To provide hot water, a branch must be taken off at the level of the kitchen stove and run into the hot-water boiler at or near the bottom. The circulation in the tank and through the house is then provided for by a separate circuit running from the bottom of the hot-water tank to the water-back and back into the tank at a point about halfway up. The house circuit is then run from the top of the boiler around through the house, and if a return pipe is provided, it comes back and enters at the bottom. This hot-water pipe is also of galvanized iron and should be of the same size as the main supply pipe (see Fig. 57).
Fig. 57.—Hot-water attachment to the kitchen stove.
The fixtures may be as elaborate as the purse and taste will allow, but some general instruction may not be out of place. There are many types of faucets, all good, and differing from each other only in some minor detail of construction. Experience with the so-called self-closing faucets or bibbs has not been entirely satisfactory, since, with high pressure, the packing very quickly wears out. Similarly, experience with those faucets that open and shut by a single turn of a handle shows that frequent renewals of packing are necessary. The simplest, most reliable, and the easiest faucets to repair are those in which the valve is screwed down onto the valve seat, which is a plane, and where the water-tightness is made by the insertion of a rubber or leather washer that can always be cut out with a knife from a piece of old belting or harness. The faucets may be nickeled or left plain brass, and the advantage of the added expense of nickel is in the appearance alone. If the faucets themselves are nickel, then the piping also should be nickel; that is, brass nickel-plated. Galvanized iron piping and brass faucets do not, to be sure, have the same satisfactory appearance as highly finished nickeled faucets, but the one is quite as serviceable as the other.
Kitchen sinks.
In providing a sink for the kitchen, choice lies between plain iron and enameled iron. For special work, sinks have been made of galvanized iron, of copper, slate, soapstone, and of real porcelain. There is hardly any limit to the cost of a porcelain sink, and while an enameled iron sink with fittings costs from $30 to $60, a cast-iron sink of the same size will cost only $3 or $4. A good quality of white enameled iron sink, of size suitable for a kitchen, with white enameled back and a drainboard on the side, costing $30, is very attractive as an ornament, but it serves no more useful purpose than a $3 sink and a fifty-cent drainboard. Figure 58 shows an enameled iron sink, containing sink, drainboard, and back all in one piece. This is pure white, and when fitted with nickel faucets makes a very attractive fitting.
Laundry tubs.
If running water is to be put in a house, stationary tubs for the laundry, into which water runs by a faucet and which can be emptied by pulling a plug, are certainly worth their cost over movable wooden tubs in the labor saved. Stationary tubs may be made of wood, of enameled iron, or of slate.
Fig. 58.—Enameled iron sink.