[206] A similar provision is made requiring the keeper of a common lodging house to obtain a proper supply of water (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 81), but it does not appear to be the express duty of the town surveyor to draw attention to this, as it does in the more general clause.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOUSE DRAINAGE.
It would not be possible in one chapter of a book of this description to enter into all the details and necessary apparatus in connection with house drainage. I propose only to point out some of the town surveyor’s duties in connection with this subject, and to add a few remarks which may be of some service.
The definition of the word “drain” as given in the Public Health Act 1875 is as follows:
“‘Drain’ means any drain of and used for the drainage of one building only, or premises within the same curtilage, and made merely for the purpose of communicating therefrom with a cesspool or other like receptacle for drainage, or with a sewer into which the drainage of two or more buildings or premises occupied by different persons is conveyed” (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 4).
Although this definition is very clear, it occasionally happens, especially in old towns, that some doubt arises as to whether an existing conduit for sewage is a “drain” or a “sewer”[207] for though a conduit is of small size it maybe found to be carrying the sewage of two or more buildings, and thus is really “a sewer belonging to the local authority.”
This difficulty often leads to litigation where a notice having been served upon an owner of property to put in a new drain in place of one that has been found on examination to be defective, the new work is of course commenced at the junction with the main sewer, and it is not until the new so-called drain is nearly completed that it is found to be “used for the drainage” of more than one building, and is in fact “a sewer into which the drainage of two or more buildings or premises, occupied by different persons is conveyed” (see clause quoted above), and is therefore repairable by the local authority (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 13).
Where the town surveyor is in any doubt as to whether the conduit is a drain or a sewer, he should test from whence the sewage comes by passing diluted white lime or carbolic acid down the adjacent water-closets and watching whether it flows through the conduit or not, but even here he is sometimes at fault if the drains are old and dilapidated, as they do not reach the point he is watching and he is thus misled.
In connection with the question of house drainage the town surveyor has the following duties to perform: