If you are going to build in the mountains, or the pine woods, or on rocky islands or promontories in the ocean,—in places where there are almost no unsanitary conditions, where the climate is so invigourating, the air so purifying,—there is no need to think of many precautions important in a cleared and settled country. As much sunlight and circulation of air as you can get, pure drinking water, and the simple precaution of not building in a hollow or on the edge of a swamp, are about all the sanitary points you need consider in such places.
In selecting a site in any ordinary country or seashore region, first make sure above all things of dryness, sunlight, pure air, and pure water.
Avoid building a cottage for regular occupancy in a dense thicket, not merely on account of the mosquitoes and other insects, but because the thicket shuts out the sun and cuts off the free circulation of air which there should always be in summer around and through a house. Of course, for shooting or fishing, a lodge, camp, or cabin must be built wherever required by the circumstances. Sunshine is very important in securing dryness and in purifying the air.
You will naturally reject wet land. Avoid also soil that retains moisture,[38] even though it may not be actually wet to step upon, for land saturated with moisture may be the unsuspected source of serious diseases. There is air in the ground, which may be the means of spreading dampness and foul gases.
Do not place your house in a depression or in the bottom of a valley where dampness is likely to settle. At the seashore there will, of course, be fogs from the ocean at certain times and places, but they are not harmful, except to navigation; and at the mountains more or less dampness at night is very common. Do not try to find a place where there is no dampness at all, but except at the seashore or mountains reject situations where there are mists at night, avoiding particularly the vicinity of wet marshes and swamps, stagnant pools of fresh water, boggy ponds, sluggish rivers and brooks, on account of the malarious vapours which are liable to hang over them.
Do not try to keep cool by hiding your house where the sun will not shine upon it. The southern or south-eastern slope of a hill usually affords a most desirable site as regards both coolness and sunlight. If you can also find a site on the top of a little mound or knoll, so as to secure the free drainage of the water in every direction, it will be advantageous.
The main points in regard to water are to have it pure and to have plenty of it.
In regard to pure water, and pure air also, if you are planning to build in a little settlement or near other cottages the question of drainage (sewerage) from the neighbouring houses becomes of the utmost importance. A breeze from the sea, the mountains, or the pine woods is pure in itself and to a certain degree a scavenger, but do not throw upon it the work of purifying a naturally unhealthful situation.
This matter of drainage you can arrange for yourself on your own land, but the arrangements of your neighbours you will have to take as you find them; therefore guard carefully against contamination of your drinking water and of the air through proximity to the cesspools, privies, or sink drains of the neighbouring cottages. Exactly how far a well or spring should be from such sources of pollution it is impossible to state without knowledge of the particular spot, for it depends upon the slope of the ground, the kind of soil, the direction of the underlying strata, and other circumstances. In some cases a distance of twenty feet might be perfectly safe, while in others two hundred would be highly dangerous. One hundred feet or more is near enough under ordinary conditions. There is no greater danger than that from defective sewerage, and the danger usually begins before the senses are aware that there is any trouble. This subject is better understood now than formerly, but still, until the subject forces itself upon their attention, the majority of people pay but little regard to it. It is a fact well established among medical men that some of the worst forms of sickness are nothing but filth diseases, to which the dwellers in summer cottages are sometimes even more exposed than those in town houses. Remember that air as well as water is an active agent for spreading the germs of disease.
As to the position in which to place the house itself after the spot has been chosen much will depend on circumstances. Consider the sun, the prevailing winds, and the views in relation to the rooms, the windows, and the piazza. An unsheltered piazza facing the west is apt to be very hot at the time of day you are likely to use it the most, though, of course, the wind or other considerations may make such a position desirable.