Bad Drains; and How to Test Them / With notes on the ventilation of sewers, drains, and sanitary fittings, and the origin and transmission of zymotic disease

by R. Harris Reeves

In the house above referred to, everything to the eye appeared sound and good, but on the house being occupied, a disagreeable odour was noticed in the kitchen, and in some of the lower rooms. The sink-pipe, which was pointed out by the builder as being “cut off,” ran from the sink trough without a trap or water-seal of any kind, and through this pipe, when the doors were shut, the air was supplied to the building at the rate of 180 feet per minute. The back of the W.C. was ventilated from the outside to give free ventilation to the space under the seat, and through the ventilators (which were working as inlets) the air came into the house, which supplied the bedrooms, passing over the pan, between it and the seat.

The above is an illustration of a house where the sanitary arrangements were supposed to be on the most scientific principles! Fresh air being supplied to bedrooms by passing over the closet-pan, and in the kitchen and rooms below by passing through a 2-inch sink-pipe. This is one of the many cases that may be mentioned to show the necessity of testing any system of drainage and sanitary fittings.

This is not an unusual occurrence, as thousands of similar cases exist, where the principal air supply passes over sanitary fittings or through apertures which bring it in contact more or less with decomposed matter. In a building where a number of fireplaces exist, a constant current of air is passing in from the outside, which after mixing with the air in the building escapes up the chimney. An ordinary chimney extracts from the room from 60 to 120 cubic feet of air per minute, thus in a ten-roomed house you have going out of the chimneys at least 1000 cubic feet of air per minute. When the house is closed this large volume of air is drawn into it through apertures offering the least resistance, whether it be ventilators in the w.c., kitchen sinks, or drains in the basement (which traps may have been siphoned), over sanitary pipes or through doors and windows. Whichever point offers the least resistance, there the supply to feed the chimneys will come.

The injurious effects on the health of persons who occupy buildings that take in their air supply through unclean apertures are too well known to those medical men and others who have had experience in sanitary matters, and it can be only estimated by results. I could enumerate cases where the health of the inmates and the death-rate were conclusive evidence to prove the disastrous effects produced by air being supplied through such inlets. One case in particular, which consisted of eight blocks of buildings planned exactly alike. The drains were cut off on the outside at the foot of all soil-pipes, and a second disconnection about 50 feet from the building. In one building the basement was drained into the branch drain with a trap in the inside, and from the quantity of water and soil which flowed through this branch drain the basement trap was constantly being siphoned, leaving a 6-inch air supply into the building through 50 feet of drain. This, combined with 200 feet per minute through the W.C., had the effect of causing an unusual depression of spirits in the occupants of this building, and more deaths occurred in this one block than in the whole of the others.

It does not require a large amount of scientific knowledge to ensure a healthy building. What is required is sound pipes, the area of them in proportion to the work they have to do, tight joints, and a knowledge of ventilation. Nothing must be left to theory. A pipe either leaks and lets out the soil, or it is sound. If it is sound, sewage matter can be carried through it anywhere without the slightest injury to health or unpleasantness of any kind. Pipes can be ventilated without traps being siphoned, and the gases from sewers and soil-pipes treated so as to ensure healthy buildings at a moderate cost.

As a rule, the first intimation of any defect in the drainage system of a town or the sanitary fittings of a building is given by the medical officer of health or the medical attendant of the family, whose attention has been forcibly drawn to it by the serious illness of the inmates.

It is no unusual occurrence, that after the medical officer, surveyor, and inspector of nuisances have made a minute inspection of a building, they leave it without discovering defects which exist in pipes carefully cased over, or in the sanitary fittings.

To detect the manner in which poisons from drains are thrown into a building and inhaled by the occupants, is oftentimes not an easy matter. In many cases the drains have been so cut about and additions made to them, that to trace defects or even the number of drains which are attached to the branch drains or sewers, a considerable amount of excavating is necessary.

The system described in these pages is intended to prevent in a measure this excavating, and to enable a person above the ground to determine the number, capacity, and state of the drains underneath the surface, as well as to more readily discover any imperfections in soil-pipes and sanitary fittings.

When sewers are laid to a town or district, it is the practice of the authorities to let the work by tender, the lowest tender being oftentimes accepted; consequently it is in the interest of the contractor to get the work done as quickly and cheaply as possible.