiles. The surface gutters must also be mentioned in connection with the drains, and they are, of course, especially necessary on imper- vious soils. The ultimate destination of the drains is into the watercourses, streams, rivers, &c. So much for natural soils ; but, especially in the neigh- bourhood of most of our large towns, many of the houses are built upon artificial soil, or " made ground " as it is called. This made ground consists of the refuse of dust- bins, ash-pits, midden-heaps, and the like, which is "shot" in some place where the ground requires to be raised. It is very undesirable that houses should be built on any such made ground, at any rate for a considerable period. There is no doubt, however, that after some time the action of the air and water in the soil causes a slow 6 DWELLING-HOUSES. decomposition of the organic matters in it, and renders it less objectionable as a site for building purposes. Nevertheless, no one would choose to live in a house built upon * made ground " if he could help it. The proximity of buildings is the next matter to be considered. It is important that houses should not be too near together, as otherwise both light and ventilation are interfered with, and it is now a regulation in the metropolis that a new street shall be at least as wide as the houses on either side of it are high and that no new street shall be less than 40 feet wide. Having determined the site on which to build, we come next to the foundations. These should not be on made ground, nor on ^purely vegetable soil, as peat, humus, &c. Their depth is a 'matter which it is the architect's province to determine, and depends on various circumstances, such as the weight they have to support. The material used must be the best concrete. The inferior kinds made with too little lime or cement, crumble away, allow air to pass through them, and make the house unwholesome, besides endangering the structure. It is important to remark here that a house should not be built, nor even its founda- tions laid, in frosty weather, for the work will not hold when a thaw sets in. Basement. The covering of the ground with some im- pervious material is imperative, in order that the impure air from the soil may be prevented from rising into the house. In the case of made soils, the covering of the ground should extend for some distance round the house. SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 7 This covering is best made of cement concrete six inches thick, and should be laid in all cases, whether there are any underground rooms or not. The concrete may be covered with wood blocks, asphalte, tiles, or York paving. The walls of the house, below the level of the ground and a little above it should be made with exceptionally good materials, and set in cement, so as to be as impervious as possible to damp. This is a matter that is very frequently lost sight of, and the walls below the level of the ground are frequently made of the worst possible materials. Being hidden from sight, it is often considered that the best materials need not be used for them. It is advisable to have a damp-proof course in the walls all round the house, at a little distance above the ground level, whether the site be a damp one or not. This damp-proof course FIG. i. Stoneware Damp-proof Course. may be made of asphalte, stoneware, or slate in cement. Cement alone cannot be depended on. If such a course is not placed in the wall, moisture will rise up through the bricks by capillary attraction, and make the walls of the house damp, rendering the house itself unwholesome. The inner side of the walls in the basement floor may be 8 DWELLING-HOUSES. advantageously made of glazed bricks, or of hard black Staffordshire bricks, but no covering of any kind whatever should be placed on those walls. The money should be spent on good construction, and not on covering up bad .materials. There should either be an open or a dry area all round the walls of the house outside, starting from the concrete foundations. This is required to ensure dryness of the walls below the level of the ground. Walls. The materials used for building these depend upon the locality. They may be bricks, stone of various kinds (the choice of which must be left to the discretion of the architect), or, in some parts of the country, flints. Bricks stand fire better than anything else, for the simple reason that they have been already burnt. This fact was remarkably shown in the great fire at Chicago, where the brick houses remained comparatively intact, while the granite ones were utterly destroyed. In any case the materials should be set in mortar or cement, and in wet and exposed positions the walls should be double or " hol- low " walls, as they are technically termed. Occasionally, in such positions they should even be slated on the out- side, or covered with glazed tiles. Walls are sometimes made of concrete, a very ancient plan, and not modern as is commonly supposed. The Eomans frequently used concrete walls in their aqueduct bridges and other con- structions. The cement used was of extraordinary hard- ness, and has, I believe, never been surpassed, even if equalled, in later times. It might be called the " cement of the Romans," as the term *' Koman cement "is now SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 9 commonly applied to a very inferior article. In making concrete columns, the Eomans adopted the practice ot inserting layers of their flat bricks, which we should perhaps call tiles, at intervals, and they faced the surface with stones, generally disposed after the fashion known as opus reticulatum. This consisted in placing small cubical blocks of stone against the surface of the concrete, so that the sides of the exposed faces were not vertical and hori- zontal, but the diagonals were, thus giving the appearance of network, or of a chess-board set up on one corner. These devices assisted greatly in protecting the structure from the weather, and from rough usage. Such walls may also be very well faced with tiles of various kinds. Chimney flues. These should be as straight as possible. They should be separate from one another a matter very often not attended to and they are better lined with fire- clay pipes, as these are much more easily cleaned, an up- draught is more readily established in them, and they completely disconnect the flue from the structure of the house, and so help to prevent destruction by fire. It is important that the chimneys should be higher than the surrounding buildings, so that the wind may pass freely over them, and that they may not be sheltered from its action in any direction whatever. If this is not the case, there will be a down draft in the chimneys when the wind is in a certain direction, and the more the chimneys are sheltered by high buildings the more chances there are of down- drafts in them. If necessary, an iron or zinc pipe called a " tall-boy " may be placed on the top of the 10 D W ELLIN G-HO USES. brickwork, to increase the length of the flue. This is sometimes even carried up adjoining buildings, and is, as a general rule better without a cowl of any kind on the top of it, as will be further explained in the next chapter. Flooring. Fire-proof floors are most desirable. They may be made of concrete or brick arches between iron girders, in which case there is no space between the floor- ing of one room and the ceiling of the room below. When timber is used, it should be dry and well seasoned, with sound boarding and pugging, to ensure separation between the rooms, and to prevent either water leaking from the floor to the ceiling below, or air passing from the room below to that above. Good flooring evidently serves to protect the ceilings of the rooms below. Where there is space between the flooring and the ceiling, and still more especially where a wooden flooring is placed over the con- crete or other foundation laid on the ground, it is neces- sary to provide for ventilation of the space below the flooring. This is usually done by placing a perforated iron grating, instead of a brick, here and there in the outer walls, so that air can pass freely in and out below the floors. For this purpose bricks with conical holes through them (Ellison's patent, see fig. 2) would no doubt be found very useful. The roof. This may be constructed either of fire-proof materials, or of timber, and in either case may be covered witli slate or tiles, or may be thatched ; copper or corru- gated iron is also used. Sometimes zinc is used on ac- count of its cheapness, but it is not a good material, as it SITU A TION A ND CONSTR UCTION OF HO USES. 11 does not last long. Lead is largely used, especially upon flat roofs, and it is valuable on account of its lasting pro- perties. Where there are eaves, it is important that they should not drip on to the walls, but project, so as to throw the water off. Cornices and all projections should be con- structed so as to throw off the rain, or it will run down the walls. If this is not done the walls will be continu- ally damp and dirty. Kain-water gutters may be made of lead or iron. They must have a sufficient fall, and shoot directly into the heads of the rain- water pipes. Lead FIG. 2. Conical Ventilators. (a). Outer surface of perforated brick, (b). Inner surface (c). Section. (d). Perforated skirting board. gutters behind parapets should be wide enough inside to stand in, so that the snow may be cleared out. If this is not done it will accumulate, blocking up the channel, and when the thaw comes the melted snow will work its way through the tiles or slates of the roof, and injure the ceilings below. Eain- water gutters should not be carried through the house from one side to the other, and especi- 12 DWELLING-HOUSES. ally not through bedrooms. Nor should they be carried, as is sometimes done, round the house inside the walls, and through the rooms. A more or less disagreeable smell is frequently noticed in rooms through which rain- water gutters pass. The rain-water pipes should also be 'outside the house. They should be of iron, well jointed. Galvanised iron ones are preferable ; they are only a little more expensive and last much longer. They should either discharge into rain-water tanks, which must be well ven- tilated, or on the surface of the ground or area round the l}ouse. They should not be directly connected with the drains or sewers. Neither should they be placed with their hoppers or heads just below the bedroom windows, especially if they discharge into a tank. Large and high houses, especially if standing alone, require to be provided with lightning conductors. Cop- per ones are better than iron, and need not be so thick. Each should end in a large plate of copper placed in an underground tank containing coke and water, or in some moist place in the soil. In the case of an isolated house it is also a good plan to have a weather-cock on the roof, connected with a registering apparatus in the hall. An anemometer is also useful. Thus far about the construction of the building itself. We now come to the finishing off inside. The floors should be covered with boarding oak bees-waxed being the best, or good deal, stained and varnished, may be used. The joints are better tongued. Parquet flooring, made of teak, may be placed over the whole of the surface, the object SITUATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 13 being to insure, as far as possible, a uniform and im- pervious surface without cracks or badly made joints in which dust may accumulate. This is especially impor- tant. Either of these plans is better than the common one of covering the whole floor with a carpet or drugget ; when these are used, a border of stained and varnished or polished boards, or of parquet flooring, should be left all round the room. This has the advantage that dust does not accumulate so readily in the corners, which are more easily swept and cleaned, and the carpet can be taken up at any time to be beaten without moving the furniture which is against the walls. The skirting boards of wooden floors should be let into a groove in the floor. This will serve to prevent draughts coming through, and dust accu- mulating in the apertures which are invariably formed by the shrinking of the joists and the skirting. Some floors, such as those of halls, greenhouses, &c., are best tiled. Wall Coverings. These, like the floors, are better made of impervious materials which can be washed. Tiles form an admirable wall covering, and are moreover a perma- nent decoration. Various kinds of plastering, with the surface painted, form a cheap and effective wall covering. Paint containing lead should of course not be used, but the silicate, or the " indestructible " paints ; and zinc white should be used instead of white lead ; it is equally important that the "dryers" used should not contain lead. Paper as a covering for walls has the disadvantage that, unless varnished, it cannot be washed, and that the 14 DWELLING-HOUSES. dust collects on it. For this reason, after a case of in- fectious disease, it is necessary as a general rule to strip the paper off the walls, whereas a painted or tiled wall can be washed. Many papers, too, are coloured with arsenical paints, and seriously affect the health of the persons living in the rooms, the walls of which are covered with them. For a considerable amount of information on this subject, I would refer to a little book entitled " Our Domestic Poisons," by Mr. Henry Garr. Ceilings. For these, plastering is in most general use. It is better painted than distempered. White. washing, however, answers very well, and can be repeated as often as necessary. Paper should not be used for covering ceil- ings. If they are of wood it should be panelled, or the joints will let dust through. The wood work generally throughout the house should be stained and varnished, polished, or painted ; and generally I may sum up the principles to be followed in finishing off the inside of a house, by saying that the materials should be as far as possible impervious, and the surfaces smooth and uniform, and so disposed as to be easily cleaned, and not to collect the dust. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 15 CHAPTER II. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. THE air in our houses is rendered impure in various ways, but chiefly by our respiration, and by the products of combustion that are allowed to escape into it from lights and fires. The air that we expire contains a certain quantity of foul, or putrescent, organic matter. It is charged with moisture, and contains about five per cent, less oxygen and nearly five per cent, more carbonic acid than the air that we inspire. It is neither the diminution of oxygen nor the increase of carbonic acid in the air of rooms that is the greatest importance to living beings, but the accumulation of foul organic matter and the excess of moisture. It is this which renders such atmospheres stuffy, and not the diminution of oxygen nor the increase of carbonic acid, which are so slight as to be of little impor- tance, even in overcrowded rooms. Nevertheless, since the increase in carbonic acid is proportional to the increase in other impurities, and since we can estimate very accu- rately the amount of carbonic acid in the air, the increase of carbonic acid is taken as an index of the impurity of the atmosphere. The average amount of carbonic acid in the outer air is four parts in ten thousand. Professor De Chaumont found by his experiments that, whenever the 16 DWELLING-HOUSES. amount of carbonic acid in the air of a room exceeded the amount in the outer air by more than two parts per 10,000, the air of the room was not fresh, that is to say, that the foul organic matter in it and the excess of moisture were sufficient to make the room stuffy. Hence, two parts of carbonic acid per 10,000 of air, over and above that in the outer air, are taken as the " limit of respiratory impurity." As a person breathes out, on the average, six cubic feet of carbonic acid in ten hours, it is clear that, in order that the air of the room in which he is may be kept fresh, he must have 30,000 cubic feet of air in the 10 hours, or 3,000 per hour. In this climate we cannot change the air of a room more than three or four times per hour without causing a draught, and so each person ought- to have from 1000 to 750 cubic feet of space, the air of which should be changed three or four times per hour respec- tively. The way in which this space is arranged is also a matter of some importance. For instance, the air above a certain height is of little use for purposes of ventilation if combined with too small floor space. To take an ex- treme case a man standing on a square foot of ground, with walls 3,000 feet high all round him, would be in 3,000 cubic feet of space ; but it is quite obvious that he could not live in it. But, even without any enclosure at all, and without any limit as to height, it is not difficult to conceive a place overcrowded. For instance, all the inhabitants in the world, men, women, and children, could stand upon the Isle of Wight ; but it is quite cer- tain that they could not live there, even if it were only for VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 17 the want of air. So it is usual, in estimating cubic space, to disregard the height above twelve feet. It is also obviously of importance that the floor space should be properly distributed ; but, about this, so far as dwelling- houses are concerned, there is no need to enter into particulars. We are not able to insist on anything like 1000 or 750 cubic feet of space in all instances, and amounts varying down to as low as 300 cubic feet per individual are adopted. In the case of a family living in one room, which is so small as to afford less than 300 cubic feet per individual, it is usual to consider that the limit of overcrowding which should be allowed by law has been reached. We cannot, as a general rule, have rooms so large that the air does not require changing while we are in them. Thus, for instance a person in a bedroom for seven hours consecutively requires about 21,000 cubic feet of air if the atmosphere is to be kept fresh. Suppos- ing him to have this without change of air, he would re- quire a room, say, 70 feet long by 30 wide and 10 high. This makes it quite clear that in rooms such as we have there must be a change of air. In studying ventilation from a practical point of view, the chief agents that we have to consider are the winds, and movements produced in the air by variations in its density, usually brought about by variations in its tem- perature ; the property of the diffusion of gases by means of which the air is brought to a uniform composition when the temperature is the same throughout, being one which, practically speaking, does not affect the question much. 18 DWELLING-HOUSES. With artificial methods of ventilation, in which the air is forced in a certain direction by machinery, we have little to do, as few of them are suitable for use in dwelling-houses. The wind, as an agent of ventilation, is powerful, hut its disadvantage is that its action is irregular. When all win- dows and doors can be opened, a current of air which may be imperceptible is quite sufficient to change the air of a house in a very short time, and houses that have windows on both sides are for this reason much more healthy than houses built back to back, which can never have through ventilation. This is the direct action of the wind, and is called Perflation ; it may generally be utilised in large rooms with windows on opposite sides, like schoolrooms, by opening that which is nearest to the direction from which the wind comes, a little way at the top, and also opening at the top the one which is diagonally opposite to it, a little further than the first one. The direct action of the wind has also been utilised for ventilating large houses by Silvester's plan, which consists in having a large cowl that always faces the wind, at the top of a pipe leading down into cel- lars in the