House-Drainage.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 388, 15 October 1903, Page 3

House-Drainage.

:~+ ; j In a lecture recently delivered by Mr GAT Middleton, a well-known J London architect, much valuable inJ formation was given. He stated that I the modern system of house-drainage ( was practically unknown fifteen years I ago, and utterly unknown twenty years ago, the pioneer work having been really done during the past decade. After pointing out the importance of stoaight drains when necessity placed them under a house, and the reason why they should be efficiently trapped and ventilated, the lecturer expressed a preference for thick iron pipes instead of the earthenware tubes generally employed. He quoted a case in which the ordinary drain-pipes, laid by one of the best-known sanitary engineers, ! began to leak in less than twelve I months, and at the end or five years had to be entirely relaid. Iron, unless the pipes were very thick, would rust; but it was better to lay a drain which one knew would go wrong in forty or fifty years than one which would go in five years. Such pipes should not be less than six inches in diameter. Although some of the house-drainage in London left much to be desired, the Continent was quite fifty years behind it in the matter of sanitation.