AMERICAN 
July, 1912 
These two illustrations here shown exhibit a convenient method of arranging the drainage-boards for the well-ordered kitchen sink 
HOMES AND GARDENS 253 
The Sanitary Plumbing of Homes 
By Rolfe C. Roberts 
Photographs by T. C. Turner and Others 
q| HERE is an old proverb sometimes quoted 
It is a heartless epigram and crude, never- 
theless it contains much natural truth, since 
physical life so often seems to be the founda- 
tion on which the moral structure is built and material 
wants underlying all others will clamor for early satisfac- 
tion. So it is with houses; no height of adornment and 
esthetic refinement will make livable a home that first lacks 
the comforts of utility, and it is with the consciousness of 
this truth before us that we are moved to introduce the very 
important subject of the sanitary plumbing of the dwelling. 
No complement of man’s housing is so vital to his physical 
wants as this, as in the bathroom and in the kitchen it pro- 
vides the instruments and means for many of the primary 
daily ministrations to his body. Unfortunately a general 
ignorance of the sanitary feature of the subject has often 
led to the undue sacrificing of the plumbing equipment to 
other and less essential expenditures, perhaps, to merely 
ornamental ones in the building of a house, though now it 
has come to be realized that . 
this inconspicuous piping is 
vastly more important than 
the matter of fancy fixtures, 
in the selection of which lat- 
ter common error makes the 
choice from appearances in- 
stead of from their sanitary 
and mechanical qualities. 
An outline of the subject 
will serve to place before the 
mind’s eye the material fea- 
tures to be considered of 
plumbing, of which so much 
is hidden away in floors and 
walls that one uninitiated in 
the subject has generally no 
coherent idea of what it 
really all is. The accom- 
panying diagram indicates 
the various fixtures, tubs, 
basin, sink, etc., all placed 
2 ET ae 
to maids and matrons that declares “the way - 
to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” 
Bathtub fitted with a curtained shower 
about the house where utility demands them. Note that 
these are put as close together as possible and all connect- 
ing with a rather elaborate hidden network of pipe. These 
pipes may be classified according to their function as (a) 
supply pipes for furnishing fresh water to the fixtures and 
(b) drainage or waste pipes for carrying off used water 
and refuse. A study of these various pipes will reveal the 
community water-pipe entering the basin through the pro- 
verbially tireless meter and then dividing into a cold and 
hot water supply fixtures. The latter supply is obtained 
by means of a boiler connected with the furnace or kitchen 
range or, it may be, by a special heater and this is piped 
to every fixture except the water-closet, which receives only 
cold water. ‘Tracing now the branch drains which lead 
from every fixture they will be observed to enter a large 
main drain called the soil which, running vertically, extends 
above the roof for ventilation, and discharges through the 
house drain and trap in the basement into the public sewer 
or, if it be in the country, into a cesspool or, better, into a 
private sewage disposal plant. From these drain-pipes rise 
the vapors of decomposition known as sewer gas, to exclude 
which a trap is placed at 
every fixture, just as the 
one in the basement is ar- 
ranged to exclude gas from 
the main sewer. The trap 
is one of the most significant 
features of sanitation. 
The foregoing outline is 
sufficient to indicate that the 
ordinance of plumbing con- 
sists broadly of fixtures for 
the use of water, and compli- 
mentary pipes to convey and 
remove water from them. 
Therefore it is important 
that both fixtures and pipes 
be installed with equal care. 
To neglect one side will neg- 
ative the merits the other 
side may possess and will 
compromise the sanitary ef- 
ficiency of the whole system 
