Gutter (drainage)

“ Walks and drives should be laid in such direction that they will tend to drain themselves; but if it is necessary to have gutters, these should be deep and sharp at the bottom, for the water then draws together and tends to keep the gutter clean. A shallow and rounded brick or cobble gutter does not clean itself; it is very likely to fill with weeds, and vehicles often drive in it. The best gutters and curbs are now made of cement. Figure 72 shows a catch basin at the left of a walk or drive, and the tile laid underneath for the purpose of carrying away the surface water. ”

“ The exhalations, from so large an extent of surface, from the plants, and from the breath of the innumerable visitors, rising and condensed against the glass, would descend from a flat roof in the form of a perpetual mist, but it is found that from glass pitched at a particular angle the moisture does not fall, but glides down its surface. The bottom bars are therefore grooved on the inside, thus forming interior gutters, by which the moisture also finds its way down the interior of the columns, through the drainage pipes, into the sewers. ”

“ The heavy storms and showers fill the surface soil beyond saturation, and the water gushes out, literally, into the cellars and other low places. A dry well, sunk through the clay, conducts this water into the gravel bed, and this carries it away. This idea is often applied to land drainage. It is believed that there are immense tracts of fertile land at the West, upon limestone, where the surface might readily be relieved of surplus water, by conducting the mains into wells dug for the purpose. ”

“ Semicircular or V-shaped gutters shall be constructed in such manner that a gutter shall be placed so as to receive all liquid matter from each stall, and each of these gutters to connect with the public sewer or with a main gutter of the same construction, which in turn shall be connected with the public sewer or public drain. All openings from drains into sewers shall be protected by a metal grating having openings not more than one-half inch between the gratings. ”

“ The advantages of disposing of the water in this way, dispensing with the gutters, are its economy and its permanence. Whatever the material may be of which they are made, gutters attached to the eaves or roof cause more or less trouble and expense from the time they are put in place till the house is given up to the owls and the bats. They are liable to be corroded by rust, to be clogged with leaves and dust, to be choked with ice, or to become loosened from their fastenings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a soil were perfectly saturated with water, that is, held as much water in suspension as possible to hold without draining off, and drains were laid at a proper depth from the surface, and in sufficient number to take off all surplus water, then the entire rain-fall upon the surface would be water of drainage—presuming, of course, the land to be level, and the air at saturation, so as to prevent evaporation. ”

“ Provision must be made at the roof for keeping foreign matters out of the rain-water pipes. Leaves, soot, and dirt will accumulate round the pipe orifices, and very often will cause the gutter to be flooded during a storm. The usual way to avert this is to fix over the opening of the pipe in the bottom of the gutter a galvanised open wire half-globe, or a raised cap of thick lead pierced with tolerably large holes. The cost for this is trifling, but the value is great. Whenever rain-water pipes must run down the inside wall of a house, lead should be adopted. ”

“ He states, that there are large tracts of land having clay soil, with sand or gravel beneath the clay, which yet need drainage, and suggests that this may be effected by merely boring frequent holes, and filling them with pebbles, without ditches. In all such soils, if the mode suggested prove insufficient, large wells of proper depth, stoned up, or otherwise protected, might obviously serve as cheap and convenient outlets for a regular system of pipe or stone drains. ”

“ As Daddy walked out of the front gate, he turned to wave good-bye to Mama and Marcella and then he saw something.
Daddy came right back into the house and called up the men who had put in the new shiny tin gutters.
"The drain pipe is plugged up. Some of you must have left shavings or something in the eaves, and it has washed down into the pipe, so that the water pours over the gutter in sheets!"
"We will send a man right up to fix it!" the men said. ”

“ The town is well lighted with gas, and the water-supply, from reservoirs on the Yarra a few miles above, is plentiful, but not good for drinking. There Is no underground drainage system. All the sewage is carried away in huge open gutters, which run all through the town, and are at their worst and widest in the most central part, where all the principal shops and business places are situated. These gutters are crossed by little wooden bridges every fifty yards. When it rains, they rise to the proportion of small torrents, and have on several occasions proved fatal to drunken men. ”

“ A consideration, too, of the varying inclinations of surface, of which instances will frequently occur in the same field, necessitates a departure from uniformity, not in direction only, but in intervals between drains. Take, for instance, the ordinary case of a field, in which a comparatively flat space will intervene between quickly rising ground and the outfall ditch. It is clear that the soak of the hill will pervade the soil of the lower ground, let the system of drainage adopted be what it may ”

“ The covering of the roof is glass, fixed between the sash-bars, which are grooved to receive it; and in order to carry off the moisture arising from condensation on the inner surface of the glass, the rafters have a small groove on each side, which makes the Paxton's gutter complete, and from which the moisture is also discharged into the main gutters. The essential portions of the roof may therefore be considered as a network of gutters; one set, the main gutters, lying in a transverse direction, and the others resting on them, and lying in the direction of the length of the building ”

“ So, in the saturated earth in a flower-pot, the earth, merely moist at the surface, is wet mud just above the water-table. So, in drained land, the capillary force which retained the water in the soil to the height of a few inches, is no longer able to sustain it, when the height is increased to feet, and a portion descends into the drain, leaving the surface comparatively dry. ”