basement of the house, where the air can be warmed by stoves, and allowed to ascend into the house. By this plan the holds of ships are frequently ventilated. But the indirect action of the wind, called Aspiration, is also of the greatest importance. When the wind blows over the top of a chimney, or over a ventilating pipe, it causes a di- minution of pressure in the column of air in the chimney or ventilator, and so produces an up-current, upon precisely the same principle that little bottles made for distributing VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 19 scent about apartments act. For this reason, it is, as was hinted in the last chapter, important that chimneys should be higher than the surrounding buildings, so that any wind that blows may cause or increase an up- draught in them. In this way not only is smoke prevented from descending into the rooms, but the amount of air car- ried from the rooms up the chimneys is increased, and the ventilation of the house improved. There being, then, in every house, and frequently in every room, a shaft whether sufficient or not, we will consider further on for the escape of air, it becomes of the first import- ance for us to consider the means by which air may be ad- mitted into our houses and into our rooms. In summer, and whenever the air is as warm outside the house as in- side of it, there is no difficulty about this. We have only to open the windows wind- doors, remembering the pro- verb that " Windows are made to open and doors to shut" on both sides of the house, and the air is generally changed fast enough, but it is in winter, when the air is colder outside the house than inside, that the difficulties arise, and so in speaking of ventilation I shall always assume that the air outside the house is colder, and there- fore heavier, and exercises greater pressure than the air inside it. This being the case, it follows that if we open a window, or make an aperture through a wall into the outer air, or through the wall of a room into a passage or staircase, in which the air is colder than it is in the room, air will come in. In fact, a room under these conditions may be looked upon as if it had water outside of it, and it C2 20 D WELLING-HOUSES. is quite apparent that, in such a case, if you bored a hole through the wall into the water on the other side, water would come in, and the air of the room would escape hy the chimney. This is precisely what happens with the cold air outside. If no special opening is provided through which the cold air can come into a room, it enters hy such openings as there are ; by the apertures between the sashes of the windows, by the perhaps fortunately badly fitting doors, crevices in the floors, walls and cupboards, through the walls themselves, as has been shown by Pettenkofer, and sometimes down the chimney. If, then, air will come in through an aperture placed in any position, it becomes necessary to consider where apertures should be placed, and what precautions are necessary with regard to them. Theoretically, the admission of pure air should be at the lowest part of the room, and the extraction of the vitiated air, which, is warm, at the upper part of the room ; but practically the outer air cannot be admitted at the lower part of the room by mere apertures without certain pre- cautions, as everybody knows who has been accustomed to sit in a room where a draught comes under the door. On the other hand, if an aperture is made into the outer air through a wall at a few feet from the floor, the air enters in a cold straight current for some distance into the room. If the aperture be higher up, it comes in and falls, just as water would do, on to people's heads, somewhere about the middle of the room. So it is quite clear that certain pre- cautions are necessary in the admission of air so as to pre- vent draughts. Since we have, or ought to have, windows VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 21 in all rooms, it will be convenient to consider first, the ways in which they may be utilised for the admission of air. We cannot simply open a sash window at the top or bottom in cold weather without feeling a draught, but there are several ways in which the difficulty may be got SPACC ro* TBA*ce OF AIR. FIG. 3. Plan of " Costless Ventilation. 1 * over. The simplest is by placing a board of wood under- neath the lower sash, as suggested by Dr. Hinckes Bird, whose original model is in the Parkes Museum. This board is sometimes now made with a hinge in the middle, so that it can be got in and out more easily ; or instead of 22 DWELLING-HOUSES. being placed under the lower sash, it may be placed across from side to side, in front of the lower rail of the lower sash, forming in fact a " deep bead," so that the lower sash may be opened to a certain height without any air coming in below it. This is known as the " Nightingale board." In either case, the "meeting rails" at the middle of the window are no longer in contact (see fig. 8), and air comes in at the middle of the window, between the two sashes, taking an upward direction, in the form of a fountain, and producing no draught. This shows us the direction in which cold air ought to be admitted into a room after the fashion of a fountain, in which it can be readily obtained owing to its greater pressure, and not after the fashion of a waterfall. This simple plan, which I recommend very strongly for adoption, has two disadvantages, one that nervous people always fancy there is a draught if they see anything like a window open, and the other a much more practical one, but one that is common to most forms of ventilation that are inexpensive that a certain quantity of dust enters. These conditions are, to a certain extent, got over by the plan suggested by several inventors of boring holes through, or cutting pieces out of the lower rail of the upper sash. Such holes are not seen ; and the air comes through them in a vertical direction into the room. They can also be fitted with little boxes containing cotton-wool, through which the air will be filtered and deprived of spot, &c. This, of course, very considerably diminishes the amount of air that enters, and the cutting also VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 23 weakens the framework of the window. I may here mention Currall's window ventilator (fig. 4), which con- sists of a metal plate fastened along the lower rail of the lower sash, and parallel to it, with an opening through the sash-rail for the admission of air, which is thus de- flected in a vertical direction by the metal plate. Here will also be a convenient place to mention the automatic sash fastener patented by Messrs. Tonks and Sons, by means of which the window is securely fastened when FIG. 4. Curtail Ventilator (as fixed to Window). opened to the extent of three or four inches, either at the top or bottom, so that the window can be left open with- out anyone outside being able to open it further. This can also, obviously, be combined with the window block placed underneath the lower sash, so that air can be admitted in the proper direction, and the window still be securely fastened. Louvred ventilators may also be used in a variety of ways in connection with windows. Where there are Venetian blinds it is only necessary to open the top sash, 24 DWELLING-HOUSES. pull the Venetian blind down in front of the opening, and place the louvres so that they give the entering air an up- ward direction. Glass louvres fixed in a metal framework may also be used, a pane of the window being taken out and one of these ventilators substituted for it. The louvres can be opened and shut by means of a string, and they are so fixed that it is impossible to break them by doing so. They are generally fixed instead of one of the top panes of the upper sash. It is better to place them lower down in the upper sash ; and this is true of all inlets for air. If they are too high up, the air being admitted in an upward direction, impinges against the ceiling, rebounds into the room, and produces a draught. The metal frame- work of these ventilators requires oiling and attending to, or it will get rusty. In some places fixed louvres of wood, or still better, of strong glass, are employed with advan- tage, or swinging windows with sashes hung on centres may be used, as, for example, in water-closets ; and these, where it is advisable, may be prevented from being closed by means of a small wedge of wood screwed to the frame- work. The blind so often placed across the lower part of a window may also advantageously be used as a ventilator, or, where no blind is required a glass one may be used, this being made to swing forward on its lower edge, so as to give the entering air an upward direction when the lower sash is opened, as in a model presented by Messrs. Howard to the Parkes Museum. Where very large quan- tities of air require to be admitted, one or more sashes of a window may be made to swing forwards in this way. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 25 Near to all windows, in the cold weather, the air of the room is colder than at other parts of the room. This may be obviated, when considered advisable, by the employment of double windows, the layer of air between the two windows preventing, to a very considerable extent, the cooling of the air inside the room. It is not advisable to have double panes of glass in the same sash, as the moisture between them will render them more or less opaque in certain states of the weather. With double windows, air may be admitted by opening the outer one at the bottom and the inner one at the top. Where French casement windows are used, as they sometimes are unadvisedly in this climate, ventilation may be pro- vided by having a louvred opening above the casements of the window, or by making a glass pane, or panes, cap- able of being swung forward on the lower edge. Lastly, Cooper's ventilator is largely used for windows, and also in the glass panes over street doors. It consists of a cir- cular disc of glass, with five or more holes in it, placed in front of a pane of glass with as many similar holes, and working on an ivory pivot at its centre. It can be moved so that the holes in it are opposite to those in the window pane, when air will, of course, come in ; or, so that they are opposite to the places between the holes in the pane, when the air will be prevented from entering. It is obvious that the air is not admitted in an upward direction, but the disadvantage of this is partly counter- balanced by the fact that it is admitted in several small streams, and not in one large one, so that there is less 26 DWELLING-HOUSES. probability of a draught. This ventilator has the great advantage that it cannot rust. The air may also be admitted through apertures made in the walls or doors. The simplest way to do this is to make a hole through the wall, and fasten a piece of board in front of it in a sloping manner, so as to give the air an upward direction. It is better to put "cheeks," as they are called, on the sides, for they serve not only to attach the sloping board to the wall, but to prevent the air from falling out sideways into the room. This ventilator may be hidden by hanging a picture in front of it, and will cause no draught. I may state here that it is better in a large room to have two or more small ventilators, of any kind whatever, than one large one, and that no single inlet opening should be larger than a square foot. Openings of half that size are preferable. It is calculated that there should be 24 square inches of opening per head, so that a square foot would be sufficient for six persons. In such an opening as has been described, wooden or glass louvres may be placed. The same end may be attained by mak- ing one of the upper panels of a door to open forwards with hinges to a certain distance ; or even, in some in- stances, by fixing it in this position. An obvious disad- vantage, and one which always has to be considered in making openings through walls and doors, is that conver- sation which goes on in the room can be heard in the passage outside. Sheringham's valve (fig. 5) is a modifica- tion of this plan, and can be fitted either into an outer wall or into one between the room and the passage or hall. It VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 27 consists of a metal box to fit into the hole in the wall, with a heavy metal flap, which can swing forwards, and is ex- actly balanced by a weight at the end of a string passing over a pulley, the weight acting as a handle, by means of FIG. 6. Drawer Ventilator. A. Direction of air entering ventilator. B. Direction of air entering room; which the ventilator can be opened or shut or kept at any desired position. What has been said before applies to these ventilators. They should not be placed too near the 28 DWELLING-HOUSES. ceiling, and this is the mistake that is generally made in fixing them. Stevens's drawer ventilator (fig. 6) may also be mentioned here. The name almost describes it. It resembles a drawer, which is pulled out of the wall for a certain distance, and allows air to come into the room vertically in several streams between metal plates placed inside the drawer. Jennings's " Inlet," which is in use in the barracks, consists of an opening through an outer wall, into a chamber in which dust, &c., is deposited, and thence between louvres into the room. Here I may men- tion that it is sometimes advised to place perforated zinc or wire gauze outside the entrance of the ventilators, so as to prevent dust, &c., coming into the room. This is not advisable, as the apertures get clogged up, and the en- Fio. 7. Currall Ventilator as fixed to door. trance of air is much impeded. It is better to have an iron grating which will prevent birds entering, and to em- ploy other methods for preventing the entrance of dust, VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 29 soot, &c. Where this is considered necessary, the plan of passing air through cotton-wool, which must be frequently changed, may be adopted. Currall's ventilator for ad- mitting air through the door is sometimes useful. It re- sembles his window ventilator almost exactly ; a long slit is cut through the door, a perforated metal plate placed outside and a flat plate fixed parallel to the door inside and in front of the slit, thus giving the air as it comes into the room an upward direction (fig. 7). An admirable plan for the admission of air into rooms is by means of vertical tubes (fig. 8) an old system, but one which was brought into prominence some years ago by Mr. Tobin. A horizontal aperture is made through the wall into the outer air just above the floor, and then a vertical pipe carried against the wall to a height of from five to six feet. The cold air is thus made to ascend like a fountain into the room. It does so in a compact column, which only perceptibly spreads after it has got some height above the mouth of the tube. It then mixes with the warm air at the top of the room, producing no draught at all. In spite of the vertical height through which the air has to pass before it emerges into the room, a considerable amount of soot and dust of various kinds is brought in by it. This may be obviated by placing a little cotton- wool in the interior of the tube. This, however, although a very efficient plan, has the serious disadvantage of impeding the current of air. A better one is that in which a tray containing water is placed in the horizontal aperture in the wall, the entering air being deflected on 30 D WELLING-HO USE S. to the surface of the water by metal plates. The greater part of the dust is thus arrested by the water, which can be changed as often as necessary (fig. 9). In warm FIG 8. Vertical Tube Ventilator. weather ice may be placed in the tray. Another plan is to place in the vertical tube a long muslin bag with the pointed end downwards, and kept in shape by wire rings. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 31 This provides a large filtering area, and offers very little resistance to the passage of air. The bag may be taken out and cleansed from time to time. Several contrivances have been devised for the ad- mission of air close to the floor, just behind a perforated FIG. 9. Water Tray for Vertical Tube Ventilator. skirting board. Among these are Ellison's conical ven- tilator (see fig. 2, page 11), and Stevens's skirting board ventilator, in which metal cups are placed in front of the inlet openings, and so distribute the air that no draught is felt. I think, however, that it is advisable only to admit warmed air at a low level into rooms, but there is no reason why such openings should not be made high up in the rooms behind cornices, for example. Prichett's paving, made of agricultural pipes, may also be used for making walls and partitions, and is obviously appli- cable for ventilating purposes, whether used as inlet or outlet. We now come to speak of exit shafts and valves. The 32 D WELLING-HO USES. first and most important of these is the chimney, about which I have already spoken. I need only add here that it is advisable to do without the use of cowls upon chim- neys wherever it is possible. If the chimney can be made high enough it will not require a cowl, and if it cannot, a simple conical cap is generally sufficient to prevent down FIG. io. Fixed Cowl. draughts. There is no doubt, however, that several fixed chimney cowls for preventing down draughts not only do so, but produce an up draught in the chimney when the wind blows down upon it, as can be readily shown by an experiment with a model. A small piece of wool is made to ascend in a glass tube by blowing vertically down upon the fixed model cowl placed upon the top of it. Of re- VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 33 volviug cowls for chimneys, the common lobster-backed cowl is probably the best. Of the many cowls which have been invented with the object of increasing the up draught in exit shafts of various kinds, some are fixed, as Boyle's, Buchan's, Stevens's and Lloyd's, and some revolving, as Scott, Adie and Co.'s, Howarth's, Stidder's, Banner's and the one invented by Mr. Boyle, but discarded by him some FIG. it. Revolving Cowl. years ago. Whether any of these cowls increase the up current in exit shafts is a matter which is still under in- vestigation, but it is easy to show that the common rough experiment, by means of which they are supposed to do so, is entirely fallacious. Cotton- wool is drawn up a tube at least as easily by blowing across it in a slanting direc- tion as by blowing through a cowl placed on the top of 34 D WELLING-HOUSES. it. The fixed cowls have the advantage that they cannot get out of order. The revolving cowls have the disad- vantage which is common to all apparatus with moving parts, that they are certain to get out of order some day or other. Whether they increase up draughts or not, there is no doubt that most of them prevent down draughts, and, like any other cover, prevent the entrance of rain. Openings are sometimes made high up in the room into the chimney flue and protected by valves, the best known FIG. 12. Arnott Valve. of which is Arnott's valve, which consists of a light metal flap, swinging inside a metal framework in such a way that it can open towards the chimney flue, but not towards the room. Any pressure of air from the room towards the flue will, therefore, open it and allow the air to escape from the room into the flue. Pressure of air the other way will shut it The disadvantages of this ven- tilator are that it makes an irregular noise, although this has been, to a considerable extent, obviated by the india-rubber padding with which it is now fitted. It also occasionally admits smoke into the room, as shown by the black halo on the wall around it. Boyle's exit VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 35 ventilator, made by Messrs. Comyn, Ching and Co., is a modification of this. Instead of the light metal flaps, there are a number of small talc flaps. These make little noise unless