48 
House & Garden 
POLISHING YOUR WATER SUPPLY 
A Summing Up of the Filter Situation, with an Analysis of What 
a Filter Must Be Like to Fulfil Its Duty 
I FOUND a fish in my bath-tub today,” 
said I to a friend. 
“Wasn’t that the best place in the 
house to find one?” was the reply. 
“Yes,” I said, “but I can’t say I enjoy 
bathing in an aquarium, and my civic pride 
is hurt because I have been so proud of my 
city water quality and all of the sister munici¬ 
palities which filter or chlorinate or both.” 
In this anecdote is the crux of the filter 
situation. 
In times gone by a filter was sold to save 
life from polluted waters, from streams, wells, 
surface sources, sewage-burdened rivers, etc. 
It was a dire necessity and became by its effi¬ 
ciency or lack of it a godsend or a menace. If 
it were a good filter it needed care and atten¬ 
tion in the greatest degree to make it a boon; 
if it were a bad filter it continued despite care 
to be a curse far more dangerous than the 
unfiltered product because it became a collector 
and a breeding place for bacteria and doled 
out water as pure to the most modest of 
drinkers. 
But as with every department of living in 
this realm, too, things have moved on. In this 
case gloriously. For since the municipalities 
have taken our lives in their hands the dangers 
from bad filters are slight and the need of 
good ones necessary but not a life-and-death 
matter. In short, the excitement about filters 
in the home is dead but their use goes march¬ 
ing on. 
However, as this story will be read by in¬ 
habitants of unfiltered municipalities and 
towns, whatever danger and comfort can accrue 
from non-filtration or filtration of water will 
be evident after a glance at this attempt to 
bring it to your mind. Just as this goes to 
press we see in the paper that a western town 
of Salem has seven hundred and eighty cases 
of typhoid in a population of ten thousand. 
Here is food for thought! 
Hundreds of towns (one firm alone has in¬ 
stalled about 163 plants) in the United States 
have municipal filtration plants. Some even 
oxygenate the water by fountaining it estheti- 
cally skyward and allowing it to entice to itself 
oxygen (from the free air), by which it gets 
life and polish and becomes refreshing. 
S OME towns chlorinate the water supply. 
When water is chlorinated, minute quan¬ 
tities of chlorine are added which abso¬ 
lutely destroy the germs in the water, but do not 
alter its chemical or physical characteristics in 
the least. The difference between a water that 
has been chlorinated and one that has not been 
so treated is that in the first case the germs 
are destroyed, but in the second case they re¬ 
main in the water to cause possible disease. 
This process is rarely used in the home as 
the control is too difficult. But in the case 
of the elaborate residence with large incum¬ 
bencies in the way of model farms, dairy, 
ETHEL R. PEYSER 
stables, machine shops, etc., it is used. Also 
the smallest plants are used in the case of 
large swimming pools in and out of fine resi¬ 
dences, where, of course, the water has been 
found to be bacterially degenerate and where 
the work of purification is not done by a 
benign municipality. 
T O get to the roots of the matter we want 
water (we don’t care what the high- 
browed engineer does to give it to us) to 
be: 
1. Colorless. 
2. Tasteless. 
3. Odorless. 
4. Free from suspended matter. 
5. With enough oxygen gas to make it 
refreshing and give it life. 
6. Without germs or food for germs. 
What we want to keep out: 
1. Suspended impurities: vegetable, ani¬ 
mal (such as the fish), mineral, micro¬ 
scopical algae (what one sees on stag¬ 
nant waters), infusoria, etc. 
2. Dissolved impurities. 
3. Disease germs: typhoid, cholera, etc. 
What we must demand in a filter: 
1. All the above. 
2. Durability. 
3. Simplicity of management. 
4. Nearest approach possible to self 
cleaning. (The uncertain human ele¬ 
ment makes many a good filter fall 
down.) 
These four things are essential to the lon¬ 
gevity of the filter and to you, if you inhabit 
filterless vales. 
To clarify after its long pipe journey 
(probably through rusty pipes, etc.); to insure 
plumbing (in case of the installed filter in the 
cellar) against clogging, incrustations and gen¬ 
eral wear, accumulations of material bound to 
enter the water on its trip through the pipes to 
the house—due to broken water mains, fires 
in the city—accidents of any kind; to give the 
laundry a clean appearance, for the best 
laundry work availeth little if the water is 
murky or turbid; to polish water, or render 
it free from flavor and turbidity. 
When typhoid had its happy hunting ground 
in plumbing it was thought quite in keeping 
to have typhoid cases in abundance. In Pitts¬ 
burgh and other such afflicted towns it is now 
felt to be a heinous sin, since filtration has be¬ 
come a part of the service that towns render to 
their inhabitants. In fact, all boards of health 
today feel it to be felony and disgrace to find 
a case of such a disease in the community. 
So, to public-spirited citizens in unfiltered 
regions, your task is cut out for you. You 
can get rid of muddy, dirty water by municipal 
filtration plants or home filters and care. 
For those who live in filtered towns the use 
of filters is manifest, too. 
T HERE are various kinds of filters in use, 
but only two kinds are of interest for use 
in the home. 
1. The type affixed to spigot (or water 
cooler). 
2. The installed filter placed in cellar or 
other part of the home to filter the whole 
water supply. 
These are divided into many technical cate¬ 
gories, but what we are interested in are the 
following questions: Do we need a filter? 
What shall we have to know to buy a filter 
intelligently? 
Rapidly stated, it is safest to buy a filter 
from a manufacturer who says “my filter is 
not absolutely perfect but it is the nearest 
thing to perfection we can get. We know our 
filter can render water from 90 to 100% free 
from bacteria, as we have had bacteriological 
tests made by competent chemists.” 
When you want to order a filter, put down 
on paper the answers to the following ques¬ 
tions, and send them to the manufacturers who 
will then give you data and prices. Choose 
the best manufacturer and then invest: 
1. Are the fixtures all on direct water supply 
or are they supplied from an open storage tank 
or combination of the two? 
2. What are the source, nature and peculiari¬ 
ties of the water to be filtered? Has it odor, 
taste, vegetable discoloration, clay or iron 
stain ? 
3. What sort of water supply system do you 
use and what of the water pressure? What is 
the size of the supply pipe? (Ask your 
plumber.) 
4. How many gallons of water are required 
to be filtered per minute, per hour or per 8, 10, 
12, or 24 hours? (Ask your plumber.) 
5. How many bathrooms and other water 
fixtures are in the home? 
6. Is there a municipal plant in your town? 
What kind? 
S INCE 1885 thousands of filters have 
been patented. Years ago the smallest 
and most unreliable makers would put a 
filter on the market and promise immunity from 
death and let it go at that, because folks are 
anxious to be saved. Today not many more than 
six filters are really sold with a guarantee by 
reliable firms backing them. Why? Because 
most of these filters were cheap and flimsy, 
did nothing but strain water and strain their 
point as well. These small manufacturers 
would spring into being one day and sink 
into oblivion the next. The filters, if they did 
filter (not strain, only), would become breed¬ 
ing nests for bacteria. Physicians feared and 
forbade them. 
The filters on the market today are in vary¬ 
ing degrees reliable, depending greatly on their 
functions, on the amount of care and wear, 
(Continued on page 56) 
