If the pipes are found to be frozen on a cold morning, all rash measures should be avoided. With lead pipes, a slight bulge will generally show the location of the trouble, and examination should be made to see whether the pipe has burst. If no hole or crack can be discovered, preparations may safely be made for thawing it out. This process ordinarily consists in soaking cloths in hot water, and applying them to the affected spot; but equally good results can be obtained, with much less trouble, by setting a lamp, or an oil stove, near or under any part of the frozen pipe, trusting to conduction to carry the heat to the place where it is needed. If not even a bulged place can be found, the freezing is not likely to be serious, and may be treated by simply warming the room with an oil stove, or in any other convenient way. The washers of compression-cocks often freeze to their seats on a cold morning, and are readily released in this manner.

Frozen pipes.

If a hole or crack is found in a frozen pipe, the water should be shut off from that pipe, or, on the thawing of the ice, the room may be deluged; and the plumber may then be sent for to mend the pipe with a few drops of solder, or by putting in a new one, as the case may require. It is by no means a difficult matter for an amateur, in case of need, to scrape clean the surface of a lead or brass pipe around a small leak, and apply solder, with the aid of a copper "soldering-bolt," fitted with a wooden handle, and heated red hot in the kitchen stove, or even with a red-hot poker; but the water must be shut off from the ailing pipe, and the ice thawed, or the steam produced by the contact of the hot solder with the ice or water will blow the solder away, perhaps to the injury of the operator. The solder will stick to a lead pipe without any preparation except scraping the lead; but, when brass pipes are treated, it is necessary, after scraping the brass, to heat the pipe about the leak, by rubbing it with the hot soldering copper, and then apply a little solution of chloride of zinc, otherwise known as "soldering-fluid," or rub over the place, while hot, with a "soldering-stick," composed of rosin, wax, and other ingredients, which can be obtained of any dealer in electricians' supplies. After this, by rubbing on some melted solder with the hot copper, it can generally be made to adhere.

If, as occasionally happens, the water in the brass pipes connecting the water-front of the range with the copper bath-boiler, or the water in the bath-boiler itself, or in the pipes rising from the top of it, should freeze, great care should be taken in making a fire in the range. Even a small fire will make the water in the water-front boil if there is no circulation to keep down the temperature; and the boiling of the water, when the escape of steam is prevented by ice in the pipes or boiler, is very dangerous. It is always safest to maintain a fire in the range through very cold nights, so as to keep the water warm and in circulation; but, if this precaution is neglected, and water, after a cold night, will not flow from the sediment cock usually placed on the lower pipe connecting the boiler and the water-front, no fire should be made in the range until the pipes have been thawed out, by a lamp or otherwise, so that water will run from the sediment cock; and, even then, the fire should be small, and closely watched, until the upper part of the boiler is hot to the hand, showing that it is filled with warm water, which will soon make its way through the pipes above.

In the present age of open plumbing, the housekeeper's cares are materially increased by the multiplicity of exposed pipes, traps, and other metal-work which must be kept in order. In old houses, the supply and waste pipes are still covered by wooden casings, but these casings, enclosing a warm, dark, and moist space, form the favorite shelter of spiders and water-bugs, and the modern system of having everything exposed is much to be preferred. Usually, the faucets and supply-pipes, with the traps, waste and air pipes above the floor, in bath-rooms, are nickel-plated, as are also the towel-racks, sponge-baskets, soap-trays, mirror-frames, and other bath-room adjuncts which look so pretty in the dealer's show-room. If all these nickel-plated objects are wiped two or three times a week, they can be kept bright for years; but, if neglected, they soon grow dull, and ultimately become covered with a repulsive greenish gray oxide, which cannot be removed without taking the plating with it, leaving the copper or brass exposed. Many devices are current for meeting this difficulty. In very costly houses the faucets, pipes, and traps are sometimes plated with gold, at an enormous expense; and silver-plating is also employed, at much less expense, but without great advantage, as the silver tarnishes by exposure to gas and bath-room vapors, and the rubbing necessary to keep it bright soon wears off the plating, which is softer than a plating of nickel. Silver-plating is, however, desirable for the plugs and chains of laundry wash-trays, as the nickel commonly used soon corrodes, and stains the clothes, left soaking in the trays, with a green color; while silver, even if tarnished, will not stain anything in contact with it.

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The care of pipes.

Next, perhaps, to gold-plating, the most costly, as well as most beautiful treatment for pipes and other bath-room metal-work consists in a coating of ivory-white celluloid enamel, which is applied also to the seats and covers of water-closets if desired. By painting the wooden cistern overhead of the same color, everything in the bathroom may be white and shining, giving a very pretty effect. Attempts have been made to obtain somewhat similar results by coating pipes and traps with a vitreous enamel similar to that used for bath-tubs, but they have not yet been very successful.

On account of the difficulty of keeping nickel-plating bright, and the cost of satisfactory substitutes, houses are occasionally fitted with pipes and traps of plain brass, which must, of course, be frequently polished, but is bright and attractive when kept in good order. A better material for the purpose is German silver, or one of the white metals made by the manufacturers of plumbers' brass goods. Although these white metals tarnish, they do so slowly, and when kept bright their appearance is better than that of brass.