there is much wind, when they flap to and fro noisily, but they are liable to be opened by a current of air in the chimney. It is obviously, it seems to me, at variance with sound sanitary principles to make openings from the interior of rooms into the chimney flues, and then to trust to valves for preventing the smoke from coming in. A far better plan is to have shafts for the exit of air placed by the side of the flues, and this, of course, is better done when the houses are built. The easiest and most satisfactory way of doing it, is by means of air and smoke flues combined, in which the air flues are moulded in the same piece of fireclay as the smoke flue itself. These air flues can be connected with the upper parts of the rooms, and up draughts will be inevitably caused, as the air in them will be considerably heated on account of its immediate contact with the outer side of the flue. Such shafts often become inlets when the flues are cold, and so it is advisable to use them especially with flues that are always hot as, for instance, that of the kitchen chimney and it is desirable, wherever it can be done, to connect the kitchen with a different air-shaft from the other rooms, or it is possible that air from the kitchen may, get into some of the other rooms of the house. Another exit ventilator is Kite's, in which there is no valve, but the shape of the air passage is relied on to prevent back draught. D2 36 DWELLING-HOUSES. Of exit ventilators not connected with the chimney flues, I may mention Mackinnell's, which also provides an inlet for air as well, and which is very useful in little rooms, closets, &c., having no rooms over them. It consists of two tubes, one inside the other, passing through the ceiling into the outer air. The inner one is longer than the outer one, and projects above it outside, and below it an inch or so into the room. At its lower end, a circular rim is attached horizontally, parallel to the ceiling. The outer air enters between these two tubes, and is deflected by the rim just mentioned along the ceiling, so that it does not fall straight into the room. The vitiated hot air passes out by the inner tube, the action of which is, of course, considerably increased if a gas burner or other light be placed beneath it. It is upon this principle that the lamps for lighting railway carriages are made, the reflector answering the purpose of the rim round the end of the inner tube, and the air to supply the lamp coming in between the reflector and the glass shade, while the products of combustion escape through the pipe leading from the middle of the reflector, and immediately over the flame. Of course Mackinnell's ventilator requires a cover to keep out the rain, and it is necessary, in fact, to have a double cover, so that the heated air which escapes by the inner tube shall not be carried back into the room by the entering air. Tossell's ventilator is a variety of this, with a cover by means of which the action of the wind is taken advantage of. This brings us naturally to say a little about lighting. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 37 Candles, lamps, and gas help to render the air impure. It is calculated that two sperm candles, or one good oil lamp, render the air about as impure as one man does, whereas one gas burner will consume as much oxygen and give out as much carbonic acid as five or six men, or even more. This is why it is commonly considered that gas is more injurious than lamps or candles, and so it is when the quantities of light are not compared, but with the same quantity of light, gas renders the air of a room less impure than either lamps or candles. If, in the dining room, instead of using five or six gas burners, as we too often do without any provision for the escape of the products of combustion, we used 40 or 50 sperm candles instead of 6 or 8, we should have a fairer com- parison between gas and candles. I have not space to enter into a discussion of the rela- tive merits of various kinds of candles and lamps ; but with regard to gas I would say that, considering the fact I have just stated, it is always advisable to provide a means of escape for the products of combustion imme- diately over the gas burners. By this, not only may these products be carried away, but, with a little contrivance, heated air may be drawn out of the room at the same time, and so an efficient exit shaft provided, in addition to the one found already in the chimney. Very simple con- trivances will answer this purpose. A pipe, with a funnel-shaped end, starting from over the gas burner, and carried straight out into the open air, is all that is required in some instances, as in badly placed closets (an 38 DWELLING-HOUSES. A. Burner, and Gas Pipe to supply it. BB. Pipe to carry off the products of combustion. CC. Pipe to carry offthe heated air of the room. DD. Inlet for fresh air. FIG. 13. Ventilating Globe Light. VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 39 air inlet being provided). For large rooms, the sunlight ventilators are found to answer admirably. They should be provided with a glass shade, placed below them to intercept the glare, and to cut off a large portion of the heat. An elegant contrivance for dwelling-rooms is Benham's ventilating globe light. In this, the products of combustion of the gas pass along a pipe placed between the ceiling and the floor of the room above, into one of the flues. This pipe is surrounded by another opening through the ceiling of the room at one end, and into the flue at the other, and guarded at its entrance to the flue by a valve which can be easily shut when the gas is not burning. This double tube, as it passes under the floor of the room above, is covered with a fire-proof material, so that the floor is not affected by it. The joists, where they are notched, have iron bearers put across to support the floor boards above. Air is admitted by another pipe passing through the wall of the house into the external air, and ending also in the ceiling of the room by openings around those of the exit shaft. Thus warm air is intro- duced into the room at the same time that vitiated air from the upper part of the room, and also the products of combustion of the gas, are carried out of it into the chimney flue. Electric light, now so much coming into use, has the great advantages that it does not render the air impure, and that it does not blacken ceilings. I may say a few words about some grates and stoves that have been devised with the view of combining ven- 40 DWELLING-HOUSES. tilation and heating. The first of these is Sir Douglas Galton's grate, in which there is an air-chamber placed around the flue, and communicating on one side with the external air, and on the other with the atmosphere of the room by various apertures. The outer air which passes into this chamber is warmed by contact with the heated flue, and issues into the room, thus supplying the room with warmed air, and utilising a considerable quantity of the heat that would otherwise be lost. There are several other grates, such as the Manchester school grate, made upon this principle, with variations in the arrangement of the inlet apertures, which are placed vertically like Tobin's FIG. 14. The Galton Ventilating Grate. tubes. It is important in all these contrivances, where the outer air passes through a chamber in which the back of the grate and the commencement of the flue are placed, that the back of the grate and flue in that chamber should be cast in one piece of metal, so as to have no joint. If there are joints they will after a time become defective, VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 41 and air from the flue is liable to escape into the chamber round it and be brought back into the room by the enter- ing air. The back of the grate should also be lined with fire-clay. Some slow combustion stoves, as George's " Calorigen," and Dr. Bond's " Euthermic " Stoves, have pipes passing through them, to admit warmed external air into the room. Iron slow combustion stoves dry the air too much, and unless they are lined with fire-clay, are apt to become too hot, and to cause an unpleasant smell in the room by the charring of the organic matter in the i A fr fc*t A t FIG. 15. Gas Calorigen. A. Interior of room. BEF. Course of air-supply to gas burners. CDH. Course of air entering room. F. Exit for products of combustion. I. Gas burners. J. Door of stove. air. They are much more suitable for warming large buildings, where economy of fuel is an important object, than they are for use in sitting-rooms or offices. It is usual to place a vessel of water on the top of these with the view of obviating, as far as possible, the dryness of 42 D WELLING-HO USES. the air they produce. It must be borne in mind that closed slow combustion stoves do not act as ventilators, as the air to supply the fuel usually coke is brought by a pipe from the outside, and this is another reason why they are not so advantageous as a open fire or a quick combustion stove in dwelling-rooms. In the Thermhydric grate of Mr. Saxon Snell, a small boiler is placed behind FIG. 16. Thermhydric Grate. the grate, and communicates with a series of iron pipes alongside of it. These are filled with water, which is of course kept warm, and air is admitted to the room be- tween these hot water pipes. Thus, it is neither dried nor heated too much. The products of combustion are carried away by a flue, which may be placed under the VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 43 floor; so that the grates, if required, may stand in the middle or in any other part of the room. Gas stoves are gradually becoming largely used instead of coal, and when proper provision is made for the escape FIG. 17. Thermhydric Grate (Section). of the products of combustion, they are certainly very con- venient and cleanly contrivances. I have no doubt that this will, in the end, be found to be the proper use for gas, 44 DWELLING-HOUSES. and that we shall cease entirely, or almost entirely, to use coal in our houses. By using coal in the way that we do, we lose all the valuable bye-products the ammonia, the tar, the carbolic acid, the aniline dyes, &c., which are derived from the refuse of gas works, and most of which are worse than useless in our fires. Gas may be burned either mixed with air or not. In the first instance, a gas stove or grate filled with pumice-stone or asbestos does not much resemble an ordinary fire, but if the gas be burned unmixed with air it is almost impossible to tell the difference. Generally speaking, it is found necessary, when there are several gas stoves in a house, to have a special supply of gas with larger pipes for them. What the gas companies should do is to lend gas stoves of various kinds, especially cooking stoves, to their customers for a small annual payment, as is done very successfully in some continental cities. It is important that gas cook- ing stoves should not give an unpleasant smell of un- burnt gas as some do. This is not only a waste but a nuisance, as coal gas always contains carbonic oxide (an extremely poisonous substance), and should, therefore, not be allowed to escape into the air, even in the smallest quantity. In Leggott and Marsh's grate the products of com- bustion are made to pass down underneath the back of the grate into the flue, thus ensuring very perfect combus- tion and reducing the amount of smoke produced to a minimum. I have now to mention an artificial system of ventilation VENTILATION, LIGHTING, AND WARMING. 45 introduced a few years ago by Messrs. Verity Bros. It consists essentially of a fly-wheel fitted with fans or vanes. The wheel is made to revolve by a jet of water directed against it, and supplied from a cistern overhead, the water passing off by a pipe into a cistern below. The apparatus can be fixed either in an inlet opening, and so made to propel air into the apartment through an aperture in the wall placed higher than people's heads, and in a slanting direction, so that the entering air is shot upwards towards the centre of the room ; or it can be used as an extractor, by placing it in an exit shaft, and causing it to draw the vitiated air out. The supply of water can be regulated by taps to the greatest nicety, so that the wheel can be made to revolve at whatever speed is desirable. The entrance pipes are sometimes fitted with a vertical tube containing a box, in which ice can be placed, or a holder for perfume, or any deodorant. For smoking rooms it is found advisable to use the apparatus as an extractor only, and to allow the air to come in by means of Tobin's tubes, and this will probably be found to be the best plan generally. Dwelling-houses are seldom warmed and ventilated by means of hot- water apparatus, and so I do not think it necessary to enter into a description of the plans by which this may be effected. I need only mention Mr. Pritchett's " miniature hot water apparatus," if I may so call it, by means of which a single room may be warmed and ven- tilated. The water starts from a small boiler, of the size of an ordinary kettle, which may be placed on a fire any- 48 DWELLING-HOUSES. where, or heated by a spirit lamp, and passes through a narrow space betweeen double cylinders, the inner cylin- ders being used for the admission of fresh air, which is warmed in passing through them, or for the extraction of foul air. Other systems of artificial ventilation are suited for large public buildings, but are not adapted for use in dwelling-houses. WATER SUPPLY. 47 CHAPTEE III. WATER SUPPLY. FOR the purpose of these lectures we must assume that it is necessary to have a supply of water, that is fit to drink, sufficient for all uses. The obvious characters of a good drinking water are that it is clear, transparent and colour- less, without taste (that is to say neither salt nor sweet) and without smell ; that it has no suspended particles in it, and produces no deposit on standing, and that it is aerated ; but a water may possess all these characteristics and yet be unfit to drink, by reason of dissolved matters which cannot be detected except by chemical analysis, but the existence of which may often be suspected through a knowledge of the history of the water. Waters are com- monly divided into hard waters and soft waters. Hard waters are those which contain a considerable quantity of mineral salts, especially salts of lime, in solution ; soft waters, those which contain much smaller quantities of these substances. Very hard waters are unfit for domestic purposes. A deposit of mineral matters takes place in the supply pipes, &c., and they get blocked up. Such very hard waters, too, are not more desirable for drinking than for domestic purposes generally. Moderately hard waters appear to be as wholesome to drink as soft waters. 48 DWELLING-HOUSES. The Eegistrar- General has shown that the death-rate in towns supplied with moderately hard water, does not differ sensibly from that of a series of towns supplied with soft water, but in other respects similar in their sani- tary arrangements. Nevertheless animals in their natural state prefer soft water to hard, and those who have the care of horses always give them soft water to drink if pos- sible. An undoubted disadvantage that attends the use of hard water for domestic purposes consists in the enormous waste of soap that it entails. In order to wash with soap it is necessary to produce a lather. Now, the mineral salts in hard water decompose the soap, and form insoluble compounds, so that solution of the soap in water which will form a lather, does not take place until the lime, &c., in the water has been deposited as insoluble lime-soap, &c. Thus the more salts of lime and other mineral matters present in the water, the more soap is wasted before the formation of a lather. This can be easily illustrated by a simple experiment. If we take a sample of distilled water, which contains no mineral matters in solution, and add a small quantity of an alcoholic solution of soap to it when we shake the bottle in which it is, a lather is immediately produced and remains for some time ; but when we take the same quantity of a sample of hard water, and add the soap solution to it, we find that it requires, say ten or twenty times as much of the solution to form a lather. Soft water then, on the whole, must be preferred to hard for domestic purposes, and when the water is very hard it ought to be softened before being distributed. This may WATER SUPPLY. 49 be done by Clark's process, which consists in adding milk of lime to the water as long as a precipitate is formed. The rationale of this is that most of the hard waters con- tain considerable quantities of carbonate of lime, which are held in solution in the water by means of free carbonic acid. The lime added as milk of lime combines with the free carbonic acid, forming more carbonate of lime, which, together with the carbonate previously in solution, is de- posited, being almost entirely insoluble in water. As it is deposited, it carries down with it any suspended matters that may be in the water, and so leaves the water clearer and purer. A practical difficulty in the carrying out of this process, arising from the length of time required for the precipitate to subside, has been overcome by a process of nitration devised by Mr. Porter, and known as the "Porter- Clark process." Another plan for accomplishing the same result is Atkins's process, in which the water, after the addition of the lime, is made to pass through canvas strainers, which do not allow the carbonate of lime to pass through them ; it adheres to their outer surfaces and can be removed from time to time by means of revolv- ing brushes. Maignen's process is somewhat similar, but strainers of asbestos cloth are used. Water after being distributed may be softened to a considerable extent on a small scale by boiling, when the carbonic acid gas is given off, and the carbonate of lime deposited. It is this which causes the incrustation of boilers. The boiling also helps to purify the water in other ways, and it is a very good plan to use boiled water, either when the water is very 50 D W ELLIN G-HO USES. hard, or when there is any suspicion of impurity, both for drinking and for domestic purposes generally. It may be aerated by allowing it to fall from a height from one vessel into another. The average quantity of water re- quired in a community is generally put down at from 30 to 35 gallons per head daily. Of these, from 20 to 25 are required for household purposes (including waste) where baths and water-closets have to be supplied, and ten or more are necessary for washing the streets, for flushing the sewers, and for trade purposes. The important sources of water are : (1). Rain col- lected directly. This is of course very soft water, and in country places very pure. In towns it is rendered impure by the substances that it washes out of the air, and must be filtered before it is used, but it is everywhere an im- portant and valuable source of soft water which is far too much neglected. It ought to be collected and used for domestic purposes, and wherever there is any suspicion as to the quality of the water supplied from other sources, rain-water should (especially in the country) be used for drinking. It may be filtered through sand, gravel, or charcoal by means of very simple contrivances. (2). Water is often obtained from shallow wells, dug in the soil down to a little below the level of the subsoil water. These, of course, drain the soil around for a greater or less distance, and the water in them frequently becomes contaminated by foul matters from leaky sewers, cesspools, &c., especially in pervious soils. Persons should therefore always be suspicious of the quality of water de- WATER SUPPLY. 