Ground. Mentioned the Point Particularly, Because If Persons Applied
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
53 LECTURES TO SANITARY OFFICERS. SANITARY APPLIANCES. By W. C. TYNDALE, M.Inst.C.E. (FELLOW.) Delivered March 15th, 1901. subject of this lecture was &dquo;Sanitary Appliances,&dquo; and in a future TIIET lecture lle would have the pleasure of treating of house drainagl’. Of course drains and all their arrangements were really sanitary appli- ances, but the term sanitary appliances was now generally understood to mean the fittings within the house. He should have included soil pipes amongst sanitary appliances, but soil pipes and ventilating pipes had been , thoroughly treated of in a previous lecture. He could not therefore quite divide the subject of drains and sanitary appliances by drawing the line between those things which were underground and tllose which were above ground. The main principles which govern sanitary fittings, and also the designing of were that all foul matter should be removed as as . drainage, quickly possible, and that the accumulation of foul gas should be prevented. He mentioned the point particularly, because if persons applied those two principles to any appliance which they might be inspecting or considering on its merits, they would be able to pronounce whether it was a good one or not. Excepting tlle soil pipes, the first and most important appliance in the household undoubtedly was the water closet. They were at best, no doubt, but a necessary evil. The positions of the water-closet apartment, he presumed, had been treated of in tlle lecture on &dquo; Building Construc- tion,&dquo; but he would point out that it was of great importance that the water-closet apartment should be in direct communication with the outer air. Numerous old houses in town and in country had the closets placed well within the building and there was no communication with the 54 outer air, causing thereby the most undesirable results, viz., that whatever smells or foul air were produced must pass into the building. Now however, by legislation and by practice, the water closet is not allowed to be constructed without direct communication with the outer air. For hospitals it was usual to put it in what was called an &dquo; annex,&dquo; that was an adjunct to the general body of the building, and to construct a vent- ilating lobby betv-een the place where the water closets were and the wards, so t.hat the fresh air could always blow through and thus form a &dquo; cut off.&dquo; A closet should also have plenty of light and means of vent- ilat,ion; liglit perhaps was almost as important as ventilation, because it was more likely to ensure the water closet being kept clean, otherwise it might smell through the appliances getting dirty as well as out of order. Coming to the apparatus itself, he would divide water closets under two heads, viz., &dquo; hopper ’’ closets and &dquo;valve&dquo; closets. The hopper closet might be distinguished from the valve closet generally by saying that it was a closet which had no valve, but in which water was held up by the trap in the apparatus itself ; while the valve closet was one in which the water was held up by a valve. These hopper closets were quite the simplest of all water closets apparatus, and they were the cheapest, and were perfectly sanitary so long as they were in use. He mentioned this latter point because this form of apparatus was generally provided in institutions or schools, where they were periodically left out of use for a considerable time. In such condit,ions there was a likelihood tliat the water which formed the seal between the drains or soil pipe and the room might evaporate, and the drain air or the soil pipe air would pass into the house. Tllis was a point not often brought forward, but he had found from experience that it was one that should be attended to, and those who might perhaps have the care of institutions sl~ould remember that this takes place, and that the w.c. appliances when out of use should be kept well charged with water or they should be filled up, as he often had done, with sand covered with a coating of putty. One of the great diff erences between the &dquo; hohper &dquo; closet and the &dquo; &dquo; valve closet was in the area and amount of water which was contained in tlle basin. Of course it was obvious that with plenty of water in the basin there was not much chance of the interior being fouled. With the hopper closet one of the difficulties was that a sufficient area of water could not be obtained without other troubles occurring. The water must necessarily lie in the basin at the height of bridge of the trap. To get enougll water to give the area which would compare with the average valve 55 closet, it would be necessary to carry the bridge of the trap up to a position which would give them something like six or eight lllclles of dip in the trap. Now it was found that it had to be a specially well con- structed basin to enable anything like the ordinary flush of water to carry was to off what in the basin when tlle traps had the ordinary dip of 1~ 2~2 inches, and it was almost 11T11)USSIIJlc’, with the usual two gallon flush of water from the waste l7reventor, to get anything like a large area of water in the basin without the chance of matter being left bl’hind after the flusll. In the corridor of the Parkes Museum there were a good many basins which had considerable water areas, but there was a rubicon which could not be passed in the ordinary hopper water closet without special flushing. If something like four gallons of water were provided in their Hushing cisterns, and a large flushing pipe, larger areas of water could be arranged, but tlle Water Companies did not as a rule allow a flushing supply of more than two gallons. While on that subject lie might say that a year or two ago The Sanitary Institute, with utller Bodies, made a very great effort to get a regulation passed which would cause the Water Companies. to allow of a three-gallon waste-preventing Hushing cistern being used in connection with the hopper water closet. The matter was argued before- a representative of tlie Local Government Board and some legal re- prescntatives, but he was sorry to say that the Sanitary Institute, and the other Bodies interested in the matter, were not successful, and to that day the Water Companies did not generally allow a slushing cistern of more than two gallons. Therefore the hopper water closet, unless specially con- structed, could not have a very large water area. He thought on the whole these were the chief points in connection witli the hopper water closet as against the valve closet. The lecturer first described a very ul<1-f~lshione<t hopper closet. The &dquo; hopper&dquo; might be Salcl to date lJaCli from the time when simply a shoot was used and nothing else. He was not quite clear as to how the term &dquo; hopper &dquo; came to be used, but the &dquo;hopper&dquo; in the manufacturing places was an Inverted cone-shaped vessel which enabled ores and their fluxes to be passed into the furnace, and probably that was the reason why tlle name was applied to tlle closet which was somewhat like an inverted cone. In an old form of this closet there was no attempt at a proper flush, but there was a small connection from the cistern or water main, and there was a trap at the bottom of the basin which caused the water to stand; and it evidently did not matter to the people wllo invented it, whether the Rush was enough to carry the matter away, or simply to moisten the sides. 56 First he should say that the usual generic name for a proper hopper closet was the ‘‘ Wasli Down Short Hopper.&dquo; The illustration (fi~. 1) showed a long hopper with the flush coming in by an arm which created a spiral flush. This form used to be pretty generally used in the old days, but the flow of water did not flush the basin, or exert any influence in cleaning the trap. It was hardly necessary to say that a r im flusli was a great Improvement, and that no hopper basin should be without it. Fig. 2 was a representation of what was known as a 11 wash out &dquo; closet. lie said just now that the best hopper was known as the short wash down closet FIG. 1. (shewn in fia. 3). The one now illustrated Loxer HOPFER, was a wash out. It con- tained a small amount of water in the basin which was a more or less aclvau- tageous feature. The flush came down all round the basin, washed over the weir, and went into the trap, and thence into the soil pipe. In these closets, first, there was a liability to foul the bottom; secondly, the way in in which the flusli was broken up prevented its energies being directed to wash out the trap so that FIG. 2. it was seldom cleared; and WASH OUT CLOSET. thirdly, there was a vertical pipe-like portion’out of sigit which became foul. Next there was an adapt- ation of the hopper closet to form also a slop sink (ng. 4).