" My attention has been drawn to some illustrations of defective plumbing, recalling to my mind several jobs of similar condition which I have seen while at work in buildings in this city. It is possible, however, that you have had illustrations of exactly the same defects as I now inclose you sketches of. In Figure 7 the original job had been done with but one trap - i. e., that of the water-closet. On overhauling it had been air-piped, and the two remaining fixtures trapped and left in condition you see. In Figure 8 the hopper is made with side-outlet a, and the vent is run from it to the roof, a trap-vent on the same story connecting with it."

Figure 9, from a town in Virginia, is a very good example of the mischief of connecting a bath-tub waste-pipe with the trap of a water-closet, for the evil was so manifest it could not be overlooked. The waste-pipe from the bath was itself untrapped, but connected with the heel of the trap under the closet. The pipe was so nearly level that at all times it was full of the nasty fluids of the water-closet, and a discharge of the latter was pretty sure to throw part of this nasty matter up into the bath. It is a cardinal rule in plumbing that a bath and basin should always connect with the waste-system of the house separately from the water-closet, or at least that they should never connect with the trap of the closet, when their waste-pipes have to be nearly horizontal, as in almost every case they are. This illustration shows in an unusually forcible way the reasonableness of the rule.

Figure 8.

Figure 9.

The method of doing work shown in Figure 10 is an old acquaintance. This connecting of an overflow-pipe from a fixture to the waste-pipe in such a way as to make the trap of no use is forever turning up in different combinations. Sometimes, when it is not the overflow, it is a ventilating-pipe from the container of a closet, or some other pipe from a fixture which is perversely arranged to let in bad air. The wash-basin we show was found in a row of houses, whose plumbing generally was miserably done, in a town in Massachusetts. There was no trap on the house-drain, and hence gases from the sewer as well as from house-drainage system had free inlet through the overflow of the basin, which was connected with its waste-pipe outside of the trap-seal, as our illustration shows. Thus the trap was to all intents and purposes effectually done away with, and an open-pipe connection laid on to the sewer.

In Figure 11, which should be compared with Figure 15, the workman tried to remove foul air from the casing around the water-closet with equal disregard of consequences. A short branch from the soil-pipe was carried through the casing and left open, with the idea that the up-draught in the soil-pipe would draw the air from the casing into the pipe, but the usual result followed. The soil-pipe air frequently came out of the branch into the casing and room.

Figure 10.

Figure 11.

Figure 12 shows what clumsiness did in a house on Second Avenue, in New York City. An old pan-closet, in a dark, unventilated central room, such as is common in many New York houses, had been filling the hall with a terrible odor for some time. Finally the owner of the house sent a plumber to fix it. The cause of the smells then became plain enough. Under the closet was a safe, and from this safe led a waste-pipe into the heel of the water-closet trap. The level of the safe was but little above the top of the trap, which had been partially clogged up by things thrown into the closet. The result was that every time the handle of the closet was pulled, the discharge from the pan caused a jet of filth to shoot up from the trap through the safe-waste into the safe. This was practically illustrated by the plumber who was sent to make repairs, and it had gone on until the safe had filled, overflowed onto the floor, and leaked down between the floor-beams. The whole space inside the closet-casing was a wet mass of nastiness, which had filled the upper floors of the house with foul smells for several weeks. Yet this so-called plumber insisted that the work in this house was a good job !

Figure 13 shows an arrangement even worse than the former. In this case the waste-pipe from the safe under the water-closet was taken directly into the soil-pipe, completely neutralizing the trap under the water-closet, and giving an opening for the foul air in the soil-pipe to enter the space within the water-closet casing, not shown in the drawing, whence it would readily enter the water-closet room and spread through the house.

Figure 14 was discovered by a well-known master plumber of New York City. It is drawn to represent the condition which he found when called in to discover and remove the cause of foul smells which permeated a residence in the fashionable quarter.

Figure 12.

Figure 13.

Figure 14.