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BY WILLIAM PAUL GERHARD, C. E., CONSULTING ENGINEER FOR HYDRAULIC AND SANITARY WORKS, NEW YORK CITY.

Some years ago I delivered at your meeting of health officers a lecture on "Plumbing, the Old, the Modern and Advanced Systems.”

The gist of this lecture was the simplifying of plumbing work. In large cities like Boston, New York, Washington and Chicago, any quantity of elaborate and complicated plumbing may be seen. Wherever possible I have always tried to advocate simplicity in arrangement of plumbing work. There has been hardly any advance made since that time, and I shall find it difficult to present any really new ideas. My endeavor will therefore be to emphasize the general and leading principles, which form the foundations upon which all systems should be based. I intend to illustrate this with some lantern slides, and to thus make a further plea for simplicity versus complication.

Plumbing work comprises means and appliances for supplying buildings with water, for removing water fouled by use and for removing storm water from roofs and paved courts and areas. In the following I shall, owing to the lateness of the hour, consider only the removal of the water which has been used in buildings. This removal is accomplished by a system of fixtures, traps, waste, soil and drain pipes, with the necessary vent pipes; these together constitute the house drainage system.

The individual house drainage systems form the units composing together the joint sewer system of a community. To be effective the house drainage system must be correctly laid out and operated properly. Every such system should fulfill cetrain requirements, which I will state briefly.

1. The house drainage system should remove from the building quickly and completely all liquid wastes, including human excreta, water used for washing and bathing purposes, kitchen water, and sometimes, though not always, the storm water. The removal of the house sewage should be effected before decomposition sets in. It should be accomplished without contaminating the soil, the air or the water.

2. A house plumbing system should be so arranged that under no circumstances will there be an escape of sewer air into any room in the building. This is accomplished by the proper and safe trapping of all outlets.

3. Foul gases, originating in the house pipes, should be diluted, oxidized and thus rendered innocuous. The entire pipe system should be without long dead ends, where the air would stagnate.

These are the three general requirements which every system must fulfill. I come now to some more specific advice, contained in the following maxims:

1. Each building should have a separate connection with the street

sewer.

Large buildings may require several connections and these are better than one pipe of a very large size.

2. All the drain, soil, waste and vent pipes within the building and up to a point five feet outside should be of heavy cast iron pipe, with lead caulked joints, or of galvanized screw jointed pipe with recessed drainage fittings. No earthenware or tile drains should be allowed within the building.

3. All pipe conduits for sewage should be constructed air and water tight to prevent leakage of sewage and of sewer air.

4. All the horizontal and vertical pipes should be carried as straight as possible. Offsets on vertical vent lines should be made under 45°.

5. On horizontal lines use Y branches, not Tees, for junctions or connections.

6. All the pipe conduits, traps, cleanouts as well as the fixtures, should be kept exposed and easily accessible for inspection or repairs.

7. All the pipe conduits should be of minimum diameter, consistent with volume of sewage or waste water to be carried, because in this way the flow of water is more concentrated and the pipes are flushed out better.

8. All pipe conduits should have good supports, good alignment and a sufficient fall.

9. All soil and vent pipes should be extended the full size to the roof, or even enlarged at the roof to prevent closing of the pipes by hoar frost in cold climates. No pipe above the roof should be less than four inches.

10. The number of vertical stacks in a building should be reduced to a minimum, and this can be accomplished by concentrating the plumbing work and making branches as short as possible.

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11. Reduce the number of fixtures and arrange them as much as possible, and as much as is consistent with convenient use, in vertical groups. single soil pipe may answer for the fixtures on a number of floors.

12. Place plumbing fixtures only in ventilated rooms and confine the plumbing to bath and toilet rooms, to kitchen, pantry and laundry.

There is a question which has been brought up from time to time and that is whether it is feasible and safe to have stationary wash basins in the sleeping rooms. In general I do not advise it. I think the rules laid down by boards of health should not permit it because there is always a chance of some joints opening up and letting sewer air enter the apartment. Personally, I should not hesitate to have such a basin in my sleeping room, but I should give the plumbing very frequent inspections and tests. With regard to the location of the bathtub and the water closet I would say it is a general American custom to put these in the same room, whereas in English houses and in many of those in Continental cities the water closet is placed in a separate apartment. For a great many years I have spoken and written against this common American practice which I consider in

convenient, particularly for the smaller houses. In these, it is, in my judgment, very much preferable that the closet and the bathtub be in separate compartments.

13. All the plumbing fixtures should be trapped separately and safely. The trapped waste from one fixture should never pass through another trap before reaching the soil pipe or the house drain.

14. Fixtures should be of non-absorbent material; all sharp corners should be avoided, glazed and smooth surfaces are required. Wood and porous stone should be condemned as unsuitable.

