36 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
SEWAGE DISPOSAL FOR THE COUNTRY HOME 
T hree 
House, 
Systems that Are Suitable for the Good Sized 
the Summer Camp, and the Seashore Cottage 
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THEODORE CRANE 
The disposal field is a nec¬ 
essary adjunct to the septic 
tank. It is entirely tinder- 
ground 
Though only 10' x 5' 
x 6', this tank takes 
care of the waste 
from a good - sized 
country house 
N EXT to the modern sanitation of the 
country house, the most important ad¬ 
vance made in the last few years from a 
hygienic standpoint has been the proper 
disposal of the sewage. It was not many 
years ago that the owner of an isolated 
country home was satisfied with a new bath¬ 
room or two and gave little thought about 
the drainage system upon which they de¬ 
pended. Now, however, science has stepped 
in, and the slipshod methods that menaced 
not only the water supply of the vicinity 
but even the air of the house are passing 
away. The old-style cesspool is no longer 
a dreaded necessity. We have learned how 
to use the bacteria of sewage for its own 
destruction, and the result is the septic tank 
and disposal field of today. 
The Septic Tank System 
The septic tank is primarily a water-tight 
receptacle into which the sewage empties, 
located preferably a hundred feet or more 
from the house. At the smallest it should 
be large enough to hold an eight-hour out¬ 
put, and from there up the size will vary 
with the design. This tank serves a dual 
purpose as a place in which the sewage un¬ 
dergoes bacterial action and where the solid 
substances have an opportunity to settle. 
From the tank a line of sewer pipe leads 
to the disposal field, which is usually a sys¬ 
tem of porous tile laid end to end in shal¬ 
low trenches about 12" to 18" under the 
surface of sod land. The tile receives the 
effluent from the tank and distributes it 
under the roots of the grass which will ab¬ 
sorb all moisture and odor. 
There is at present quite a variety of dis¬ 
posal systems, all of which are designed to 
meet special requirements of location and 
soil. The usual practice for large residence 
work is to have a double tank, the sewage 
flowing from one part into the other, and 
from there syphoning periodically to the 
disposal field. This has the advantage of 
thoroughly flushing the entire tile bed, which 
enables a greater absorption, and is espe¬ 
cially valuable when the contour of the 
land does not furnish adequate grade for 
the tile lines. Another variation is to use a 
twin disposal field having a head-gate which 
permits alternate use. In any system the 
solid substances, which represent only about 
one-quarter to one-half of one per cent of 
the entire sewage, should be removed from 
the tank every few years as required. 
Let us see how the design works out in 
For a summer camp 
or shooting box the 
system is laid out ac¬ 
cording to these 
three plans 
actual practice. Consider that you are the 
owner of a country house with, say, four 
bathrooms and the usual kitchen and laun¬ 
dry fixtures. The garage is provided for 
elsewhere. The rain-water from your roof 
is also taken care of. You tell us there is 
an average of six in the family, with two 
servants. So with a customary per capita 
water consumption your house would be 
well served by a septic tank 10' long, 5' 
wide and 6' deep, divided into two com¬ 
partments and connected with a disposal 
field having from 200' to 600' of porous 
land tile, the number of feet of tile required 
between these limits depending upon the 
ability of the land to absorb moisture. 
The tank can best be built of concrete 
and arranged as illustrated. The first cham¬ 
ber (A) i-eceives the sewage and accumu¬ 
lates as sediment the solid substances. The 
second chamber (B), into which the liquids 
pass, gradually fills until emptied by peri¬ 
odic discharge of the automatic syphon, 
which passes the effluent on to the disposal 
field. As the tank is placed entirely under¬ 
ground the sewage is kept warm, so that the 
tile beds will not freeze, even in extreme 
winter weather. In fact, the heat generated 
by the septic action tends greatly to obviate 
danger from the frost. Both the inlet pipe 
and the pipe connecting the two chambers 
should be fitted with tees and carried well 
below the level of sewage, so that the sur¬ 
face where the bacterial action is most effi¬ 
cient will not be disturbed by the inflowing 
and outflowing currents. For this same 
purpose a baffle board is run across the re¬ 
ceiving chamber. The two manhole covers 
on top give access for cleaning. 
Next comes the disposal field which 
should be located on the down-hill side of 
the septic tank where the contour of the 
ground will give proper grades for the tile 
lines. The connection is made by a line 
of sewer pipe, which should have a pitch 
of about l /%" per foot. The grade of the 
disposal tile should be 3" to 6" in each 
100'. the steeper grade being used where 
the soil is more porous, in order that 
the liquid may flow through the entire 
course before leaching out. The sketch il¬ 
lustrates an arrangement of the disposal 
field, with a head-gate to permit alternate 
use of the two halves of the bed. It seems 
that if the tile have a “rest,” they do bet¬ 
ter, and greater efficiency of absorption is 
obtained from the surrounding soil. The 
tile trenches are dug 18" deep, and are filled 
around the tile with porous material, either 
sand and gravel or cinders. No mortar 
should be used, the ends being merely butted 
together and a piece of burlap laid over the 
joint to prevent clogging the pipe while fill¬ 
ing the trench. After the work is completed 
the whole area can be used as garden or 
lawn. The cost of such a system, as illus¬ 
trated, would be approximately $600. 
The System for the Summer Camp 
Now all this applies particularly to the 
fairly large country house. If we consider 
a camp or shooting-box located in the woods 
the problem is somewhat different. Sup¬ 
pose that you desire to provide for seven 
or eight people as inexpensively as possible 
without polluting your nearby stream or 
lake. You expect to use the system only 
intermittently and probably not over six 
months of the entire year. Furthermore, 
building materials are almost unobtainable. 
Consequently you would hardly be war¬ 
ranted in constructing a complete disposal. 
(Continued on page 52) 