51 rived from shallow wells, for frequently, even when bright and sparkling, it is highly contaminated (fig. 18). (3). Springs and small streams are often used to pro- vide supplies of water, and very pure water is obtained in this way, although it is sometimes rather hard. It is either conveyed directly to the town by means of aque- ducts or pipes, after the Eoman plan, or collected from a gathering ground into large impounding reservoirs, and thence taken in pipes to the place to be supplied. Lakes are sometimes utilised. FIG. 18. A. Cesspool. B. Drain. C. Well. (4). The water of large rivers is now frequently used as a source of supply. It is received in settling basins or reservoirs, where a deposit takes place, then filtered through beds of sand and gravel, and afterwards dis- tributed. Most of the river water is contaminated in various ways during its passage through towns ; and without entering further into the subject here, I would merely say that it is better to obtain water that has not E 2 52 D WELLING-HOUSES. been contaminated, than to take water which we know has been contaminated, and then try to purify it. (5). Water is sometimes obtained from pervious water- bearing strata, at a considerable depth below the surface of the ground, by boring into them through the impervious strata which lie over them, and through which the water cannot penetrate. Wells with such borings from the bottom of them are known as artesian wells, from having been first constructed in the French province of Artois. The water contained in such water-bearing strata is sup- plied by the rain which falls on the outcrop of the strata, often at a considerable distance, and frequently, as in London and Paris, on the hills around. The water per- colates through the pervious rocks, and so gets beneath the impervious strata which lie over them after they have disappeared beneath the surface, and, being retained there under pressure, rises through borings made into the rock in which it is, through the impervious strata lying over it. This water, then, is generally, as may be expected, very pure, although it is frequently, especially if derived from the chalk, as that supplied by the Kent Company to London, very hard. Occasionally, as in some wells bored into the New Eed Sandstone, it contains too much common salt to be fit for domestic purposes, which will not be won- dered at when we consider that the largest deposits of salt we have, from which enormous quantities are obtained, are in the New Eed Sandstone formation. However the water is obtained, it is distributed to the houses in one of two ways, either by intermittent or by WATER SUPPLY. 53 constant service. With the system of intermittent service, the water is turned on into the houses once or twice in the twenty-four hours for a short period each time. It is, therefore, necessary to have cisterns, butts, tanks, or receptacles of some kind to keep the water in during the intervals. In these, deposit occurs of the suspended matters contained in the water, and dust accumulates, es- pecially if they are not covered, or if the covers are broken, and so the water is rendered impure. They also usually have a waste or overflow pipe, which is frequently connected with the drains, or with some part of the water- closet apparatus, and by means of which foul air finds its way into the cistern and contaminates the water. During the intervals, too, when the mains are not charged with water, foul water and foul air find their way from the soil around through leaky joints, and contaminate the water when it is next turned on, so that it frequently happens that the first water that comes into the cistern when it is turned on is quite unfit to drink. There is an enormous amount of loss with this system, which might, however, in great part be prevented. The last disadvantage of the intermittent supply lies in the fact that some delay is frequently experienced in obtaining water for extinguishing fires. With the system of constant service, on the other hand, the pipes are always full, and so water can be drawn for domestic purposes direct from the mains, although it is desirable to have cisterns for the storage of water in case the water has to be turned off occasionally, as during 54 DWELLING-HOUSES. repairs to the mains. Eeceptacles are, moreover 4 , neces- sary for the supply of water to closets. The pipes being always full of water under pressure, are far more likely to leak out into the soil than to be contaminated with foul matters from the soil. Still, it is not advisable on any account that waterpipes should be carried near to sewers or other sources of contamination. The water is fresher, and purer, and cooler in summer when supplied on the constant service system. The pipes are full in case of fire, and the inspection of pipes, taps, and other fittings is, as a matter of fact, carried on very much better, and less waste of water takes place under this system (although the pipes are always charged) than under the other system. It is obvious that, unless there were very strict super- vision, a great waste of water would necessarily accom- pany the use of the constant system. For this reason also the water companies that have adopted that system will not allow waste pipes from cisterns to be connected with the drains, or closet apparatus, but insist 011 their discharging freely in the open air ; and usually in some place where any waste water running out of them would produce annoyance, so that it would be speedily noticed, and the cause of the waste remedied. It is very important, however, where this system is adopted, that there should be double reservoirs or tanks in order that one may be used while the other is being cleaned out, for if, as has been the case at some places, and notably at Croydon, the water be supplied by the intermittent system of service for a few days, defects which have produced no inconvenient WATER SUPPLY. 55 results while the constant system of supply was practised (such as the connection of watercloset hoppers directly with the main water-pipes, the existence of leaky joints in the mains, through which foul matters may enter from the soil, &c.), may produce the gravest results by spreading enteric fever throughout the community ; and here I may mention that it is, of course, extremely improper and very dangerous to connect a cistern which is used to supply drinking-water, or a water-main, directly with the hopper of a water-closet. The system of constant service is coming gradually into more general use, and it is very probable that water- meters will be much more generally used than they are at present. A simple apparatus of this kind is Ahrbecker's water-meter, in which the water is made to pass through oblique apertures in a fixed plate into oblique spiral pas- sages in a cylinder which is capable of rotating, and the axle of which turns the index of a dial. Water mains are usually made of cast iron coated with Dr. Angus Smith's preparation of tar, to prevent rusting. The pipes, by means of which the supply of water is conveyed into the houses from the mains, are usualh 7 made of lead ; this material being preferred on account of its durability, and the facility with which it can be bent in various directions. A disadvantage of it is, that certain waters attack and dissolve lead, and are thereby rendered more or less poisonous. These, however, are chiefly pure and soft waters. Waters containing mineral salts in solution, such as those generally supplied for drinking 56 DWELLING-HOUSES. purposes, scarcely attack lead at all ; and moreover, with waters which do attack lead, the surface of the metal often becomes covered with an insoluble coating of oxide and carbonate, which protects it from further attack. Pipes made of lead lined with a thin layer of tin are sometimes used, but when the tin becomes damaged in any way, a galvanic action is set up, and the lead is dissolved quicker than ever. Varnishes of various kinds have been pro- posed for coating the interior of water-mains and pipes. Most of them are very objectionable one of them posi- tively containing arsenic. Wrought iron pipes with screw joints are sometimes used for water pipes. They are cer- tainly cheaper than lead, and it is said that they will last longer, Bends are made of almost every possible shape, just as in gas pipes. In some rare instances lead pipes are attacked from the outside by water containing carbonic acid in the soil, as shown in a sample of lead pipe which had been laid in chalk, and which may be seen in the Parkes Museum. The receptacles used for storing drinking water are made of various materials. Cisterns made of, or lined with lead, have long been frequently used on account of their durability. They are open to the same objections as lead pipes, although from the fact that no mischief has been found to result from the use of lead pipes and cisterns at Glasgow, since it has been supplied with Loch Katrine water, which is exceedingly soft, it appears pro- bable that the ill- effects from the use of lead in this way have been exaggerated. Galvanised iron cisterns are fast UNIVERSITY WATER SUPPLY. 57 taking the place of lead ones. They are very durable, and of course cheaper than lead. Stone or even brick- work tanks lined with cement are sometimes used at or below the ground level for the storage of water, and are open to no objections so far as the material is concerned. Cisterns are now made of enamelled fire-clay, and are suit- able for cottages, for use in basements, &c. Slate cisterns are not unfrequently used for upper stories, as well as ground floors. Of course slate in itself is an excellent material for such a purpose, but slate cisterns, unfor- tunately, are very apt to leak after a time, and the joints are then filled in with red lead from the inside of the cistern a practice which is, obviously, very objectionable. The use of wooden receptacles, such as tubs, butts, &c., ought to be discouraged, if only because they are difficult to keep clean. A self- cleansing tank has also been de- vised. The bottom, instead of being flat, is made to slope from all sides towards the centre, where the waste-pipe is fixed. On lifting up, by means of u lever, that part of the waste-pipe which stands up in the cistern, and which is fitted accurately into the commencement of the pipe at the bottom of the cistern, so as to make a water-tight joint, the water runs out of the cistern, and on account of the sloping bottom washes all the sediment away with it. This does not, however, obviate the necessity of cleaning the sides and bottom of the cistern from time to time. The water is generally supplied to the cistern from the pipes through a tap known as the " ball- valve." To it is attached, by means of a metal bar, a hollow copper sphere 58 DWELLING-HOUSES. or ball, which floats on the water as it rises in the cistern, and when it has risen to a certain height turns off the tap. It is because these taps are liable to get out of order, that a waste or overflow pipe is necessary. This waste or overflow pipe should, in all cases, without any exception, discharge freely, as over an area, &c., so that you can see the water coming out of it. All receptacles of water should be well covered, in order that dust and other impurities may be kept out of them. Closed iron tanks have recently been devised, in which the water is much less liable to contamination from ex- ternal sources ; among these I may especially mention Mr. Hugh Alexander's cistern and air-valve, a very in- genious contrivance. Of course, for drinking water, we ought to choose a source of supply that is unpolluted. As Mr. Simon has said : " It ought to be an absolute condition for a public water supply that it should be uncontaminable by drain- age." We ought not, then, to take confessedly impure waters and try to purify them, so as to make them fit to drink. On the other hand, it is obviously unnecessary to use very pure water, except where there is a superabun- dance of it, for washing the streets, flushing the sewers, and supplying the water-closets, and so it may be advisa- ble in some places to have a double supply of water, one of pure water for drinking and cooking, derived, for instance, from artesian wells, and the other of an inferior character for other uses. This has been lately proposed for London, and whatever may be said against it on the score of ex- WATER SUPPLY. 59 pense, I think that most people will agree that it would be very desirable to have water to drink which has not been first polluted with sewage and then filtered. The advan- tage of this plan, too, was perfectly well recognised by the ancient Eomans. Frontinus tells us that it pleased the Emperor (as he puts it) to order that the water supplied by certain aqueducts should be supplied to the people for domestic purposes, while that supplied by some others, from its being occasionally turbid and of inferior quality, was to be used for "viler purposes." As, however, we do not, as a matter of fact, in the majority of instances, imitate the ancient Eomans, either in this particular or in bringing pure water from a dis- tance to supply the towns, but use the nearest water that we can get, whether good, indifferent, or bad, it is of of course necessary for us to do all that we can to purify it before use. This is done on a large scale by filtration through layers of sand and gravel , after the coarser sus- pended matters have been allowed to deposit themselves in a settling tank. I shall not describe this method of filtration in detail here, as it is a little beside the scope of this book, but, as the principle on which it acts is the same as that upon which the success of most forms of domestic filter depend, I may say a few words about it once for all. The experiments made by Dr. Frankland for the Eivers Pollution Commissioners showed that when foul water was passed through layers of porous soil, or sand and gravel, the amount of organic matter in it was reduced, if two conditions were fulfilled ; these are, that 60 DWELLING-HOUSES. the filtration be downwards and intermittent. It was found that if the filtration were upwards or continuous, no such purification occurred after a time. The explanation of these facts is simple. The filtering material acts in two ways. It separates, mechanically, suspended matters in the water that are too large to pass through the pores of the filtering material, and it also acts chemically by means of the oxygen of the air in its pores, for as the water flows downwards through the filtering material, it percolates by means of a number of very small streams, and so is brought into the most immediate contact with the oxygen of the air in the filtering material. The or- ganic matters in the water are then oxidised by the action of certain organisms contained in the filter, and the result is the formation of nitrates and carbonates, and it is cer- tain that by this means a considerable quantity of organic matter is rendered harmless. Domestic filters, clearly, ought not to be required. The water ought to be de- livered sufficiently pure to drink. And here I would remark that the average quality of a drinking water supplied to a place is not the matter of most importance, and indeed is rather a fallacious guide. What we want to know is the quality of the worst sample that the public are likely to be supplied with at any time. But it is not only because the water supplied varies in purity in most instances, sometimes considerably, that domestic filters are useful, but because, as I have before remarked, especially where the intermittent system of supply is in vogue, the water, even if delivered pure, is WATER SUPPLY. 61 rendered impure in the houses themselves by being stored in filthy receptacles. The majority of the filters in domes- tic use rely upon the principle of downward filtration. In a few the water is passed upwards through a filtering material. The chief materials used are animal charcoal vegetable charcoal is not a good material for filtering pur- poses silicated carbon, carbide of iron, carferal, spongy iron and sand. When animal charcoal is used, it must be specially prepared and well-burned. If any of the animal matter be left in it, it becomes as has been shown by the Kivers Pollution Commissioners, a breeding place for myriads of small worms which pass into the water. With the other materials mentioned, there is, of course, no risk of this, as they are made of burnt shale, or taken from the interior of blast furnaces. Some filters are placed inside the cisterns, so that all the water that is drawn off has to pass through them. Others are placed in the main water pipes themselves, or in the taps. One of the former kind is known as the " self- cleansing filter," in which the sus- pended particles in the water are prevented from getting at the filtering material by a ring of compact silicated carbon, and the water itself is made to wash the outside of the block of filtering material through which it has to pass. My experience goes to prove, that filters that are always under water cease to purify the water after a time, unless means are taken for aerating them, and in many instances I have known water to be rendered more impure by its passage through a filter which has been used in this way for a considerable time. Of forms of domestic filter, the 62 DWELLING-HOUSES. glass decanter with a solid carbon or silicated carbon block FIG. 19. Decanter Filter. FIG. 20. Silicated Carbon Filter. WATER SUPPLY. 63 (fig. 19) has the great advantage that every part of it can be seen, so that it can be kept scrupulously clean. These filters go on working perfectly well for an almost unlimited iime, scarcely anything being necessary beyond cleansing the surface of the block once now and then with a hard brush. It is a very good plan to have a kind of double filtration. Sometimes the water is made to pass through a piece of sponge before falling on to the filtering material with the view of arresting the coarser suspended matters. It is far preferable, however, to use the carbon block for this purpose. In Prof. BischofFs spongy iron filter the filtering material is always under water, and the action which goes on in it is certainly quite different from that which I have explained, and is as yet little understood. The Eivers Pollution Commissioners have expressed the highest opinions of this substance as a filtering material. On account of the fact that the water dissolves a little of the iron on its passage through the spongy iron, it is made to pass through layers of pyrolusite (an oxide of manganese) and of prepared sand afterwards, with the view of removing this, and then, in order to aerate it, it is delivered through a very small hole in a fine stream into the pure water receiver. It will thus be seen that it is rather more complicated than some of the other forms of domestic filter. The slight trace of iron that remains in the water can hardly be considered a disadvantage, at any rate in large towns. I must now notice the filter known as the 4< aerating filter." In this by an ingenious contrivance, the air 64 DWELLING-HOUSES. IMS 0^ D FIG. 21. Spongy Iron Filter. A. Access to regulator. L. Lever worked by floating ball. B. Water supply tube entering filter. CC'C". Floors of filter chamber. D. Handle of Cover. F. Filtered water chamber. G. Floating ball. I. Spongy iron. O. Ball valve. P. Supply pipe. R. Clamp. SS'S" Prepared sand, &c. T. Tap. U. Unfiltered water. V. Screw down stop-cock. WATER SUPPLY. 