Drain trap

“ In small houses it is not needed; but in large houses, unless some provision is made for catching the grease sent down the scullery sink, the drains will soon be choked. Eassie gives a caution against having the grease trap too large for its work, and as to the importance of cleaning it out regularly, say once a week.
Disconnection Traps.—Whether the house drains into a sewer, a stream, a cesspool, or upon a piece of irrigation ground, one thing which must never be omitted is a disconnection trap or chamber between the house drain and the outfall. ”

“ Yard and Area Drains.—The draining of the surface of the yard or other areas is done by tile or iron pipes connecting with the sewer or house drain in the cellar. The "bell" or the "lip" traps are to be condemned and should not be used for yard drains. The gully and trap should be made of one piece; the trap should be of the siphon type and should be deep enough in the ground to prevent the freezing of seal in winter. ”

“ Yards and areas should always be properly graded, cemented, flagged, or well paved, and properly drained; when the drain is connected with the house-drain, it must be effectively trapped. Front-area drains must, where practicable, be connected with the house-drain inside of the running trap.
50. Cellar and foundation walls must, where possible, be rendered impervious to dampness, and the use of asphaltum or coal-tar pitch, in addition to hydraulic cement, is recommended for that purpose.
51. No privy-vault or school-sink will be allowed in any cellar or basement ”

“ They are of various forms. In the traps represented below it will be seen that there must always be a certain quantity of water maintained to bar the way against the escape of the gas from the drain or sewer. When additional liquid is conveyed to the trap, there is, of course, an overflow into the drain. In older types of drains the gas was prevented from escaping by a metal plate thrown obliquely over the drain mouth and dipping into the water in the vessel beyond it.
Drake, Sir Francis, an English navigator, born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in 1539, or according to some authorities in 1545. ”

“ Wherever one stream flows into another, there must be more or less interruption of the course of each. If the water from the minors enters the main with a quick fall, the danger of obstruction in the minor, at least, is much lessened. A frequent cause of partial failure of drains, is their not having been laid with a regular inclination. If, instead of a gradual and uniform fall, there should be a slight rising in the bed of a drain, the descending water will be interrupted there till it accumulate so high as to be above the level of the rising. ”

“ If we are sure that a drain has been well laid, we need feel no anxiety because it fails to take the water from the ground so completely as it should do, until it settles into a flow of clear water after the heaviest storms.
In the case of art actual stoppage, which will generally be indicated by the "bursting out" of the drain, i.e., the wetting of the land as though there were a spring under it, or as though its water had no underground outlet, (which is the fact,) it will be necessary to lay open the drain until the obstruction is found. ”

“ This is a practice on which we do not look with much complacency; it is the compromise between cost and security, to which the affairs of men are so often compelled. No doubt, a conduit from three to six inches in diameter is much less subject to a breach in its continuity than one which is smaller; but, when no collars are used, the pipes should be laid with extreme care, and the bed which is prepared for them at the bottom of the drain should be worked to their size and shape with great accuracy. ”

“ They are unnecessary to the operation of the drain, and they allow the water to come in, in currents, on to the top of the pipes, in heavy storms or showers, and so endanger their security. The practice of placing stones above the tiles is abandoned by all scientific drainers.
We have, in England, seen straw placed over the joints of pipes, but it seems an inconvenient and insecure practice. Long straw cannot be well placed in such narrow openings, and it is likely to sustain the earth enough, so that when thrown in, it will not settle equally around the pipes ”

“ The only kind of earthenware drains which ought to be permitted inside a house are glazed socketed pipes, well formed, well kilned, and properly laid down, the whole of the pipes having been set on a concrete bed, and afterwards covered over with properly made concrete, so as to prevent any possibility of sewage reaching the subsoil, and especially water-tanks. It is not every glazed socketed drain-pipe that is fit for laying down, for the most abominably shaped pipes are often met with. ”

“ It must be remembered that wherever along a line of drainage you get stagnation there must be putrefaction, and it must be borne in mind that every 'trap' which is a contrivance for ensuring stagnation is necessarily a place where putrefaction is liable to take place. Traps may keep back the smell of the street sewer in house pipes, but it must never be forgotten that they are undesirable evils in themselves. ”

“ It has been argued that surface water will be more readily removed by drains having porous filling. Even if this were true to any important degree,—which it is not,—it would be an argument against the plan, for the remedy would be worse than the disease. If the water flow from the surface down into the drain, it will not fail to carry dirt with it, and instead of the clear water, which alone should rise into the tiles from below, we should have a trickling flow from above, muddy with wasted manure and silty earth. ”

“ Remembering that on the map, the line of steepest descent is exactly perpendicular to the contour lines of the land, it will be profitable to study carefully the system of drains first laid out, erasing and making alterations wherever it is found possible to simplify the arrangement.
Strictly speaking, all angles are, to a certain extent, wasteful, because, if two parallel drains will suffice to drain the land between them, no better drainage will be effected by a third drain running across that land. ”

“ Very often, drains are filled up and ruined by these deposits; and, unless the fall be considerable, and the drain be laid with even descent, if earth of any kind find entrance, it must endanger the permanency of the work. To guard against the admission of everything but water, lay drains deep enough to be beyond the danger of water bursting in, in streamlets. Water should enter the drain at the bottom, by rising to the level of the tiles, and not by sinking from the surface directly to them. If the land is sandy, great care must be used. ”

