IN CONSIDERING the plumbing for court houses, a type of building is selected similar to the thousands which will be required in the numerous counties of the various States which have their county seats in cities of moderate size.

Buildings of this kind are used, not only for court proceedings, but likewise, in many cases, as places of public assemblage, where political speeches, concerts, lectures and other entertainments are held. To accommodate such meetings, a large assembly room, with a raised platform to serve as a stage, is generally provided, and a couple of retiring rooms, one on each side of the platform, which may be used as dressing rooms, will be found desirable. In each of these retiring rooms a lavatory should be installed for the benefit of those taking part in entertainments and requiring the use of a dressing room.

On court days, as well as on other occasions, a great many people resort to the court house and a general toilet room should be provided for their use. In addition to the general toilet room, semi-private toilet accommodations should be provided on each floor of the building for the use of clerks and other employees, while the judges' rooms and jury rooms should each have a private toilet compartment communicating with it for the exclusive use of the occupants of that room.

Throughout the building, on the various floors, will be located the various offices of the county officials, and these parts of the building partake of the nature of an office building to such an extent that a lavatory should be provided in each single office room or suite of rooms.

No building of this character would be complete without drinking fountains being provided on the several floors, and the drinking fountains should be supplied only with sterile drinking water which has been well filtered on the premises, unless the public water supply has already been filtered and is otherwise wholesome. The drinking water may likewise be cooled by passing through a coil located in an ice box.

Fire lines should be liberally provided in all kinds of public buildings where people assemble in large numbers, and numerous lengths of hose should be disposed at convenient points so as to be readily accessible in case of fire. In order that there will be an adequate and uninterrupted supply of water in case of fire, the water-supply should be well proportioned and a large main extended into the building from the street.

Fig. 96 Basement Plan of Courthouse

Slop sinks will be found indispensable in a court house, and one should be provided on each floor of the building. They may well be located in a closet set aside for the janitor.

In some court houses, such, for instance, as are quite a distance from the police station or jail, it might be found advisable to construct a cell or room for the safe keeping of prisoners when not attending court. When such is the case the cell should be provided with a water closet and lavatory for the accommodation of the prisoners.

Hot-water supply will be found desirable in a court house, the same as in other kinds of office buildings, so a heater and tank should be provided for this purpose.

The plumbing layout for the basement floor of a court house is shown in Fig. 96. In this installation the rain water could not be discharged into the sewers, so it is conducted through separate rainwater systems to the curb, where it discharges into the street gutter.

On this floor is located an assembly room, with two retiring or dressing rooms, in each of which is a lavatory. Besides these lavatories there are in different parts of the basement two general toilet rooms - one for men and the other for women - a drinking fountain, a slop sink, fire lines, hot, cold and circulation pipes, water heater, hot-water tank, filters and water cooler.

A plan of the first floor of the building is shown in Fig. 97. This floor contains besides the two toilet rooms, one for men and one for women, a janitor's closet containing a slop sink, a drinking fountain, lavatories scattered throughout the various offices and stand pipes or fire lines with hose reels and hose.

Fig. 97 First Floor Plan of Courthouse

It might be well to point out that the plans for a court house shown in this work are not the architectural plans of the building, but only the plumbing plans to be used in connection with the architectural plans, from which the outlines of the plumbing plans were traced. The original plans are much fuller and more complete in detail as well as in measurements, all of which were omitted from the plumbing plan as having no bearing on the matter.

In Fig. 98 is shown a plan of the second floor of the building; it will be observed that the judges' rooms, adjoining the court rooms, are each provided with a private toilet room, and each lavatory-is supplied not only with hot and cold water but likewise with cooled drinking water. Outside of the judges' toilet rooms there are no plumbing fixtures on this floor except the drinking fountain and two general toilet rooms. It will be observed, however, that in the women's toilet compartment there is a closet compartment containing the slop sink for this floor, there being no other convenient place to locate it. The fire lines extend to this floor and are provided with hose reels and hose, and outlets have been left in the various office rooms through which stacks pass for the future connection of lavatories.

Fig. 98 Second Floor Plan of Courthouse

The third floor of the building is a duplicate of the second floor, so far as the plumbing work is concerned, for which reason it is omitted from this work.

This completes, so far as the architectural requirements in the way of plumbing are concerned, the floor plans for a court-house building. A plumbing plan would not be complete, however, without details of the various parts and groups of fixtures. Space will not permit showing them all, but one sheet of details, which will indicate the requirements along this line, is illustrated in Fig. 99.

This sheet of details, at the extreme left, shows the way the main toilet room stack is to be run. It will be well to compare this detail with the one shown in Fig. 69, which shows the detail of a soil and vent stack in a hotel building. In the detail Fig. 69, it will be noticed that nothing but the bare stacks are shown. That was because on account of there being two bath rooms, one on each side of the stacks, it was found much simpler and clearer to show the stacks only in one detail, and the plan and elevation of the roughing-in for the bath rooms in two separate details, Figs. 70 and 71. In the present example, on the other hand, the work was of such a nature that one detail served for both the vertical stacks and horizontal branches, and shows them in their proper relation to each other. When this method can be followed it is the better one to adopt, but the entire layout cannot always be shown in one detail. When such is the case, the designer should make as many drawings as are necessary to show fully how the work is to be done, for that really is the object of plans and details.

Fig. 99 Plumbing Details for Courthouse

In the present example, all the work could not be shown on the one detail, for there were fixtures to to be provided for outside of those shown in the groups. In order to show how the pipe for those other fixtures was to run, it was necessary to make the three additional details shown in the center of the sheet. The plan view shows the run of pipe to the closets, the slop sink and lavatories, and the outlet in the stacks for the drinking fountains in the corridors. The second detail shows the elevation of waste and vent pipes for the slop sink and lavatories on the second and third floors, while the bottom detail shows how the waste and vent pipes are to be run to the lavatories on the first floor. As these details are all drawn to scale, the estimator can take his quantities direct from them, while the plumber when installing the work will save a great deal of time by not having to study out how the pipes are to be run and where located. Doubt and uncertainty take up as much of the plumbers' time on complicated work as does the actual time of installing the pipe; for, it must be remembered, it is the function of the workman to do work as planned, not to plan the work, and when the designer has failed the plumber must not be blamed for requiring time.

Another feature of the details that may well be observed, is the sizes of pipes, both water and drainage, where they are shown. That is the real object of plumbing plans. To show fully and completely by numerous drawings just how the various pipes are to be run, and to show likewise the exact size of each piece of pipe.