65 passes to and from the filtered water chamber through the filtering material itself, and not by means of a small chan- nel in the china or earthenware vessel holding the filtering materials, as is the case in other filters The water first passes through a silicated carbon block, and then falls in the form of a shower on to the surface of a layer of some loose silicated carbon supported upon a perforated plate which is not flat, but has elevations here and there on its FIG. 22. Aerating Filter. A. First Filtering Medium. B. Second Filtering Medium. surface. The result is, that not only when the water is drawn off by the tap does air pass through the filtering material into the filtered water chamber, but also as the 66 DWELLING-HOUSES. water flows through into this lower chamber it forces the air out through the filtering material itself, which it is enabled to do by irregularities on the surface of the plate upon which the filtering material rests. If this plate were quite flat as it was heretofore made, and if there were no air-pipe from the lower chamber, a balance would be es- tablished and both water and air would cease to pass through the filtering material. All of the above mentioned filters allow microscopic organisms to pass through them, but a filter has been devised by Professor Pasteur and M. Charnberland of Paris, which consists of a tube or a series of tubes of unglazed porcelain, through the substance of which the water is forced to pass, and the pores of which are so fine that even the most minute organisms cannot pass through them ; as the infectious diseases spread by contaminated waters are now known to be caused by organisms the importance of such a contrivance is manifest. Another filter of a similar kind is the " Berkfeld " filter, which is made of a diatomaceous sandstone rock. When rain-water is used for drinking, and even for other domestic purposes, it is advisable to filter it, and a very good filter for this purpose is one devised by the late Professor Eolleston, of Oxford. The tank to receive the rain-water has two compartments, divided from one another by a vertical partition, and each having a hori- zontal layer of filtering material, as charcoal, placed on a perforated support half way down the tank. The rain- water pipe from the roof is brought down through this WATER SUPPLY. 67 filter-bed, nearly to the bottom of one of the compart- ments. The rain-water then has to pass upwards through the filtering material in this compartment over the par- tition into the second compartment, and downwards through the filtering material there, into the lower part of that compartment, where there is a tap from which it may be drawn off. An overflow pipe is, of course, pro- vided, so that the water cannot rise above a certain level. In conclusion, I need only say that the number of in- stances in which epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, and some other diseases, have been traced to the use of impure water, or of milk contaminated with foul water, must make it evident to everyone that is of the greatest pos- sible importance that we should have uncontaminated sources of water supply. F 2 68 DWELLING-HOUSES, CHAPTEK IV. EEMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS : DUST, KITCHEN REFUSE, EARTH- CLOSETS, &c. ; CONSERVANCY AND WATER-CARRIAGE SYSTEMS COMPARED. A VERY important matter in the sanitary administration of large towns, and an important matter for the considera- tion of every householder, is the regular and frequent re- moval of the house refuse known as "dust." This consists chiefly of ashes and cinders ; but unfortunately the dust- bin or ash-pit is only too convenient a receptacle for all kinds of refuse matters, including kitchen debris, and so, in a large number of instances, these receptacles, es- pecially in hot weather, become excessively foul, and an abominable nuisance. If the dust were removed daily, as it should be wherever this is practicable, the mixture of organic matter with it would not be of great importance, but where this cannot be done, it is very necessary to in- sist that the dust-bin shall be used for nothing but ashes, and that all organic kitchen refuse, such as cabbage leaves and stalks, shall be burnt. This can be done without any nuisance by piling them on the remains of the kitchen fire the last thing at night ; thus they are gradually dried during the night, and help to light the fire in the morning. When dust is valuable to those who contract to remove it REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS. 69 (for this work is generally let out to contractors by the parish authorities, although in several instances it is now being done with great advantage and saving to the rate- payers by the parish workmen themselves), there is no difficulty in getting it removed ; the contractors are only too glad to get it, and even prosecute people who keep any of it back for their own uses. The cinders and ashes from dust-bins are largely used in brick-making, and so when the building trade is slack dust becomes worthless. The contractors, instead of paying for it, require to be paid considerable sums to take it away, and the less they take away, and the less frequently they call for it, the more advantage do they get out of their bargains. This has been the case for some years, and in one parish alone, that of Islington, where I was formerly Medical Officer of Health, the difference that it made to the sanitary authority in one year as compared with another only six years before, was no less than 6,257 ; whereas in the earlier year iihe sanitary authority received 2,200 from the contractors, an the later they had to pay 4,057. No doubt the best plan to get rid of such refuse matters would be to put them outside the door early in the morning in a box or bucket, . to be called for every morning by the contractor's men, and this is already done in some places. Otherwise it is necessary for every householder to take care that his dust- bin does not become a nuisance to himself or his neigh- bours, from too large an accumulation being allowed to remain in it, or from improper matters being thrown into it. Dust- bins ought not to be built inside houses, as 70 DWELLING-HOUSES. they very frequently are. Neither ought they to be built against the walls of the houses, for emanations from them will percolate through the walls into the interior of the houses. They ought always to be covered with a sloping roof, so that the rain may run off; if rain-water is allowed to get into them, they are much more likely to become a nuisance. Rain-water pipes ought not to be carried through dust-bins, or foul air from the latter will get into the pipe through a leaky joint, or a damaged place, and ascend it, causing a nuisance in one of the upper rooms, or elsewhere. I have known a serious nuisance caused in this way. Portable galvanized iron boxes are much better than built dust-bins, as they can be kept much cleaner. Eemoval of Excreted Matters by Conservancy Systems. Under these systems the excretal matters are either col- lected without any admixture, in receptacles known as cesspools, or they are mixed with ashes, and other house refuse, forming what is called a " midden heap," and of these two old plans all the dry closets, pail, and tub sys- tems, &c., may be said to be modifications. Cesspools were formerly largely used, especially for houses built on porous soil. A pit was dug into which the excretal matters were discharged and allowed to percolate away into the soil frequently into neighbouring wells. Often there was not only no pretence at making this pit impervious, but every facility was given to allow of the percolation of the foul water, &c., into the soil around. Thus the walls (when there were any) were made merely of rough blocks of stone placed one upon another. In some instances REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS. 71 these pits were not opened for many years together. Such cesspools were constructed long before water-closets came into use, and were often retained after the introduction of these. In many instances they were placed underneath houses, and under the basements of large houses there are sometimes several of them. They form a serious nuisance, lasting for many years, as foul air from them finds its way into the house, even when there are no waste pipes directly connected with them, as there generally are, and thus they are very dangerous to health, even supposing they are so placed as not to contaminate the water supply. In some towns it was, positively, formerly the practice to dig them down until a spring, or water of some kind, was reached, in order that they might not require to be emptied. In all old houses, it is imperative to search diligently for disused cesspools, and to trace the course of every pipe from every part of the house. In many in- stances, openings from the basement floor lead into dis- used cesspools, even in houses that have been drained, and in which the cesspools are supposed to have been abolished. A basement drain is not unfrequently allowed to discharge into an old cesspool, after a properly con- structed sewer has been made to receive the refuse matters from the water-closets. This is a source of great danger to the inmates of the house. In some instances, however, cesspools are made of brick- work set in cement and lined internally with a layer of cement, so as to be impervious to water. They then re- quire to be emptied periodically, a process which often 72 D WELLING-HO USES. causes a considerable nuisance, and they require, more- over, to be at a considerable distance from the house, and to be disconnected from the house drains and sewers in a manner that will be described in the next chapter. Not unfrequently, however, they are placed directly under- neath the house or under the court- yard, as is commonly the practice in Paris and many other continental cities and towns. Pipes are laid straight into them from the various storeys of the house, and sometimes these are the only ventilating pipes through which foul air can escape. Occasionally they are made to overflow into sewers or drains, and sometimes a kind of strainer is placed inside them, so that the solid refuse may be collected, and the liquids allowed to escape into a sewer or drain. They used formerly to be emptied by hand and bucket, thereby causing an abominable nuisance, and the workmen em- ployed, for this purpose were frequently suffocated by the foul air, and suffered from inflammation of the eyes caused by the ammoniacal vapours. Of late years, they have been emptied by hose into air-tight carts, from which the air has been previously exhausted by a power- ful pump. This process, of course, causes less nuisance, and is not dangerous to the men employed, but, even with these improvements, the system is a very disagree- able one. In some towns, large midden heaps are still in vogue. The mixture of ashes and other house refuse with the excretal matters produces a dried mass, which, if not ex- posed to rain is considered to cause less nuisance than REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS. 73 cesspools ; but if dust-bins are bad and are nuisances, as they most certainly are in a very large number of in- stances, midden heaps must be very much worse. Eefuse matters become nuisances and injurious to health when they are allowed to remain in the vicinity of habitations. In all towns where refuse matters are not removed im- mediately there is a high death-rate, and especially a high children's death-rate, and in all towns (as Sir Or. Buchanan has show T n in the ninth report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council) where refuse matters are removed more speedily than they were formerly, the general death-rate has been lessened. The chief improvements that have been made in these conservancy systems, consist in di- minishing in various ways the size of the receptacles, so that the refuse matters cannot be collected in so large an amount, or kept for so long in and near the house, and in making the receptacles impervious to water, so that liquids cannot escape from them into the soil around, nor water get into them. Sometimes the receptacles are drained into the sewers so that the liquid part can run away leaving the contents of the receptacle drier. In other cases they are not. The improvements in cesspools, then, have consisted in making them smaller and smaller and, lastly, moveable the fosses mobiles of the Continent ; the pans, pails, tubs, &c., of some of our large towns. These moveable receptacles are placed underneath the seats of the closets, fetched away when full by the scaven- ger, and replaced by the empty ones. They are, or ought to be, fitted with air-tight lids, so that as little nuisance 74 DWELLING-HOUSES. as possible may be caused by carrying them to the carts ; but as may be expected, in many instances they are allowed to get too full, and a great nuisance is often caused in the houses. Nevertheless, this plan is a con- siderable improvement upon the plan of large buried cesspools. One of these pails that is largely in use is Haresceugh's spring -lid receptacle, a specimen of which may be seen in the Parkes Museum. Similar improvements have been made in middens. The pits, in which the excretal matter and ashes are collected, have been made smaller and smaller, and im- pervious to water, until at last, in some towns, they are above the ground, and consist only of the space beneath the seat of the closet made into an impervious receptacle, and usually drained into a sewer or drain. This, of course, necessitates their being emptied frequently, which is done by hand and spade labour. A capital plan is that adopted by Dr. Bayliss, late Medical Officer of Health for the West Kent Combined Districts, in which there is a ventilating shaft from the back part of the receptacle rising above the roof of the closet. This allows the foul air to escape above the roof, while fresh air enters through openings cut in the door. Sometimes boxes or pails are used and removed periodically, as in the case of tubs and pails, previously described as movable cesspools, the only difference being that ashes, &c., are thrown in with a scoop or by means of some self-acting apparatus. A contrivance which is now largely used, in towns where this system is in vogue, is Morell's cinder-sifting ash- REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS. 75 closet, of which a model may be seen in the Parkes Museum. The ashes are thrown on to the sifter, through the interstices of which the fine ash passes into a hopper, and the cinders fall off and may be collected and used again. The hopper is connected with the seat in such a manner that the weight of the person moves the seat a little and jerks some of the fine ash down into the lower part of the hopper, from which it is thrown into the FIG. 23. Cinder Sifting Ash Closet. midden by another jerk when the person rises. Another contrivance of this kind is Moser's, which is also of very simple construction, and others are Taylor's and Weir's. The Eureka and Goux, and some other systems, are varieties of the pail system in which an absorbent of some kind or another is used. We now come to the consideration of the dry- earth system, which was brought into prominence by the Kev. Henry Moule. It consists in throwing over the excretal 76 DWELLING-HOUSES. matters a certain quantity of dried and sifted earth, when an absorption takes place, and a compost is produced which is perfectly inoffensive to the sense of smell. The earth may be dried and used over and over again for five or six times or even more, and any earth except chalk or sand will answer the purpose. It may be thrown by hand, or by a self-acting apparatus moved by the weight of the person, or by the door of the closet, or by a pull-up apparatus similar to that ordinarily used in water-closets. It will be seen at once that with this system there is not only something to be taken away, but something to be brought into the towns and into the houses the dried earth ; and this constitutes a very serious objection. However, it is an objection that might perhaps be waived, if the system could be satisfactorily worked on a large scale and by careless persons, for it is essential, in a large town at any rate, that a system for the removal of refuse matters must be used which can be worked by the most careless persons. When we consider that, if the supply of earth were to fail for a day, a serious nuisance would be caused in every house ; that if a servant throws a pail of slops into the earth-closet it becomes a cesspool ; that the apparatus may get out of order, so that earth is not thrown in even though the hopper be full ; and that an enormous quantity of earth would be required in every large town, we shall see that, at any rate for large towns, it is impracticable ; and when added to this, we find the fact that one great argument in favour of the system, the supposed value of the manure produced, is entirely REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS. 77 fallacious, it having been shown by the Sewage Committee of the British Association, that the compost, even after passing six times through the closets, can only be re- garded as a rich garden soil, and would not pay the cost of carriage even to a small distance ; that in fact in the disintegration and decomposition of the organic matters that take place in the mass, almost all the nitrogen is got rid of in some way or another, we see that one great argument for its use in towns disappears. We must re- member, too, that deodorisation is not necessarily disin- fection, and, as Dr. Parkes pointed out, we do not know that the poisons say of typhoid fever and cholera are destroyed by being mixed with dried earth. It is even possible that they are preserved by it, and there can be no doubt that if the earth is not sufficiently dried, or if water is thrown on the mass, considerable danger would arise if the poisons of such diseases were present. While, however, the system is impracticable for large communi- ties, it is one that has been found very useful indeed under suitable circumstances. It is useful for temporary large gatherings of people at flower shows, cattle shows, race meetings, volunteer reviews, &c., especially where there is supervision, and where persons can be told off to attend to the distribution of the earth. Earth-closets are suitable for use in villages and country houses in the open air, but they ought not, in my opinion, to be placed in- doors even in the country. Where the earth can be collected and dried on the spot, and the compost after- wards used upon the garden, the plan has been found very 78 DWELLING-HOUSES. useful if only sufficient care be exercised, and no nuisance need be produced. To sum up with regard to the conservancy plans, their very name condemns them one and all, for use in large towns at any rate, or in the interior of houses. One of the most important of sanitary principles is, that the refuse matters should be removed as speedily and as con- tinuously as possible from the neighbourhood of habita- tions, and the principle of conservancy systems is that the refuse matters are to be kept in and about the house, at any rate as long as they are not a nuisance, which of course means that, in a large number of cases, they become a serious nuisance. It is also obvious that the carriage of the refuse matters entails considerable cost under any of these systems, and so the less frequently they are removed the less does it cost, and what is detrimental to the health of the population becomes advantageous to the ratepayers. If the manure so collected were valuable, it might, of course, be made to pay the cost of collecting, but this is not the case as a rule, the only instance in which any of these systems have been made to pay being where the excretal matters have been collected in pails or tubs, unmixed with anything which would lessen their value. With all these systems, too, it is necessary to have some method for disposing of the slops and foul water generally, which cannot be allowed to run into the water-courses, as it would contaminate them, and so it is necessary to have sewers, the construction of which will be described in the next chapter. REMOVAL OF REFUSE MATTERS. 79 As opposed to the conservancy systems, we have the water-carriage system, by means of which the refuse excre- tal matters are conveyed away in the foul water by gravi- tation through the sewers, and are thus removed from the houses as speedily and cheaply as possible by means of the pipes, which must in any case be provided in towns, to get rid of the foul water. The sewage is increased in bulk, but is not rendered perceptibly fouler by this ad- mixture. Indeed, as a rule, the sewage of a town supplied with water-closets is less foul than that of a town supplied with middens. Although, however, sewers are necessary in towns to carry the foul water away, in country places the slop water may be allowed to run into the surface drains, provided they do not pass near wells, and this is best managed by means of a contrivance which I shall describe in the next chapter. The water-carriage system has disadvantages of its own, and requires special precautions to be taken, which so far as they are connected with dwelling-houses, will be de- scribed in the next two chapters. 