“ Whether, in a particular case, a header alone will be sufficient to cut off the flow of water from the higher land, or whether, in addition to the header, an open catch-water may be required, must depend upon the quantity of water likely to flow through or upon the land. An under-drain might be expected to absorb any moderate quantity of what may be termed drainage-water, but it cannot stop a river or mill-stream; and if the earth above the tiles be compact, even water flowing through the soil with rapidity, might pass across it. ”

“ All those who wish to live in a healthful house, will adopt this tubular system of house-drainage; but those who cannot or will not have a perfect drain, may adopt a small part of the modern tubular system with great advantage and at a trifling cost. At present, the great majority of drains open directly into the common sewer, and act as chimnies for the conveyance of poisonous gases into the interior of the houses, the water-traps only partially preventing this evil. ”

“ I would anticipate this class of obstruction, if from the nature of the land there was reason to expect it, by increasing the fall in the drains and having traps more frequent, where the main outlets are at a distance to render them necessary. In my opinion, the roots of trees are the great intruders to be guarded against, and more particularly the soft-wooded sorts, such as poplars, willows, alders, &c. The distance of a drain from a tree ought always to be equal to the height of the latter. ”

“ It may be pointed out here that these expressions are defined by the act, the effect of the definitions being shortly that a drain is a conduit for the drainage of one building or of several within the same curtilage, while a sewer comprises every kind of drain except that which is covered by the definition of a drain as above stated. The result has been that district councils frequently find themselves in the position of being responsible for the repair and condition of drains which, by reason of having been laid for more than one house, are sewers vested in and repairable by them. ”

“ By some it was urged that drainage is necessary to lessen the chance of the earthwork slipping. Others contended that any drain which penetrates the dam must facilitate the percolation of water from the reservoir. It is clear that some of the speakers regarded the dam downstream of the core-wall as being partly staunch, and some as being wholly support. If for any reason there seems a chance of water leaking through the core-wall, it is desirable to regard the earth-filling next to it as staunch. ”

“ It is much cheaper to measure over the surface than to dig four feet trenches through the ground.
[pg 144] CHAPTER V. - HOW TO TAKE CARE OF DRAINS AND DRAINED LAND. So far as tile drains are concerned, if they are once well laid, and if the silt-basins have been emptied of silt until the water has ceased to deposit it, they need no care nor attention, beyond an occasional cleaning of the outlet brook. Now and then, from the proximity of willows, or thrifty, young, water-loving trees, a drain will be obstructed by roots ”

“ Thousands of drains, now existing, have been made of such porous bricks, and these have been placed side by side with such an unadhesive layer of dirt, that instead of acting as an impervious tube through which the soil could pass to its destination, the common sewer, the bottom of the drain acts as a mere filter for its contents. ”

“ Shedd and Edson, of Boston, have superintended some drainage works in Milton, Mass., where, after obtaining permission to drain through the land of an adjacent owner, not interested in the operation, they could obtain but three inches fall in one hundred feet, or a half inch to the rod, for three quarters of a mile, and this only by blasting the ledges at the outlet. This fall, however, proves sufficient for perfect drainage, and by their skill, a very unhealthful swamp has been rendered fit for gardens and building-lots. ”

“ The idea was, that this tile, standing on narrow feet, and pressed by the weight of the refilled soil, sank into the floor of the drain; whereas, in fact, the floor of the drain rose into the tile. Any one at all conversant with collieries is aware that when a strait work (which is a small subterranean tunnel six feet high and four feet wide or thereabouts) is driven in coal, the rising of the floor is a more usual and far more inconvenient occurrence than the falling of the roof: the weight of the two sides squeezes up the floor. ”

“ We confess to some original misgivings that a pipe resting only on an inch at each end, and lying hollow, might prove weak and liable to fracture by weight pressing on it from above; but the fear was illusory. Small particles of soil trickle down the sides of every drain, and the first flow of water will deposit them in the vacant space between the two collars. The bottom, if at all soft, will also swell up into any vacancy. ”

“ Under this decision it is not easy to see how a man can lawfully cut a rod of ditch or lay tile on his own land, unless he can contrive some way to stop the flow of water.
1. The lower man may recover without proving that he is damaged because to drain is "wrongful."
2. Such drainage being a continuing trespass, subjects the perpetrator to never ending law suits and foredoomed defeats.
3. The lower man may forbid you to drain, or exact such tribute as he may dictate. ”

“ And so it is as to the regular inclination of the bottom of drains. It is desirable not only to have an inclination all the way, but a regular inclination, as nearly as possible, especially if the descent be small. Workmen are very apt to work at a uniform depth from the surface, and so give the bottom of the drain the same variations as the surface line; and thus at one point there may be a fall of one inch in a rod ”

“ If we suppose the ground saturated with water, and our drains running up the slope and stopping at 4 feet depth, with no header connecting them, they, in effect, stop against 4 feet head of water, and in order to drain the land as far up as they go, must not only take their fair proportion of water which lies between them, but must draw down this 4 feet head beyond them. This they cannot do, because the water from a higher source, with the aid of capillary attraction, and the friction or resistance met with in percolation, will keep up this head of water far above the drained level. ”

“ The chimney-flues are also badly constructed, and a smoky atmosphere is all but constant. Overcrowding lends its quota of evils—as press-beds in every available corner testify. The drain-pipes are injudiciously laid inside instead of outside the basement, with leaky joints, owing to indifferent luting, and with pipes broken where they pass through the walls, owing to continuous settlement. A foul soakage of the soil around the unpuddled pipes speedily follows. The lead-work is also defective, dishonestly executed with thinnest material, badly junctioned to the drains ”