(Published In 1894.)

The Wainwright Building is a 10-story fireproof office structure situated at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, St. Louis, Mo. In general dimensions it is about 117x127 feet and in plan it is U-shaped, being divided into one front and two rear sections by a long open court 30x75 feet in the rear. In the basement are the engines, elevator machinery, plumbing, heating, and power plant, and some rooms available for rental. In the attic are a barber shop and toilet-rooms, storage and pipe chambers, and janitor's apartments, while the rest of the building is devoted to offices and suites of offices. 210 in all. Each office has a washbowl supplied with hot and cold water, and there are slopsinks on every floor, general toilet-rooms in the attic, detached closets and urinals in several stories, and ordinary kitchen and bathroom plumbing in the janitor's apartments. The total list of fixtures comprises 37 water-closets, 15 urinals, 226 washbowls, 11 slopsinks, one common sink and one drip sink, two bathtubs, and three washtrays. The toilet-rooms and washbowls are fitted up with nickel-plated piping, white marble slabs, and polished-oak cabinet-work. Main lines of water pipes are all of galvanized iron, and connections to faucets, traps, and vents are made with lead branches. The soil and vent pipes are subjected to a water-pressure test, and the general features and specifications of the system and workmanship were those usual in standard modern practice - exposed connections, accessible pipe lines, careful trap and local ventilation, and simple direct arrangement and the use of very strong and heavy materials being the principal features of the work, which was executed on a contract price of about $25,000.

PLUMBING IN THE WAINWRIGHT OFFICE BUILDING, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Water from the street mains is received through a 4-inch pipe C, Fig. 1, and passing through two 3-inch Worthington meters A A is delivered to the Jewell filter B, which discharges through pipe D to the 8x5-foot suction tank H, which supplies the pump through its suction pipe G. F is an overflow pipe and I is a water glass. A special 2-inch meter L is provided to record the supply to the steam boilers through pipe J. but it can be cut out and the supply taken through pipe K.

Two duplicate Smith-Vaile duplex pumps are connected to pipe G for house and fire service and are cross-connected with two 7"x5"x10" boiler feed pumps, so that each of the four is available for any part of the duty. A 5-inch fire line rises to the roof in each wing of the building, and at every floor has Ico feet of 2 inch hose connected as shown in Fig. 2. These lines are under tank pressure through check valves and there is an automatic governor to start the pump whenever the pressure in them falls below 70 pounds.

The boiler feed pumps are controlled by automatic regulating valves operated by float attachments, and the house pumps are controlled by Fisher gravity governors, both automatically regulating the supply of steam so that they will begin and stop pumping when the water reaches the required levels. The suction and discharge headers of the tank pumps are so connected as to be available for re-enforcing the elevator pumps when special service, such as lifting safes, etc., is required. The tank pumps normally discharge into a 5,000-gallon iron roof tank, from which a 4-inch distributing pipe is carried along the attic floor and supplies 13 vertical lines of 1½-inch pipe which descends to the different groups of fixtures, and a separate 2-inch pipe that feeds a hot-water boiler 4 feet in diameter and 10 feet long, from which a riser goes to the attic and there distributes downwards to a system of vertical pipes, supplying washbowls, etc., similarly to the above-mentioned cold-water lines, and adjacent to them. These pipes have a circulation connection at their bottoms to the boiler, and are all accessible throughout by panel doors in the walls. The boiler contains two 18-foot coils of 3½-inch brass pipe, so connected as to be supplied at will with either live or exhaust steam to heat the water.

Figure 3 is a diagram plan of one of the office floors, showing the arrangement of rooms and the location of washbowls, which are set in pairs, each supplied by separate vertical pipes. Local ventilation for all the toilet-rooms is secured through galvanized;iron ducts exhausting into an attic chamber, where a 25 horse-power Eddy electric motor drives two steel-cased 90-inch Buffalo blowers which discharge the foul air out through the roof.

The ventilating fans consist of a duplex Buffalo 100-inch steel-plate machine, which is in reality two 100-inch pulley fans, but both driven by a common driving pulley. These machines are regularly built with 45¾-inch round inlets and 37¼-inch square outlets, the diameter of the blast wheel inside of the casing being 71 inches; width, 35¾ inches. There is also employed one 50-inch Buffalo upblast left-hand steel plate exhauster. This machine has an inlet 24¾" inches in diameter and a square 18½-inch outlet, with blast wheel 36 inches in diameter by 17'½ inches wide.

The soil pipes are all enlarged one size at the top and project about 3 feet above the roof, through which they pass with an expansion jointed flashing shown in Fig. 4, which indicates the construction and operation too clearly to need further explanation.

Charles K. Ramsey, of St. Louis, is the architect, Adler & Sullivan, of Chicago, associated. The plumbing was installed by F. Abel & Co., of St. Louis.