Part 13 (1/2)

_Cost of plumbing installation._

A fair estimate of the cost of the plumbing in a house, including all the fixtures mentioned except the tank in the attic, including also the plumber's bill, is $150. This requires very careful buying, and implies an entire absence of bra.s.s or nickel-plated piping. If a high grade of fixtures, including nickel fittings and nickel piping, wherever it shows, is used, the cost of the fixtures alone, not including labor or piping other than mentioned, will be from $150 up.

_House drainage._

The term ”plumbing” is generally used to include both the water-supply in the house, with all the fixtures pertaining thereto, and the carrying of the waste water to a point outside the house; it remains, therefore, to discuss the waste pipes connected with the plumbing fixtures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 60.--Leveling the drain.]

The house-drain, or the pipe which carries the wastes from the house to the point of final disposal, is generally made of vitrified tile, and in ordinary practice is five inches inside diameter. The lower end of this drain discharges into a cesspool, or settling tank, or into a stream, as local conditions permit. This house-drain should be carefully laid in a straight line, both horizontally and vertically, for two reasons. In the first place, the velocity of flow in a straight pipe will be greater, and therefore the danger of stoppage will be decreased, and in the next place, if a stoppage does occur in the pipe, it can be cleaned out better if the pipe is straight than if it is laid with numerous bends.

Such a pipe should have a grade of at least one quarter inch to a foot, and this is conveniently given by tacking a little piece of wood one half inch thick on one end of a two-foot carpenter's level and then setting the pipe so that with this piece of wood resting on the pipe at one end and the end of the level itself on the pipe at its other end, the bubble will be in the middle. Figure 60 shows the carpenter's level in position on a level board, which rests on the hubs of three pipes.

The joints of this pipe should be made with Portland cement mixed with an equal part of sand, and the s.p.a.ce at the joint completely filled.

When nearing the house, it is very desirable that a manhole should be built so that if a stoppage occurs, it may be cleaned out without taking up the pipe. In city houses a running trap is always inserted just outside the house with a fresh-air inlet on the house side of the trap, as shown in Fig. 61. But for a single house this is not necessary, and it is wiser to omit the running trap.

The soil-pipe begins at the trap or at the cellar wall and runs up through the roof of the house, so that any gas in the drain or soil-pipe may escape at such a height as not to be objectionable. Through the cellar wall and up through the house the soil-pipe should be of cast-iron, which comes in six-foot lengths for this special purpose. Y's are provided by which the fixtures are connected to the soil-pipe, and the top of the pipe is covered with a zinc netting to keep out leaves and birds. This soil-pipe weighs about ten pounds per foot and is almost always four inches inside diameter. The length necessary is easily computed, since it runs from the outside cellar wall to the point where the vertical line of pipe rises and from that point in the cellar extends to the roof. Such a pipe may be estimated at two cents a pound with something additional for the Y's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61.--Water-supply installation.]

The soil-pipe must be well supported along the cellar wall on brackets or hung from the floor joists by short pieces of chain or band iron.

Special care must be taken to support the pipe at the elbow, where it turns upward, since a length of thirty feet of this pipe, weighing three hundred pounds, has to be provided for. It is a good practice to build a brick pier from the cellar bottom up to and around the elbow to support it firmly in the masonry.

The joints in this drainpipe should be made with lead, ramming some oak.u.m into the joints first and then pouring in enough lead melted to the right degree to provide an inch depth of joint. After the lead cools, it must be expanded or calked by driving the calking tool hard against it.

To prevent rain finding its way between the soil-pipe and the roof, a piece of lead is generally wrapped around the soil-pipe for a distance of twelve inches or so above the roof, and then a flat piece of lead extending out under the s.h.i.+ngles is slipped over and soldered fast to the other lead piece.

The fixtures are connected to the iron pipe usually by lead pipe, the lead pipe being first wiped onto a bra.s.s ferrule, the ferrule being leaded into the Y branch. These Y branches are usually two inches in diameter and the lead pipe usually one and one quarter inches. Between the soil-pipe and the fixtures a trap must be provided with a water-seal of about an inch.

_Trap-vents._

In city plumbing it is customary to vent traps; that is, to carry another system of pipes from the top of the trap nearest the fixture up to and through the roof. On most roofs, where modern plumbing has been installed, are seen two pipes projecting, one the soil-pipe and the other the vent-pipe, indicating the location of a bath-room below (see Fig. 61). In a single house, however, and particularly in view of experiments made recently on the subject of trap siphonage, these trap-vents seem hardly necessary. They were formerly insisted upon because of the feeling that by the pa.s.sage of a large amount of water down the soil-pipe, sufficient suction might be induced to draw out the water from some small trap on the way, thereby opening a pa.s.sage for sewer gas into the room. Experiments have shown that it is practically impossible to draw off the water from a trap in this way, and that the system of vent-pipes does little more than add to the cost.

The traps themselves, however, are essential, and great care should be taken to see that each trap is in place and has a seal of the depth already mentioned. The best trap to use in any fixture is the simplest, and a plain S trap answers every purpose. It is always wise to have a clean-out at the bottom of the trap; that is, a small opening which can be closed with a screw plug, so that when the trap becomes clogged, it can be easily opened and cleaned (see Fig. 62).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 62.--A trap.]

_Water-closets._

A great many kinds of water-closets have been made and used, with various degrees of success. The old-fas.h.i.+oned pan-closet becomes easily clogged, allows matter to decompose in the receptacle under the valve, and, in spite of its being cheaper, should not be used. The long-hopper closet is also objectionable, for the same reason. A recent bulletin of the Maine State Board of Health, which gives the relative merits of the different forms now available, very directly and briefly, is here repeated:--

”The choice of a water-closet should be made from those which have the bowl and trap all in one piece, which are simple in construction, are self-cleansing, and have a safe water-seal. None should be considered except the short-hopper, the washout, the washdown, the syphonic, and the syphon-jet closets.

”Short-hopper closets not many years ago were considered desirable, but other styles costing but little more are better.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 63.--Washout water-closet.]

”The washout closet (Fig. 63) has too shallow a pool of water to receive the soil, and the trap below and the portion above the trap do not receive a sufficient scouring from the flush.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 64.--Washdown water-closet.]