May, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



six inches, and two wash- 

 tubs. The drainage system 

 inside the house should all 

 be of cast iron. The type 

 known in the trade as "extra 

 heavy" is best. Wrought 

 iron should not be considered, 

 for its handling requires 

 heavy tools and skilled me- 

 chanics. The branches of 

 the pipes under the house 

 should be carried in iron, as 

 close to the fixtures as pos- 

 sible. The fixture traps are 

 best made of lead. Heavy 

 lead will expand under the 



influence of frost, and may save the fixture if the water in it 

 is about to freeze. The brass trap is more liable to split. The 

 pipe from the watercloset should be four inches in diameter; 

 from the kitchen sink, laundry tubs and bathtubs, two; and 

 from the washbasin, one and a half. If a shower is installed, 

 this should. have a three-inch waste. 



laid. A building lath is gen- 

 — erally handy and excellent for 

 the purpose. The practise of 

 using oakum- packing in the 

 joint is not a good one, as it 

 is difficult to clean the 

 oakum on the interior. The 

 pipe need not necessarily be 

 laid more than two feet 

 underground, as sewage is 

 not likely to freeze. At all 

 changes of direction a tee 

 (side) branch turned up- 

 ward, with a clean-out cover, 

 should be set in the line of 

 the pipe to permit inspection 

 and cleaning. This should be extended to above the surface 

 if the location is not objectionable. If it is buried its position 

 should be marked. 



After the sewer pipe has carried the sewage into the settling 

 chamber, it collects there until it overflows into a flush tank 

 chamber, in the bottom of which is set an automatic syphon 



With the installation of a bathroom some kind of a sewage which discharges the liquors into a flush tank whenever the 



disposal system becomes necessary. The cheapest and worst 

 of all is where the sewage is led to a cesspool. In sandy soil 

 this will for a time give satisfactory results, but it is apt to 

 need frequent cleaning and to become a nuisance. It should 

 at least be forty feet from the house, and on lower ground, 

 and placed so that it will not contaminate streams. 



The best system, if the nature of the soil is sandy and open, 

 is an underground sewage disposal system. The sewage is 

 here discharged through the sewer pipe into a "settling" 

 chamber. The sewer pipe is of earthenware. It is cheap 

 and durable, and can be purchased near any little railroad 

 station or from the smallest village material dealer. It comes 

 in two foot lengths, costing for the customary four-inch pipe 

 about six or eight cents a foot. The four-inch pipe should 

 be large enough for the ordinary bungalow containing a bath- 

 room, and if the pipe can be laid with a fall of one-third of 

 an inch per foot. If rock or the character of the ground 

 does not allow this fall, a five-inch or six-inch pipe should be 

 used, but no grade less than one-quarter inch to the foot is 

 good practise. The joints of the pipe should be 



laid in Portland cement mortar. The interior of 



each joint should be cleaned before the pipes 



tank 'is filled. The discharge of the syphon should be a four- 

 inch earthenware drain pipe with two-inch tee branches on 

 each side, laid so that there is a branch on each side every 

 four feet. From these lateral tee lines two-inch earthen- 

 ware pipes are laid with open-joint collars. These pipes 

 should be laid fourteen inches underground and covered with 

 five or six inches of clean gravel or broken stone, then above 

 with top soil. From two hundred and fifty to five hundred 

 feet of this two-inch pipe will be required to take care of the 

 drainage of a camp with one bathroom. If the soil the sew- 

 age drains into is clean sand and gravel two hundred and 

 fifty lineal feet of piping will be sufficient. 



If the ground upon which the sewage must be disposed is 

 rocky or of a clay formation, filtration beds will be needed. 

 Naturally they are not as good as where nature has prepared 

 them ready for you. The same flush tank and settling basin 

 are used as has been described for the subsurface irrigation 

 system. The discharge from the flush tank instead of going 

 into underground drain pipes goes on top of the filtration 

 beds (Fig. 3), which are prepared as follows: A space of 

 about twelve feet by twenty-five feet is cleared and leveled. 

 Five lines of open-joint drain pipe are laid on its bottom, con- 

 nected together and discharged at some con- 

 venient point. Over these pipes are laid twelve 

 inches of coarse gravel and broken stone; then 

 a layer of twelve inches of coarse gravel and 

 sand, eight inches of finer gravel and sand, and 

 the whole finally finished with three or four 

 inches of sand. A low curb of wooden plank- 

 ing or stone should be built around the edges 

 of the filter beds to protect the surface of sand 

 and keep it from washing away. The whole 

 filter bed should also be subdivided by an in- 

 termediate curb, so that one part may be 

 working while the other is resting. The 

 sewage is discharged on the sur- 

 face of these beds, the outlet of the 



->• £>«s* 'r/j",^r_ OV 7U.ET 



Fig. 3 — Plans and Sections of Filtration Beds 



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