CHAPTER VIII
WATER-WORKS CONSTRUCTION
Construction methods and practices which lend themselves to the development of the water-supply for an individual house may be divided into three parts, namely:—
(1) Construction at the point of collection, whether this point be a well, spring, brook, or reservoir;
(2) The pipe line leading from the collection point to the buildings;
(3) Constructions involved in the house, other than the plumbing fixtures.
Taking up these different points in order, we may note at the outset that it is possible to employ either very simple or very complicated construction.
Methods of collection of water.
The common method is to lay a galvanized iron pipe in a ditch as far as a spring and there to protect the end of the pipe with a sieve or a grating and to leave it exposed in the water with no efforts expended on the spring itself. In a brook with waterfalls or with good slope, it is not uncommon to project a large pipe or a wooden trough into the stream at the top of a waterfall and so carry a certain amount of the water into a tub or basins from which the small pipe leads to the house. On the shores of a lake or pond the galvanized iron pipe is laid out on the bottom of the lake with the end protected by a strainer.