15. Modern plumbing work dispenses entirely and properly so with the former wooden enclosures of fixtures.

16. There are certain pipes in every house which should never be connected to a sewer or soil pipe, for instance the overflow pipe from the house tank and in particular the wastes from refrigerators or ice boxes. These should drip over a trapped and water-supplied sink.

17. Avoid having in the house any fixture which is not in daily use, as the evaporation of water will soon unseal the trap.

18. Each plumbing fixture should be arranged to empty quickly, like a flush tank. All pipe conduits should be well flushed, and if the grade is slight, special flushing appliances for the house drain should be provided. These are the leading axioms, which I shall ask you to keep well in your mind. Note also the following summary of requirements.

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Instant removal of all wastes from the building.
Noiselessness in action.

12. Protection against freezing of the plumbing.

13. Prevention of unnecessary waste of water.

14. Simplicity of arrangement, concentration of work.

15. Avoidance of all complicated mechanical apparatus.

These rules should be applied, where the plumbing is in charge of a health officer, to all new work for which plans are submitted to him. They also should be made to apply to inspections of old plumbing work.

Let me mention here one popular fallacy, viz. that "only nickel plated plumbing work" can be sanitary. I want to assure you that you can have just as sanitary plumbing work if you use iron or lead piping, which can be made to look well by aluminum bronzing, or enamel painting.

The plumbing rules and regulations should be as concise and brief as possible. They should be general and not burdened with unnecessary details. They ought to be progressive in spirit and give the health officer discretionary power in all matters which are, or may seem to be, debatabie. All rules should require the filing and approval of the plans and specifications by the proper party. They should require a notification of the tests and also the actual execution of the tests and the making good of any defects which the tests show.

Not many state boards of health have drawn up plumbing rules. For briefness and excellency I endorse the rules which have been issued by your State Board of Health. They were submitted to me for examination and revision, but I hardly found it necessary to add anything to what the rules already embodied.

Note. The lecturer brought with him a set of thirty lantern slides, his intention being to dwell more in detail on the views and explain the rules laid down by him with the aid of the slides. Unfortunately, the available electric current was not sufficiently powerful for the lantern, and the slides had to be omitted.

The following is a list of the slides:

1. Section and view of old-fashioned bathroom plumbing.

2.

3.

4.

View of modern bathroom.

The old enclosed plumbing work contrasted with the modern open and exposed work.

View of another modern bathroom.

Types of older water-closets.

Old types now gone out of use: pan, valve and plunger closets.
Types still in use: long and short hopper closets.

5. Types of modern water-closets.

Pedestal washdown, siphon and siphon-jet closets. Use of high and low tank. Flushometer valves.

6. Types of traps.

S-trap, with vent; mechanical traps; bottle and drum traps; nonsiphoning traps.

7 and 8. Back water valves.

Uses of back-water valves.

9 and 10. By-passes in plumbing work.

By complicating the system with unnecessary "back air" or trap vent pipes, new dangers arise.

11 and 12. House drain traps and fresh air inlets.

Defective and improved arrangement of fresh air inlets.

13. A properly arranged refrigerator waste.

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16 and 17.

Plan and section of a city house showing location and arrangement of plumbing.

18. Cellar plan of a large modern residence, showing the house drainage system and the arrangement of the water supply.

19. Diagram showing application of the water pressure test to plumbing of new buildings.

20. Smoke testing machines.

21. Diagram showing application of the smoke test to old or new work. Explanations regarding manner of making the different tests. 22. Diagram of a complete house drainage system, simplified by the use of non-siphoning traps in connection with thorough venting of all main stacks.

23, 24, 25, 26. Diagrams illustrating in detail the advanced or "one-pipe" system of plumbing.

27. Typical section of house showing the present or "two-pipe" system. 28. Typical section of house showing "one-pipe" system.

29 and 30. Diagrams illustrating simplicity and complication in plumbing

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I would like to ask Mr. Gerhard a question. When you were stating your maxims you made the statement that the bathtub and the closet should be in different compartments. I want to know if this is from an æsthetic or practical point of view. I think the two are located in the same room in the majority of buildings in my community, and I would like to ask if you consider it dangerous.

Mr. Gerhard.

You can safely arrange the two fixtures along side of each other in the same room, ventilate well, provide proper flushing, and they may be considered perfectly safe. My recommendation had reference to practical advantages obtained by separating the fixtures. In my judgment a watercloset should not be in the apartment devoted to ablutions and bodily cleanliness. Where the fixtures are separated, one member of the household may use the bathtub, while another occupies the closet.

C. F. Ball.

In regard to testing the plumbing for effectiveness, I want to ask whether the water pressure test is sufficient without any further test, and if a further test is deemed advisable, what test is the most practical and most readily applied by the ordinary health officer?

Mr. Gerhard.

The water pressure test is applied to see if the rough work is tight;

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