“ This sort of drainage might suffice for all useful purposes in our dry sandy soil if we had an adequate establishment of scavengers; but the gutters in many of the streets, and in all the closes inhabited by the poor are so much neglected, that they are never free from the stinking residuum of foul water. ”

“ Sand scarcely diminishes at all in bulk by drying; but peat shrinks one-fifth in bulk, and strong agricultural clay nearly as much." By laying drains in land, we take from it that portion of the water that will run out at the bottom. The sun, by evaporation, then takes out a portion at the top. The soil is thus contracted, and, as the ends of the field cannot approach each other, [325] both soil and subsoil are torn apart, and divided by a network of cracks and fissures. ”

“ The better the fall the quicker the drain will act and the more permanent it will be, as it will tend to clean itself and not fill up with silt. It is important that the outlet be entirely free, and it should be protected with stones or mason work. The roots of some trees, particularly of willows and elms, are attracted by tile drains, and often fill up the pipes. When the drain goes near such trees, therefore, it is well to cement the joints. In general practice, however, the joints should not be cemented, because a large part of the drainage water enters at those places. ”

“ If water poured on to tiles in a stream, it would be likely to carry into these openings enough earthy matter to fill them; but the whole theory of thorough-drainage rests upon the idea of slow percolation—of the passage of water in the form of fine dew, as it were—through the motionless particles which compose the soil; and, if drains are properly laid, there can be no motion of particles of earth, either into or towards the tiles. The water should soak through the ground precisely as it does through a wet cloth. ”

“ It is well always to interrupt the direct descent of water by percolation from the surface to the top of the tiles, because, in passing so short a distance in the soil, the water is not sufficiently filtered, especially in soil so recently disturbed, but is likely to carry with it not only valuable elements of fertility, but also particles of sand, which may obstruct the drain. ”

“ This has thus far, been our own poor and unsatisfactory mode of protecting our drains. It is only better than none, but it is not permanent, and we hope to see some successful invention that may supply this want. So far as we have observed, no such precaution is used in this country; and in England, farmers and others who take charge of their own drainage works, often run their pipes into the mud in an open ditch, and trust the water to force its own passage. ”

“ A properly laid underdrain will last half a century or more, but an open drain, especially if deep, has a constant tendency to fill up. Besides, the action of frost and water and vegetation has a continual operation to obstruct open ditches. Rushes and water-grasses spring up luxuriantly in the wet and slimy bottom, and often, in a single season, retard the flow of water, so that it will stand many inches deep where the fall is slight. The slightest accident, as the treading of cattle, the track of a loaded cart, the burrowing of animals, dams up the water and lessens the effect of the drain. ”

“ Although the rain-fall in England is much less in quantity and much more regular than in this country, yet it is believed that the use of two-inch pipes will be found abundantly sufficient for the admission and conveyance of any quantity of water that it may be necessary to carry off by drainage in common soils. In extraordinary cases, as where the land drained is a swamp, or reservoir for water which falls on the hills around, larger pipes must be used. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The worst of all drains is an open ditch, of equal width from top to bottom. It cannot stand a single season, in any climate or soil, without being seriously impaired by the frosts or the heavy rains. All open drains should be sloping ”

“ In proportion to the completeness and efficiency of the means for the removal of surplus water from the soil:—in proportion, that is, to the degree in which the improved tile drainage described in these pages is adopted,—will be the completeness of the removal of the causes of disease. So far as the drying of malarious lands is concerned, it is only necessary to construct drains in precisely the same manner as for agricultural improvement. ”

“ We cannot, however, against the overwhelming weight of authority, and against the reasons for deeper drainage, which, to us, seem so satisfactory, conclude, that even three feet is, in general, deep enough for under-drains. Three-foot drains will produce striking results on almost any wet lands, but four-foot drains will be more secure and durable, will give wider feeding-grounds to the roots, better filter the percolating water, warm and dry the land earlier in Spring, furnish a larger reservoir for heavy rains, and, indeed, more effectually perform every office of drains. ”

“ One not infrequent accident causing them is a change in the soil from moisture to dryness, which may be brought about either by altered drainage or long absence of rain. The dangers which threaten a break in the earth connection by altered or improved drainage are of the most serious kind, and likely to become more so from year to year. Not only the soil of our towns and cities, but even that of our villages, and the fields themselves, is getting ever more honeycombed by drain-pipes, until almost every drop of moisture is sucked out of the ground. ”

“ A paved channel, gutter, or water table is of the greatest use to a roadway, besides adding greatly to its appearance. Without such a channel the haunches of a road become sadly damaged by the wash of the surface water, which is sometimes so extreme as to undermine the kerb and cause it to fall out.
These channel gutters are made of different materials for macadamised roads, granite setts laid in the direction of the gutter being the best. A channel gutter should not be less than 18 inches wide, so that if made with ordinary 3-inch setts, 6 courses will be necessary ”

“ Draining, followed by subsoiling, lets down the falling water at once through the soil, leaving the root bed of the plants so free from moisture, that the earth is not "heaved," as the term is, and the plants retain their natural position, and awaken refreshed in the Spring by their Winter's repose.
There are no open ditches on under-drained land. An open ditch in a tillage or mowing-field, is an abomination. It compels us, in plowing, to stop, perhaps midway in our field ”