80 D WELLING-HO USES. CHAPTEK V. SEWERAGE MAIN SEWERS AND HOUSE DRAINS, TRAPS, VENTILATION, &c. EVEN where conservancy systems are used for the removal of refuse excretal matters, it is necessary to have some contrivance by means of which the foul water can be got rid of. In country places, it may be discharged into or- dinary agricultural drains laid beneath the garden. It then percolates into the soil and serves to fertilise the crops. If, however, such waste water is thrown gradually down the traps and into the drains a small quantity at a time, the water escapes through the joints of the first few pipes, and the fat and other solid matters be- come deposited in them, and soon choke up the drains ; so that it is necessary to collect the slop-water, and dis- charge it at intervals. The best contrivance for this pur- pose is Mr. Eogers Field's flush tank (fig. 24) ; the slop- water is discharged over a loose iron grating at the top, and passes through a funnel-shaped aperture with a siphon bend at the bottom of it, which can also be lifted out, into the tank below. The discharge pipe from this tank does not start from the top of it, but very near the bottom, is carried upwards to the top and turns over and passes downwards to its outlet, which is at a lower level than the SEWERAGE. 81 point from which the pipe began. This pipe is made in the earthenware end of the tank itself. Thus it will be FIG. 24. Field's Flush Tank. FIG. 25. End of ditto. Inside view. A. Interior of tank. B. Surface grating. C. Connection for rain water pipe or ventilator. DD. Siphon. E. Outlet of siphon. F. Connection. G. Drain. seen that a siphon is produced, so that when the tank is filled to the top, and the shorter limb of the siphon also filled up to the bend, a sufficiont quantity of water thrown 82 DWELLING-HOUSES. in suddenly will start the siphon, and so empty the tank of its contents, to the level from which the lower limb starts inside the tank. The discharge end of the siphon has a weir placed across it with a notch in it. By means of these contrivances, not only will a smaller quantity of water start the siphon, but a false action which was found occasionally to take place, and which caused the water to dribble away without the tank being emptied, is pre- vented. Thus the whole body of water contained in the tank is made to rush through the drains, and the diffi- culty spoken of above is avoided. The tank also acts as a very good fat trap. FIG. 26. Invert Block. In towns, however, it is necessary to have sewers for the removal of the foul water. Sewers ought to be impervious to water, so that their contents may not percolate into the soil around, and so drains which are made to dry the soil are obviously not fitted to be used as sewers. The larger sewers are usually made of bricks, and built with an oval section, this being pre- ferable to the circular, and of course far better than any rectangular section. The bricks should be of the very hardest kind, and set in cement, and it is advisable to build the " invert " or lower part of the sewer, upon invert blocks made of stoneware. For smaller sized SEWERAGE. 83 sewers stoneware pipes are the best. They should always be used for sewers not greater than 18 inches in diameter. Larger sewers than these are cheaper made with bricks set in' cement. Stoneware pipe sewers would be much more used than they are in towns, but for the fact that the estimated size of the sewers generally is usually larger than is required, and much larger than would be required if the rain and surface water were carried away by separate drains. The sewer only requires to be large enough to carry away the water that can be discharged into it, and anything beyond that size is an absolute disadvantage, as it makes it more difficult to flush the sewers properly, for a larger pipe is insufficiently flushed by a quantity of water that would easily flush a smaller one. For flushing purposes it is best to have an arrange- ment by which a considerable quantity of water is de- livered into the sewer at once, so that it may fill it, or nearly so. The same quantity of water delivered more gradually does not produce by any means the same effect. In laying sewers of considerable length, inspection cham- bers should be built at various points, and especially at changes of direction. The main sewers should be freely ventilated at the level of the streets. If the ventilators, whether of the main or of branch sewers cause a nuisance, it is because there are not enough of them, or because the sewer is either badly laid or not properly flushed. It is usual to fix the ventilators in connection with manholes about 100 yards apart or 18 to a mile. In places with steep gradients it G2 84 DWELLING-HOUSES. is often necessary to fix ventilating shafts carried above the houses, as ventilators at the street level become outlets for air from the sewers of lower districts. In country places cesspools are often the destination of the house-drains. Cesspools should never be made where it can be helped. It is far better to use the sewage on the land than to collect it in cesspools. However, in some places, cesspools are necessary, in which case they should always be made impervious to water, by being built of bricks set in cement and rendered in cement. The cess- pool should not be under the house, but at some distance, and it must be ventilated. If near to the house, the ventilator should be carried up outside the wall of the house, and above the ridge of the roof. If at some dis- tance, it may be ventilated either by means of an open galvanised iron grating, or by means of a 4- inch lead pipe carried up a tree and covered with wire network at the top. Iron ventilating pipes should not be used, as they get blocked up with rust, and are often broken by the movements of the trees to which they are attached. The cesspool should not overflow into a stream, nor into a drain running into a stream, but on to the surface of the ground ; and it is folly to build a second cesspool, as some people do, for the first one to overflow into, for by the same argument, one might build any number one after the other. Brick drains should never be used under houses. The foul water soaks through them into the soil, and sediment is liable to accumulate in them. Eats work their way through them, displacing the bricks and wander- SEWERAGE. 85 ing about the house, and so not only does foul water get out of them into the soil, but foul air finds its way where- ever rats go, besides the fact that rats carry filth from the sewer itself about the house, and into the larder if they can get there. In this way I have no doubt whatever, that milk and other foods have disease poisons frequently conveyed to them. Drains made of glazed stoneware pipes should always be used for houses, except in cases where it may be better to use iron pipes, and they should FIG. 27. A. Brick drain with tile cover. BB. Rat runs. always be laid outside the walls of the houses whenever it , is practicable. They should be laid straight from point to point, and at each change of direction there should be a means of inspection. They should be laid on a bed of concrete if there is any reason to fear a settlement of the ground, or in very wet soils 011 hollow invert blocks. They should be jointed with cement, and the joints care- fully " wiped out" inside to prevent projections of cement 86 DWELLING-HOUSES. inside the drain, which are very likely to cause a blockage. Clay should never be used for jointing pipes, as the joints do not remain sound. If pipes with Stanford's patent joint are used no cement is required. The ends merely have to be greased and fitted into one another. These pipes must be laid straight, or they will not fit together. The disadvantage of these pipes is that warm water softens the material of which the rings at the end of the pipes are made, so that the joints do not remain water-tight. The fall of a house drain should be at least 1 in 48, but a more considerable fall is preferable ; it may, however, be im- practicable to get a fall of even 1 in 48, in which case special arrangements for flushing by means of one or more automatic flush-tanks must be made. Six-inch pipes may be used for large mansions, but, as a rule, for private houses 4-inch pipes will be found to be quite sufficient. The junction of the branches should never be made at right angles, but always at an acute angle, and of course in the direction in which the water is going, and it is much better to construct inspection chambers at all junctions of branch drains. At the end of the house drain, in the main sewer or cesspool, a swinging flap made of galvanised iron is frequently placed, with the view of keeping rats out of the house drains. It may be of some use for this purpose, but is of little use for pre- venting the entrance of foul air, and, as may be expected, these flaps are often out of order. It is necessary to place a water- trap of some kind upon the house drain before it enters the main sewer or cesspool. The kind formerly SEWERAGE. 87 most used was what is known as the dipstone or mason's trap. The drain was deepened at the spot, and a piece of stone or slate inserted right across the drain from side to side, and reaching from the top down into the deepened part two or three inches below the level of the bottom of the drain. Water of course always remained in the deepened part, and so the dipstone running right across the drain dipped about two or three inches into this water. If it reached also to the top, and was built in, it obviously FIG. 28. Dipstone Trap. AB. Drain. C. Dipstone. prevented the passage of the sewer air from the main sewer or cesspool into the house drain, except that which could pass through the water in the trap ; but as the stone frequently did not reach to the top of the trap, foul air passed freely over it into the house drain. These traps were usually made rectangular, and were often very large, so that they were practically cesspools, and they still go by this name in some parts of the country. They were much improved by making the end nearest to the house nearly vertical, giving the opposite one a gentle slope, 88 D WELLING-HOUSES. and fixing the dipstone not vertically, but slanting in the direction in which water goes rounding off the inside with concrete rendered in cement, so that there are no angles or corners. Thus the water falls vertically into the trap and flows out through a gentle incline. In such a trap very little accumulation occurs. Stoneware siphon traps are, however, now almost entirely used. They were often made with an upright piece from the lowest part of the siphon, which was continued by means of straight pipes up to near the surface of the ground, for the pur- poses of inspection, and of cleaning out of the siphon should it get blocked up. This inspection opening is now generally made at that end of the siphon which is intended to be placed next to the house, so that if pipes are carried from it up to the surface of the ground, and an iron grating put on the top, a passage is formed which, under ordinary circumstances, acts (if precautions are taken which will be presently mentioned) as an entrance for air into the house drain. It is a considerable improvement, although not absolutely necessary, to increase the air inlet into the drain at this point, that is to say, on the house- side of the siphon trap, and instead of merely having a pipe taken up to the surface of the ground, to have a man- hole built in brickwork, and with a channel pipe running along the bottom of it into the siphon (see fig. 29). The channel pipe should be laid at a considerable fall, so that the water may rush down into the siphon and clear it out as much as possible. Branch pipes may be made to join the main in the manhole by means of channel pipes, or SEWERAGE. 89 even by whole pipes discharging into a gutter built above the channel pipe ; or they may of course be tak^n into the house drain by junctions (better with inspection chambers) at any point of its course. The manhole may be covered by a galvanised iron grating, if it is in such a position that FIG. 29. Disconnecting-Chamber with improved Kenon Channel and Trap (designed by the Author). The trap is shown provided with the Kenon valve V, which is intended for use in deep manholes only. AB. Channel pipe. BCD. Siphon-trap. I. Air-Inlet. M. Manhole cover. gravel, &c., is not likely to get into it, but if in an area it is better to cover it with a lifting iron door, and to have a 4 -inch ventilating pipe from its upper part carried under the pavement to the area wall, up in the wall a short dis- tance, and then opening out by a grating flush with the surface of the wall. A junction pipe should be fixed im- 90 D WELLING-HO USES. mediately beyond the siphon, and pipes brought from it through the wall of the manhole, the end being filled with a plug, or better, with a piece of slate set in cement which can be removed for the purpose of cleaning the drain beyond the siphon if necessary. In the " Kenon " trap, an arm is provided for this pur- pose, which renders the insertion of a junction pipe beyond the siphon unnecessary. The " Kenon " air- chamber floor is a stoneware floor with a 6-inch channel in the middle of it, sides sloping up from the channel and side entrances provided with sockets for connection with branch drains. This floor is especially useful in places where the construction of an air-chamber is not under- stood, as it has simply to be laid in the course of the drain and a man-hole built round it; but it is generally better, where there are skilled workmen, to construct the man- hole floor with channel pipes curved to suit the require- ments of the particular case. Tho "Improved Kenon" trap has an egg-shaped section which renders it more self- cleansing than it would be with a circular section, and is sometimes provided with a valve (for use in deep man-holes only) by means of which the sewage can be allowed to escape into the sewer when it has accumulated through the blockage of the trap. (See fig. 29). At the highest point of the house drain (or, if necessary, at the ends of two or more branches), there should be a ventilating pipe, four inches in diameter, carried up above the ridge of the roof, and not under or near any bedroom windows, nor near any chimney. This may be covered SEWERAGE. 91 with a perforated cap having a few copper wires across the top, or with a cowl (preferably a fixed cowl) if it is re- quired to be ornamental. Whether this pipe be covered with a cowl or not, air will as a rule, enter the air inlet at the lower end of the drain, pass along it through its whole length, and escape by the ventilating pipe or pipes just mentioned, and no foul air can accumulate in any part of the drain. If any foul air essapes at the air inlet, it acts as a warning to show that something is wrong ; the siphon is stopped up, or there is an accumulation of foul matter in it, or in the drain somewhere, or else the FIG. 30. Stoneware Siphon Gulley. top of the ventilating pipe is sheltered by a wall or chimney, so that with certain directions of the wind a down draught is produced. When all is going on right, no foul air will escape by the air-inlet. The ventilating pipe should be made of lead, as if made of iron it soon gets blocked up with rust which falls off the sides of the pipe and accumulates in the bend at the bottom. Eain- water pipes should discharge over the surface of the yard or area. The surface gulleys for yards, &c., should be stoneware siphon gulleys, provided with galvanised iron gratings, which are better than stoneware gratings and 92 DWELLING-HOUSES. are less liable to break. They are sometimes provided with openings in the side above the level of the water for the admission of waste-pipes, &c. Dipstone traps are sometimes used, but are objectionable. Jennings's re- ceiver is sometimes useful, especially where the trap has to be low down, and upright pieces placed one above another over it up to the level of the pavement. Pieces with open- ings are provided, so that drains coming from the inside of the house the basement drains for instance may be dis- charged into it, and so disconnected from the soil-drain. Drains from the basement of a house ought not to open directly into the house-drain, but always into a discon- necting trap of some kind or another. Clark's gulleys are useful where much sludge is likely to be washed into the trap. They are provided with iron buckets that col- lect the sludge and can be lifted out bodily. They are doubly and sometimes trebly trapped. Dean's gulleys also have a bucket in them by which sand, &c., may be collected and removed. The common bell-trap (fig. 31), so often used not only in areas but in basements of houses, is a most mischievous contrivance. It consists of an iron box with a pipe, which is connected with the drain, standing up in it. The perforated cover of the box has an iron cup or bell-shaped piece fastened underneath it. Of course water stands in the box up to the top of the pipe which descends into the drain. The bell on the perforated lid is so arranged that when the lid or grating is in its place, the rim of the bell dips into the water around the vertical pipe. Even if the bell is in place, and SEWERAGE. 