Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/332

318 directly through the soil-pipes to the tops of the houses? The reply to this is, that where there are properly constructed self-cleansing sewers, having no cess-pool connections, and the house connections of which are made under the control of the engineer having charge of the sewers, it is well to omit the trap between house and sewer, and let the latter ventilate directly through the soil-pipes; but exception should be made to this where the top of a soil-pipe would be on a level with or below the windows of inhabited rooms in a neighboring house. When the house-drains are connected with a cess-pool, or with a sewer presenting the characters of a cess-pool, it is safer to insert the trap; in which case there should always be a fresh-air opening between the trap and the house. If the pipes and fixtures in a house are properly arranged, and the joints are all tight, there is very little risk to the inhabitants of the house itself in having a direct connection with an ordinary sewer without a trap; the danger really being to the inhabitants of neighboring houses. On the other hand, if the trap between the sewer and the house be properly inserted, it creates no risk of danger or nuisance in the house to which it is applied, and costs little. The argument that it checks discharges from the house and tends to produce deposit in the horizontal part of the soil-pipes next to it on the



house side, is unsound if this part of the pipe has a proper fall and the top of the trap is six inches below the pipe; for I have examined pipes which had been twelve years in use under such circumstances, and found no deposit worth speaking of. A proper form of trap between house and sewer, with fresh-air inlet, is shown in Fig 3. The question is of more importance taken in connection with the ventilation of sewers by street openings as