93 whole, the trap is untrustworthy, because a very slight increase of pressure of air in the drain will cause it to force its way through the small film of water into which the bell dips. It is objectionable because it soon becomes filled up with filth, and because, unless water is almost continually running through it, a sufficient amount eva- porates to allow the foul air to escape freely ; but the great objection to it is that, when the cover is taken off, the bell is taken off too ; the trap, such as it is, is gone, FIG. 31. -Bell-trap. and the air from the drain escapes freely into the house if the trap is inside the house. The covers are often taken off by servants, and left off, and are also frequently broken, and so the use of these traps should be dis- couraged as much as possible. The Antill trap (fig. 32) is an improvement on the bell-trap, as the trap is not un- sealed when the grating is removed, but it is not self- cleansing, and being small easily gets blocked up with filth ; moreover the top forms a handle by which the whole trap can be lifted bodily up, and so, even if the 94 DWELLING-HOUSES. trap is firmly fixed at first it almost always becomes loose after a time, and is then no protection against the escape of foul air from the drain into the yard ; for these reasons this trap is now seldom used. FIG. 32. Antill Trap. Many kinds of yard traps have been devised, but in most cases an ordinary siphon gully with a back or side inlet to receive the waste-pipe of the sink is all that is necessary, the waste-pipe itself being trapped immediately under the sink in the way described in the next chapter. WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 95 CHAPTEE VI. WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. ARRANGEMENT OF PIPES, TRAPS, &c. Water-closets. The simplest form of water-closet is the common "long hopper" closet, consisting of a conical basin with a stoneware siphon trap below it. There is FIG. 33. Long hopper water-closet with supply-pipe direct from cistern. nothing to get out of order in these closets, but they are liable to get stopped up through an insufficient amount of water being used in them, and the basins often get very foul from the same cause, and from the fact that no water 96 DWELLING-HOUSES. remains in the basin. They are very often supplied with water by means of a f -inch service pipe, which cannot supply enough water to flush them properly. This pipe is frequently taken directly from a cistern supplying drinking water, or even, where the water service is con- stant, directly from the main-water pipes, provided with an ordinary stop-cock, or perhaps, with a screw-down tap a very mischievous plan, as the taps are frequently left turned on, and the water allowed to run to waste, some- times emptying the cistern, and allowing foul air to get into it. When such pipes are taken direct from the main, the results are even more serious, as, if the water is, for any reason, turned off in the latter, foul air, and even liquid and solid filth, may be sucked up into the water mains and contaminate the water supplied next. To this cause a very serious outbreak of typhoid fever in Croydon has been traced by Sir G. Buchanan. An improvement on the ordinary hopper closet is the short hopper closet (fig. 34) in which the hopper is provided with a flushing rim, which is far better than the old plan of shooting the water in at one side. The hopper or basin of this closet is sometimes provided with a china tray to prevent slops being thrown over the rim. The supply pipes for these closets should not be less than 1^-inch in diameter, and should not be connected directly with the drinking water cistern or with the main water-pipe, but with a water- waste-preventing cistern holding about two, or pre- ferably three, gallons (the quantity required to flush the closet) and supplied from the nearest water cistern, or in WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 97 the case of constant supply, from the main- water pipe the supply pipe being guarded by a ball valve. The pipe from this waste preventer to the basin is guarded by a valve, frequently the conical one known as the spindle valve, which can be raised by means of a lever worked by a chain and ring. When the chain is pulled, the spindle valve is raised, and the two or three gallons contained in FIG. 34. Short hopper water-closet with P-trap. the water- waste-preventer are discharged into the basin, while at the same time the ball valve is also raised by the lever, so that no water can come into the waste- preventer while the chain is being pulled. It will be seen that this and similar contrivances not only prevent direct connection between the water-closet and the drinking- water in the cistern or main water-pipe, but also prevent H 98 DWELLING-HOUSES. FIG. 35 Hopper water-closet with water-waste-preventing cistern and seat-action arrangement. A. Valve on service pipe. B. Valve on communication pipe. C. Ball valve. WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 99 an inordinate waste of water. Better arrangements for doing this are described further on (see p. 110). The " Household " closet, made by Messrs. 0. D. Ward and Co., is another form of short hopper closet, in which, however, the siphon without being deepened too much, is nevertheless so arranged that a little water stands in the basin, the great desideratum in hopper closets. Most manufacturers now make short hopper (or wash-down) water-closets of this description. We now come to various forms of " Wash-out " closet, the first being Jennings's " Monkey " closet. In this a small amount of water remains in the basin, the opening out of which into the siphon is not at the bottom, as in the case of the hopper closet, but on one side. The advantage of this form of closet is that it is not possible, as in the ease with hopper closets, for careless persons to go on using the closet without flushing it with water, as the soil remains in the basin until it is flushed out. Hopper closets may be used for a long while without any supply of water at all, and this is the way in which pipes get stopped up. On the other hand, the outlet of the basin of wash-out closet is more liable to become soiled, than that of a basin the outlet of which is at the bottom of it. In the monkey closet the basin and siphon are all in one piece of earthenware. In Woodward's " Wash-out " closet, the basin is provided with a flushing rim, and the siphon is separate from the basin, so that it can be turned in any direction necessary. In Bostel's " Excelsior " closet, the basin and the siphon are one piece of earthenware, and H2 100 DWELLING-HOUSES. the outlet is at the back of the basin. The water supply pipe is made to enter the basin by two branches, one on each side, and a flushing rim is provided. At the back of the basin is a vertical opening leading directly into the siphon, by means of which anything improperly thrown into the closet can be removed. An overflow pipe is also provided, but this is, in most instances, useless. Dodd's " Wash-out " closet is somewhat similar in shape to the others, but has a ventilating pipe attached to the discharge pipe immediately beyond the siphon. The " National " is FIG. 36." Wash-out " Water Closet. another well known form. An inch and a quarter supply- pipe should be used in these closets, and where there is less than six feet fall, H-inch pipes may be used with advantage. Experience has shown that the basins of wash-out closets do not keep as clean as the short hopper basins. Both forms are now made in the form of " pedestal " closets, which require no woodwork except the seat, which is usually made to lift for the purpose of throwing down WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 101 slops. Short hopper pedestal closets are also now made with lead traps, which can be securely connected with the lead soil pipes by soldered joints. Fowler's closets are suitable for use in poor neighbourhoods, especially when there is an insufficient supply of water. In this system, rain, sink, and other waste waters are made to wash out the trap of the closet. There are also several other closets the best known of which is Duckett's slop -closet, in which sink waters are utilised to flush the closet basins. FIG. 37. Pan Water-Closet. A water-closet apparatus still often used is that known as the " pan " closet, and is a most mis- chievous contrivance. The basin is conical, and below it is placed a metal pan capable of holding water, into which the lower part of the basin dips. This pan can be moved by the pull up apparatus of the closet inside a large iron box called the " container " placed under the seat of the closet, and into the top of which the conical basin is fixed. This ** container " has a 4-inch outlet at the lower part of it leading into a trap placed below the 102 DWELLING-HOUSES. floor, the trap being generally a lead " D " trap, from which a 4-inch pipe passes to the soil pipe, which conveys the refuse from the closets into the drain. The great fault of the " pan " closet consists in the large iron " con- tainer," which is merely a reservoir for foul air, as it always becomes very filthy inside. When the pull-up apparatus is worked, the pan is swung from its position below the basin, and its contents thrown into the " con- FIG. 38. D-trap with foul deposit in it. tainer," the sides of which are splashed with foul matters, and cannot possibly be cleaned. Besides this the con- tainer leads into the D-trap, which always contains foul matters, and gives off foul air into the container. At the same time that the contents of the pan are thrown into the container, foul air from the latter is forced into the house. This can only be partly remedied by providing a ventilating pipe for the container, and carrying it out of WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 103 doors, but I have more than once seen a ventilating hole drilled in the container, and no pipe attached to it, so that foul air from the container was driven out, with a puff that would blow out a candle, each time the closet was used, and this in closets immediately connected with bed- rooms. The D-trap should not be used at all either under closets or sinks. It consists of a lead box shaped like the letter D, placed thus, y. The outlet pipe starts close to the top at one end, and the inlet passes down to an inch or so below the level of the lower part of the outlet. Of course water remains in this trap up to the level of the outlet, so that the inlet pipe dips into it an inch or more. The D-trap is never washed out thoroughly at each use of the closet. A deposit of foul matter takes place in it, and foul air is generated. This gradually corrodes the lead, and eats holes through it at the upper part of the trap. In the Parkes Museum are many specimens of D- traps with holes eaten through them by the foul air. Such holes of course form a means of escape for the foul air from the drain into the house. The trap is generally made of sheet lead, and not cast in one piece of lead ; but an improved form has been made by Messrs. Gascoyne, which is cast in one piece, and in which the inlet pipe is placed at one end, so that there is no space left behind it and the end of the trap, in which paper, &c., can accu- mulate. Instead of a D-trap, where a lead trap is used, it should be an S-trap or P-trap of 4-inch cast lead ; or still better a " V-dip " trap or an " Anti-D " trap, as these traps have square instead of round outlets, and are less 104 D WELLING-HO USES. likely to be siphoned out. Either of these traps is flushed out by eacli use of the closet. A lead tray is usually placed on the floor underneath the closet apparatus, the trap being placed sometimes above and sometimes below it. The object of this tray is to prevent any overflow from the closet soaking into the floor and often through into the ceiling below, causing serious annoyance, and perhaps a great nuisance. This tray is commonly called the "safe," but as generally found in old closets, any FIG. 39." Anti-D " Trap. other word in the language would be more applicable to it. It is, of course, provided with a waste-pipe, and this waste-pipe is almost invariably carried into the D-trap, when there is one below the safe, but it is occasionally carried straight into the soil pipe, with or without a siphon bend on it. When carried into the D-trap, it is usually made to enter below the surface of the foul water therein contained, but I have seen it carried straight into the top of the trap, so forming a passage for foul air from the soil pipe and drain direct into the house. It ought WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 105 not to be connected with any part of the water-closet apparatus, trap or soil pipe, but ought to be carried straight through the wall to end in the open air, being merely provided with a small brass flapper to prevent draught. The waste or overflow pipes of cisterns are frequently carried into the D traps of closets, in which case foul matters get washed into the inside of these pipes, and foul air from them contaminates the water in the cisterns. This is even a greater evil than the last, and the waste-pipes of all cisterns, but more especially of those used for the supply of drinking water, should, as stated in a previous chapter, be made to end freely in the open air. We come now to valve closets, the numerous varieties of which are modifications of the closet apparatus pa- tented by Alexander Cummings in 1775 and improved by Bramah. In this the aperture of the lowest part of the basin is closed by a water-tight valve, which can be moved in a small valve box, placed immediately below the basin, by means of the pull-up apparatus the valve box itself being connected below with the trap. Thus, the necessity for the large iron container, so objectionable a part of the pan- closet, is done away with, and its place taken by a small box, in which the valve moves. As, however, the valve is water-tight, provision is made for the overflow of water from the basin, in case the latter should be filled too full, either by slops being thrown into it, or by the water continually running from the supply-pipe in consequence of a leaky valve. The overflow pipe starts from one side 106 DWELLING-HOUSES. of the basin in which holes leading into it are perforated. It is then as a rule, carried downwards into the valve box, having a small siphon bend on it before entering. The water from the supply-pipe, as it enters, is made to flow round the basin by an inner plate, generally made of metal, called the " spreader," or still better, in the im- improved form of valve-closet, by means of a flushing rim. Thus, some of the water at each use of the closet passes through the holes leading into the overflow pipe ; the object of this being to keep the siphon on that pipe charged with water, as it is clear that if this siphon is not charged, the overflow pipe ventilates the valve box, that is to say the space between the valve and the surface of the water in the trap below, into the basin of the closet. Now, as a rule, the siphon trap on the overflow pipe does not remain charged with water, and even if it does, is of little use for the following reasons : when by the pulling up of the handle the valve is made to move suddenly in the valve box, air from the latter is forced out through the water in the siphon bend of the overflow pipe, as anyone can see, who will take the trouble to place a piece of moist tissue paper over the holes in the side of the basin leading into that pipe, and then work the handle of the closet ; thus foul air from the valve box is driven into the basin, even when the siphon on the overflow pipe is charged. Furthermore, as the mass of water in the basin rushes down through the valve box into the trap it carries the air along with it, and when the valve is closed runs out of the valve box, drawing air through the overflow pipe, and WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 107 displacing the water in the siphon, which is in many cases left quite uncharged. Various remedies have been pro- posed for this. In Bol ding's "Simplex" valve closet a FIG. 40. Valve Water Closet and " Anti-D " Trap. small pipe is carried from the water-supply pipe into the overflow just above the siphon, with a view of supplying water direct to the siphon each time the closet is used. 108 DWELLING-HOUSES. In Jermings's valve closet the overflow is trapped by means of a patent india-rubber ball-trap, which is some- thing like a Bower trap upside down. It is constructed so that the overflow water can displace the ball from the end of the water-pipe and flow away around it, but any pressure of air from the valve box would only cause the ball to fit more closely against the end of the overflow pipe. In the *' optimus " valve closet made by Dent and Hellyer, the overflow pipe is made much larger than usual, and the siphon deeper, so that it holds a larger quantity of water, and at the same time a ventilating pipe is inserted into the valve box and should be continued through the wall to the outer air. By this means no accumulation of foul air in the valve box can take place, and any air that is drawn into it, while the water is pass- ing through it, comes in through the ventilating pipe instead of through the overflow. Moreover the overflow pipe discharges into the ventilating pipe of the valve box, so that the water running down the overflow pipe washes out the ventilating pipe each time that the closet is used. In the "cymplur" valve closet made by Messrs. Bolding the overflow pipe enters the valve box behind the valve so that no filth can be washed into it, and the ventilating pipe is taken from the top of the trap of the overflow pipe. Some valve closets are made without any overflow pipe at all, and in this case if the basin does get full, all that will happen is that the water will flow over the top of it into the safe and run away. The advantage of this plan WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS ANBTS. 109 is that the existence of a leaky valve is found out imme- diately, and the disadvantage is that it is liable to wet the under part of the seat and apparatus below it. Lead D- traps are sometimes placed under these closets, but this should never be allowed. Siphon or " Anti-D " traps should always be used, for the reasons already mentioned. Some valve closets are made with a galvanised iron siphon FIG. 41. Plug Closet. trap that is to be placed wholly or partially above the floor, and is provided with a screw cap that can be taken off for the purpose of cleaning ; but the disadvantage of such closets is the difficulty of making a thoroughly sound joint between the iron trap and a lead soil-pipe. Messrs. Jennings make closets, which may be called " plug " closets, the best known variety having the basin and siphon trap all in one piece of china and therefore being 110 DWELLING-HOUSES. difficult to connect properly with a lead soil-pipe. The plug closes the entrance from the basin into the siphon below, and is connected by a rod with the handle, which is vertically over it. By means of an india-rubber flange the plug is made to fit water-tight into the entrance of the siphon, and a body of water is kept in the basin above it, up to the level of the overflow, which is either made through the plug and the rod joining it with the handle or by a separate trapped channel alongside of it. A plug is also made containing the patent ball trap mentioned above. It will be seen that in these closets, no valve box is necessary, and there is only a small air space between the water in the trap and that in the basin. These closets are also made without any trap at all, in which case the overflow of the basin is carried, by a pipe, straight through the wall. Trapless closets should not be used, as they allow foul air from the soil-pipe and drain to enter the house. Water-closets in which there is a considerable depth of water in the basin, which is emptied by siphonic action, are now made. The principle in all of them is the same, the earthenware trap, which is in one piece with the basin, is a deep siphon trap, so that water is held up in the basin to some inches in depth, and the outlet of this siphon is to a certain extent blocked, by one of the methods mentioned below, so as to ensure the filling of the siphon. The first apparatus of this kind was introduced from America and is known as the " Dececo " closet. In this, below the deep siphon trap, a lead bend not quite forming a trap is WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. Ill fixed under the floor and connected with the arm of the soil-pipe. The water-waste-preventer is so constructed that an afterflush is provided to fill up the basin after it has been emptied by the siphonic action. The dis- advantages of this apparatus, however, are in the first place that the trap may be wholly or partially siphoned out when a bucket of slops is thrown into the basin, and that if the joint between the siphon-trap and the bend under the floor, which is a joint between earthenware and lead, becomes defective, air from the soil-pipe and drain will escape into the apartment. It is quite true that if this joint is defective the siphonic action will not take place properly, but in spite of this the closet may be used as an ordinary hopper for a considerable time without getting blocked. Several other siphonic water- closets have been recently made, having beyond the earthenware siphon a lead trap under the floor connected with the arm of the soil-pipe. This is obviously a better arrangement, as at any rate the air from the soil-pipe cannot get into the apartment. It is necessary, however, to have a pipe for the escape of air from the space between the two traps. In some of these closets this air-pipe is carried through the external wall as a "puff" pipe, and this should always be done. In one, however, at any rate, the air-pipe is connected with the supply- pipe to the basin with the result that when the water-waste-preventer is discharged the foul air from between the two traps is forced down the water supply- pipe into the basin and so into the apartment, a 112 DWELLING-HOUSES. very bad arrangement. Some of these forms do not siphon out when a bucket of water is thrown down, but I have observed that water which has left the basin returns into it and fouls the clean water coming in, sometimes even bringing paper back with it, and I have had several of these closets removed on account of the above mentioned defects. We must now consider more in detail the arrangements for the supply of water to the basin. The simplest form of water-waste-preventer has already been mentioned, but it must be remembered that the commonest plan for sup- plying closets with water, is to place a spindle valve on a valve box in the bottom of a cistern somewhere above them, so as to guard the entrance into the pipe leading to the basin of the closet, and to work this valve by means of wires connected with the pull-up apparatus. The great disadvantage of this apparatus is that the valve box requires an air pipe, the top of which ends above the water in the cistern, and that each time the apparatus is worked foul air and water from the valve box are forced into the cistern. The wires also get stretched by use, and have to be shortened from time to time. There is, ob- viously, also no provision against waste of water, for the water will run as long as the handle is held, or fastened up, until the cistern is empty. Neither is there any "re- gulator " to ensure a sufficient supply of water being delivered to the closet each time that the handle is pulled up, whether it is held up or not. Waste-preventing valves have been devised to effect these objects. When the WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 113 handle of the closet is worked the valve is raised, and if the handle is let go, the valve does not fall directly but gradually, so as to allow a certain quantity of water to flow into the basin of the closet. But if the handle is held up (or down in the case of a ring and chain) a metal weight which was carried up with the valve falls, and stops the flow of water. These valves may be used in cisterns, and connected with the pull-up apparatus by wires, or they may be placed in the small waste-prevent- ing cistern already described, with a view of ensuring the use of a definite quantity of water each time. In some of these waste-preventing cisterns the pipe supplying the closet does not start from the bottom, but starts inside the cistern in the form of a siphon which is so arranged that when the water is once started it all runs off. These siphon- action water- waste -preventers (fig. 42) have the great advantage that it is not necessary to hold the handle of the closet up, or the ring of the chain down, for more than an instant, as when this is done the cistern empties itself automatically, and the whole of the two, or better three, gallons of water which it contains is discharged. They are most useful for hopper or wash-out closets, but are also occasionally used with valve closets, and a special one has been devised which gives the after-flush necessary to charge the basin. It is, however, quite possible to use an ordinary siphon-action water-waste-preventer with a valve closet, as in practice the handle is let go before the waste-preventer has emptied itself, and so the after-flush is secured. Eegulator valves are used in all the best forms i 114 DWELLING-HOUSES of closets. These are, as already hinted, valves that are so constructed that they allow a certain quantity of water to pass through them whether the handle of the closet be held up or not, so that the proper quantity of water is supplied even if the handle is pulled up and let go at once. The valve itself is, of course, worked by a lever, and the FIG. 42. Siphon-action water-waste-preventer. rate at which the valve is closed depends upon the rate at which the lever falls. This rate is regulated by the fall of a piston in a cylinder, the escape of air from which can be controlled by means of a small tap, so that the rate at which the lever will fall and close the valve, and, therefore, the quantity of water which will pass into the basin each WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 115 time that the handle is pulled up, can be regulated to a nicety. The oldest and best known of these is Underhay's regulator valve, known as the bellows regulator. Other regulator valves are Tylor's and Jennings's, in which, by means of simple arrangements, the rate at which the lever falls and closes the valve can be controlled. Vessels containing disinfectants or deodorants are sometimes attached to closets in such a manner that a certain portion FIG. 43. Water closet Supply Valve with Bellows Regulator. of disinfecting or deodorising fluid is thrown into the water in the basin each time the closet is used ; but if closets are properly constructed, this is not necessary. The flushing apparatus for water-closets is sometimes connected with the door of the closet or with the seat (see fig. 35). In the former case it is put in action when the door is opened, and in the latter by the weight of the person. These appliances are useful in certain cases, but they are liable to get out of order. 116 D WELLING-HO USES. We next come to the soil pipe, which conveys the waste matters from the water-closet to the soil-drain. Soil pipes are most frequently made of lead, and they should be 3| or at most 4 inches in diameter. Formerly, when made of lead, they were necessarily seamed pipes, as drawn lead pipes were then unknown. Consequently there were not only soldered joints at the ends of the lengths, but a soldered seam longitudinally the whole length of the pipe. These seamed pipes should never now be used, and where found should always be taken out, as the seam gives way sooner or later, even when the pipe is placed quite verti- cally, and it then allows foul air to escape into the house. Pipes of drawn lead should be used, so that the only joints are at the ends of the lengths, and these can be made, and are commonly made, more durable than the pipe itself, which is not the case with the seamed joints. Iron soil pipes are sometimes used, and, indeed, are preferred in climates where there are great variations of temperature, as they expand and contract less than lead ones do. But in this climate drawn lead soil pipes are preferable, es- pecially if they are placed, as they frequently are, inside houses, in which position I should never allow an iron one to be fixed, on account of the difficulty of being sure that the joints remain air-tight even if made so at first ; and even outside a house lead ones are to be preferred although more expensive, because when iron ones are used, it is usually necessary to put lead pieces in to receive the lead pipe from the closet, to prevent a joint between lead and iron being made inside the house, and WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 117 however carefully this is done, it always looks like a patched-up job, and what is worse, the joints always be- come loose after a time. When lead pipes are placed outside houses, it is sometimes necessary to have them cased to protect them from mischief or violence, and occa- sionally as a matter of appearance they are covered throughout their entire length with rectangular iron casing. In order that they may not project too much, a chasing in the wall can be made sufficiently deep to receive about half the pipe. Stoneware pipes are some- times also used for soil pipes, but are not to be recom- mended inside houses, at any rate, on account of the numerous joints that have to be made. Occasionally, where work is " scamped," soil pipes are even made of zinc, and in the Parkes Museum is a specimen of a D-trap made of very thin lead, with a zinc soil-pipe attached. The latter has been eaten through by the foul air, as might be expected. Foul air is also capable of perforating lead soil pipes, especially if they are not ventilated ; and in the same museum is a specimen of a lead soil-pipe, which was taken from under the floor of a bedroom, where it had very little fall, and which is perfectly riddled with holes, eaten through the solid lead by the foul air which accumulated in the pipe. A. still more remarkable specimen, which I had removed from one of the best closets in a country house, is also in that museum ; in this the D-trap, soil-pipe, safe with its waste-pipe and the waste-pipe of a sink (ending in the D-trap) are all made of zinc, the only part made of lead being the waste-pipe of 118 DWELLING-HOUSES. the cistern which supplied the W.C. and the sink, and which also ends in the D-trap ; the zinc soil-pipe was not ventilated and ended in an iron one which was connected by an unventilated pipe drain with a cesspool ; large holes caused by the foul air are seen in the top of the D-trap ; repeated outbreaks of sore throat were produced in the house before this defect was discovered. In order to ventilate a soil pipe, it is not sufficient merely to carry a small pipe, such as an inch or even a 2-inch pipe, from the upper part of it to the top of the house, but the 3|- or 4 inch soil pipe itself should be con- tinued (full-bore) to the top of the house, and should as a rule project above the ridge of the roof. It may be cov- ered simply with a perforated conical cap, not fixed on to the top of the soil pipe, but fixed so as to stand a little above it, and not to obstruct the flow of air out of it, or two or three copper wires may be fixed across the top so as to prevent leaves from getting into it. Cowls of any kind are quite unnecessary, at any rate in the great ma- jority of instances. The soil pipe should generally be connected with the drain by means of a bend no trap of any kind being placed at the foot of it, so that it may act as an outlet ventilator for the house drain, but it is sometimes advisable to place a disconnecting trap of some kind at the foot of the soil pipe outside the house, and to provide a separate ventilating pipe for the house drain. It is now usual to connect the lead soil pipe with the drain by means of a cast brass piece called a " thimble." In any case it is necessary that provision should be made WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 119 for a free passage of air through the soil pipe. When two or more water-closets are connected with the same soil- pipe, it is necessary to fix small (2 in. diam.) ventilating pipes to the branch pipes (arms) between the traps and the soil pipe, and connect them to a pipe outside the house, which should be continued up above the roof, or joined with the soil-pipe above the entrance of the arm from the highest water-closet. These are called " auti- siphon- age " pipes, and are now required in London by the bye-laws of the London County Council. This will pre- vent an accumulation of foul air in the branch pipes, and will also prevent the water passing down the main soil- pipe from drawing the water out of the traps of closets beneath. It has even been proposed by Mr. Norman Shaw to disconnect the branches of the soil-pipes of the closets from the main soil-pipe outside the house, by making them discharge into open heads, something like the heads of the rain-water pipes ; but this and other somewhat similar arrangements have not been generally adopted, as it has been found undesirable to have open- ings in the soil-pipes against the walls of the house. Water-closets should, whenever it is possible, be separ- ated from the house by a ventilated lobby. We now come to sinks and baths. Of sinks there are various kinds. Sometimes sinks called " slop sinks" are provided to get rid of the dirty water, although the slops may, as a rule, be thrown down the water-closets, especially where wash-down water- closets are used. The waste-pipes from slop sinks should 120 DWELLING-HOUSES. be provided with siphon traps, and are as a rule con- nected with the soil-pipes. They are, in fact, looked upon in much the same light as water-closets. The other up- stairs sinks, as "house-maids' sinks," and the small sinks under taps, known as draw- off sinks, must not be con- nected with the soil-pipe or water-closet apparatus. Their waste-pipes should always be provided with lead siphon traps immediately under the sinks, in order to prevent air coming into the house through these pipes, as it is FIG. 44. Lead siphon trap. rendered foul by so doing, but at the other end these waste-pipes should always be disconnected from the house- drain, discharging into a pipe with an open head like a rain-water pipe, or better into a special main waste-pipe ventilated above the roof, and this over a gully in the area. Scullery sinks should always be disconnected from the drain. This was formerly done by means of a trap large enough to collect the fat from the greasy water thrown down there. These traps, whether built of brick- WATER-CLOSETS, SINKS AND BATHS. 121 work, or made of stoneware, were liable to become a serious nuisance, and always caused a great nuisance when they were emptied. One of the greatest improve- ments made in the sanitary arrangements of houses dur- ing the last few years has been the substitution for these traps of a special form of gully (fig. 45) with which is connected, by means of an arm at the back, the discharge pipe from an automatic flush- tank holding about 40 FIG. 45. Flushing gully. gallons of water ; by this means not only are the grease and sand from the scullery sink washed away, but the house-drain is also flushed once or twice daily, as may be arranged, by regulating the supply of water to the flush tank. The waste-pipes from baths should be invariably dis- connected from the house -drain in the same way as those from sinks. The waste-pipes of baths should be large, 122 DWELLING-HOUSES. say 1 or 2 inches the diameter, not only so that they may be quickly emptied, but that the large body of water being discharged suddenly may be made to flush the house- drain. The waste-pipes of sinks and baths should be provided with anti-siphonage pipes carried through the external walls. In large houses, where there are laun- dries, the water from them may often be collected in an automatic flush tank and so made to flush the drain effec- tively. A bath should have a lead "safe" tray placed under it, the waste-pipe of which must go straight through the wall of the house, and end in the open air. The disconnecting trap used in the areas for the waste-pipes of sinks and baths should be the ordinary siphon gully- trap with a galvanised iron grating (the waste-pipe being made to discharge either over the grating, or preferably, as a rule, through holes in the side of the trap below the grating, but above the water in the siphon) . To conclude. The principles that guide us in carrying out sanitary works are simple enough, but sufficient has been said in these chapters to convince everyone that it is only by the minutest attention to details that we can hope to guard ourselves against the dangers that surround us, especially in the contrivances for the removal of refuse matters. INDEX. Aerating water filter, 63, 65 Ague and soil, 4 Air, impure, 15, 16 diffusion of, 17 Alexander's cistern, 58 " Anti-D " trap, the, 104 Antill trap, the, 93, 94 Anti-siphonage pipes, 119 Arnott's valve, 34 Artesian wells, 52 Ash closets, 74, 75 Atkins's process for softening water, 49 Basement of house, 6-8 Baths, waste-pipes from, 121, 122 Bellows regulator, the, 115 Bell trap, the, 92, 93 Benham's ventilating globe light, 38,39 Berkefeld filter, 66 Bischoff's spongy iron filter, 63, 64 Bolding's " simplex" w.c., 107 Bostel's "excelsior " w.c., 99 Boyle's exit ventilator, 34, 35 " Calorigen " stove, the, 41 Candles, lighting by, 37 Ceilings, 14 Cesspools, 70-72, 84 Chalk soils, 2 Charcoal filters, 61 Chimney flues, 9, 10 Cholera and soil, 3 and foul water, 67 Cisterns, 53-58 Clark's gulleys, 92 process for softening water, 49 Clay soil, 2 Climate, i, 2 Closets, water, 95, 115 Conservancy systems of refuse disposal, 70-78 Constant system of water supply, 53-55 Consumption and soil, 4 Cooper's ventilator, 25-26 Cowls, 32-34 Cubic space for ventilation, 16, Currall's window ventilator, 23 door ventilator, 28 " Cymplur " w.c., 108 Damp-proof course, 7, 8 Dean's gulley, 92 " Dececo" closet, no Diffusion of air, 17 Dipstone trap, the, 87 Disconnection traps, 88, go Distribution of water, 52-55 Dodd's w.c., 100 Domestic filters, 61-66 Doors, ventilation through, 26, 28 Drainage of soil, 5 Drains, 5, 84-86 Drain-ventilation, 88-91 " D " trap, the, 102, 103 Dust, 68, 69 Dust-bins, 69, 70 124 INDEX. Earth closets, 75-77 Electric light, 39 Ellison's conical ventilators, 10, 11,31 ' Euthermic " stove, the, 41 " Excelsior " w.c., 99 Exit shafts and valves for venti- lation, 31-36 Field's flush tank, 80-82 Filtration of water, 59-66 Flooring of houses, 10, 12, 13 Flues of chimneys, 9, 10 Flushing gulley for grease, 121 Foundations of houses, 6 Fowler's closet, 101 Gallon's ventilating grate, 40 Gas lighting, 37 Goux system of refuse disposal, 75 Grates, 39-44 Gravel soil, 2 Grease traps, 120, 121 Ground water, 3 Gulleys, 91, 92, 121 Hard water, 47-49 Hinckes Bird's method of win- dow ventilation, 21, 22 " Household " closet, the, 99 Impervious soils, 2-5 Impure air, 15, 16 Inlet ventilators through win- dows, 20-26 through walls and doors, 26-31 Intercepting traps, 86-90 Intermittent water supply, 52, 53 Inspection chambers, 88-90 Iron tanks, 58 Jennings's inlet ventilator, 28 plug w.c., 109, no receiver, 92 valve closet, 108 Joints of drains, 85, 86 " Kenon" trap, the, 89, go Kite's exit ventilator, 35 Lamps, lighting by, 37 Lead pipes and water, 55, 56 Leggott's grate, 44 Lighting, 37-39 Lightning conductors, 12 Limestone soil, 2 Long hopper w.c., 95, 96 Louvred ventilators in window?. 23-24 Lung diseases and soiJ, 4 Mackinnell's ventilator, 36 " Made ground," 5, 6 Maignen's process, 49 Manchester school-grate, the, 40 Man-hole chamber, 88, 89 Marsh's grate, 44 Midden heaps, 70, 72-74 Morell's cinder-silting ash closet, 74,75 Moule's dry-earth closet, 75-77 National " w.c., the, 100 " Optimus " w.c., the, 108 Organisms in filters, 60 Pail methods of refuse removal, 73-74 Pan closets, 101, 102 Pasteur-Chamberland filter, 66 Pedestal closets, 100 Pervious soils, 2-5, Porter-Clark process for soften- ing water, 49 Prichett's miniature hot-water ap- paratus, 45, 46 Proximity of buildings, 6 "P" trap, 97, 103 INDEX. 125 Rain water, 50 filter, 66 gutters, II, 12 pipes, 91 Rats in drains, 84-86 Refuse disposal, 68-122 Regulator valves, 114-115 Rheumatism and soil, 4 River water, 51 Roofs, materials of, 10-12 Safe-trays in w.c.'s, 104 Sand filtration, 59-60 Sandy soil, 2 Scullery sinks, 120, 121 Sewers, 82-84 ventilation of, 83, 84 Shallow well water, 50 Sherringham's valve, 26, 27 Short hopper w.c., 96-99 Silicated carbon block filters, 62 Sinks, 119-121 Siphon gulleys, 91, 94, 121 trap with air inlet, 88 Siphonic closets, 110-112 Situation of house, i, 2 Slops sinks, 119, 120 Slop waters, 80-82 Slow combustion stoves, 41, 42 Soft water, 47-49 Soil, 2-6 Soil-pipes, 116-119 Sources of water, 50-52 Spongy iron filter, 63, 64 Springs, 51 Stanford's patent joint, 86 Stoves, 39-44 " S" trap, 103 Subsoil water, 3 Sunlight ventilator, 39 Sylvester's plan of ventilation, 18 " Thermhydric " grate, the, 42, 43 Tobin's vertical tubes, 29-31 Tonks's automatic sash fastener, 23 Traps, 86, 94, 102-105 Typhoid and foul water, 67 and soil, 3 Underhay's regulator valve, 115 Valve box, the, 105-108 closets, 105-110 Ventilation of cesspools, 84 of flooring, 10 of rooms, &c., 15-46 of sewers, 83, 84 of soil-pipes, 118, 119 Verity's system of ventilation, 45 Vertical tube ventilation, 29-31 Wall-coverings, 13, 14 Walls, materials of, 8, 9 ventilation through, 26-31 Wash-out closets, gg, 100 Waste-pipes, from baths, 121, 122 cisterns, 58 preventing valves, 112, 113 Water, amount required, 50 carriage system of refuse re- moval, 7g cisterns, 53-58 closets, 95-115 filtration, 5g-66 meters, 55 supply, 47-67 waste-preventing cisterns, g6-g8, 113-115 Windows for inlet ventilation, 20-26 Winds, i7-ig Woodward's closet, gg UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. QEC27 JUL 06 1998 97E57 DEC 14 LD 21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 U. C. BERKELEY LIBHAHItH YB IOV4G 7