Rural Hygiene Part 6

CHAPTER V

_QUANt.i.tY OF WATER REQUIRED FOR DOMESTIC USE_

Until the last few years it has been a sad commentary on the intelligence of the average farmer that but few attempts have been made to supply the farmhouse with running water, adequate to the needs of domestic use. The men of the farm long ago realized that carrying water for stock in pails was both laborious and time-consuming, and very few barnyards have not had running water leading into a trough to supply the needs of cattle. In many cases this supply has been extended into the barn, and in some cases into individual stalls, so that the farmer has long since eliminated the necessity of hauling water for his stock.

Perhaps, because the farmer did not himself carry the water, but rather his wife, he has until recently not concerned himself with any extension of the water-supply into the house, and so long as the well in the yard did not run dry, he felt that his duty had been done. To be sure, bringing water from the well to the house in mid-winter involves much exposure and sometimes real suffering; occasionally the farmer has been moved on this account to have the well located in the woodshed or on the back stoop, avoiding the long outdoor trip, but increasing the dangers of pollution to the water. It would be interesting to make a census of the farm water-supplies in any county for the purpose of estimating the intelligence of the farm-owners, since one cannot but feel that such a primitive water-supply argues, in most cases, an undeveloped or one-sided intelligence on the part of the property owner.

_Modern tendencies._

Happily, such primitive methods of bringing water to the house are being superseded by satisfactory installations, and one by one, each farmhouse is being provided with running water in the kitchen sink and with a bath-room containing all the modern conveniences. One cannot deny that this costs money, both because of the pipe line necessary to bring the water to the house and because of the plumbing fixtures required in the house. Again, a water-supply in the house involves a well-heated house, since pipes not kept warm will, in the winter, inevitably freeze, ruining the pipe line and perhaps the ceilings and walls of the house itself. But if the owner of a house has any money to expend in improvements, surely no better way of adding to the comfort and health of his family can be found. An abundant supply of water increases the self-respect of the whole family and has been known even to change the temper of an entire household. For another reason, also, it is a good investment, inasmuch as the quality of the water supplied from a spring on a hillside is, generally speaking, better than that of a well surrounded by barnyards and privies.

It has been said that the civilization of a community is measured by the amount of soap that it consumes, and it is almost the same thing to say that the refinement of a household is measured by the amount of water it uses. The poorer a family, the greater struggle it is to keep up the appearance of cleanliness, and no surer sign of rapid progress on a downhill road can be found than neglect of those practices which tend toward personal neatness. As the life of the farmer, then, becomes easier, as his condition becomes more prosperous, and as his family make more requirements, so, inevitably, is there in the farmhouse a greater demand for water in the kitchen, in the laundry, and in the bath-room.

_Quant.i.ty of water needed per person._

Just how much water is needed in any house is not easy to predict, unless, at the same time, it is known, not merely the present habits of the family, but also their capacity to respond to the refining influence of unlimited water.

It has been shown by measuring the amount of water used in families of different social standing in cities of New England that the amount of water varies directly with the habits and social usages of the family.

For example, in Newton, Ma.s.sachusetts, where there are a large number of small houses with the water-supply limited to a single faucet, it was found that the water used amounted to seven gallons per day for each person in the house, while in houses supplied with all modern conveniences, the consumption of water was at the rate of twenty-seven gallons per day for each person. In Fall River, the conditions were much the same except that the poorer houses generally had one bath-tub and one water-closet, the amount of water used being eight and a half gallons per head per day, while the most expensive house in the city used twenty-six gallons per head per day. In Boston, the poorest cla.s.s apartment houses used water at the rate of seventeen gallons per head per day, the moderate cla.s.s apartment houses at the rate of thirty-two gallons, first-cla.s.s apartment houses at the rate of forty-six gallons, and the highest cla.s.s apartment houses at the rate of fifty-nine gallons per head per day. The difference in these rates is easily understood by considering the habits of the individuals who make up the different cla.s.ses referred to. In the poorer cla.s.s of houses, the workers of the family are gone all day, and are too tired when home to spend much time in bathing. The children of such households are washed only occasionally, and the external use of water is generally regarded as an unnecessary trouble. In those families, on the other hand, where the necessity for daily toil is not so pressing, where bathing is more frequent, and where ablutions during the day are more often repeated, the amount of water used is much larger.

Another factor that affects the measured amount of water used in a family is the number of plumbing fixtures. At first sight, it would not seem possible that because there were two wash-basins in a house, an individual should use more water than if there were only one basin. Nor would it seem possible that an individual would take more baths with three bath-rooms available than if only one existed, and yet the number of fixtures does influence the individual who washes his hands frequently. With a wash-basin on the same floor, for instance, he washes often, whereas if it were always necessary to go upstairs for the purpose, his hands would go unwashed. Also, the more fixtures there are, the greater is the amount of leakage, since every faucet will, in the course of time, begin to leak unless the packing is continually replaced. The amount of leakage is, therefore, in direct proportion to the number of fixtures.

The amount of water used then, per head per day, varies from seven to sixty gallons, but only by an intimate knowledge of the habits of the household can one predict the amount of water likely to be used. Perhaps as an average in a house having a kitchen sink and a bath-room containing a wash-basin, bath-tub, and water-closet, a fair estimate of the water used would be twenty-five gallons per head per day. This amount must be multiplied by a maximum number of persons to be in the house at any time, and then this number must be increased by the amount of water used in the barn and in the yard, if these are to be supplied from the same source as the house.

_Quant.i.ty used in stables._

The amount of water used in the barn is even more than that used in the house, a variant depending on the habits of the manager. The minimum quant.i.ty needed per day is determined by the number of pailfuls of water which each head actually drinks multiplied by the number of head. But besides this there are many other uses to which water may reasonably be put in connection with stock.

On a dairy farm, there is the water needed to wash cans and bottles and in some cases to furnish a running stream of cold water for the aerator.

In some stables a large amount of water is used for washing harnesses and carriages; in others, but a small amount goes for such purposes.

Some farmers have concrete floors in cow stables and pig pens and use a hose frequently to wash these floors clean. Other stables never see a stream of water and only see a shovel at infrequent intervals. The amount of water used outside the house is too uncertain a quant.i.ty to estimate on the average, but its influence and importance must not be overlooked.

_Maximum rate of water-use._

It should now be noted that the quant.i.ty of water already referred to is the average quant.i.ty used through the twenty-four hours and does not mean the rate at which the water comes from the faucet. For example, three persons in a house use water, according to the above statement, at the rate of seventy-five gallons per day, but a whole day has 1440 minutes, and if seventy-five gallons be divided equally among the number of minutes, it means one gallon in every twenty minutes, or one quart in five minutes. It is obvious that no water-supply system for a house, designed to supply water at the average rate for the twenty-four hours would be satisfactory, since no person would care to wait all day for the amount. To wait five minutes to draw a quart of water would try the patience of any one, and while the total amount of water used in the house will be seventy-five gallons, provision must be made by which it can be drawn in small amounts at much higher rates. Practically all of the amount is used in the daylight hours or in twelve hours out of the twenty-four, so that the rate would be twice the average rate, and with this correction, two quarts of water could be drawn in five minutes.

But even this is too slow, and if one were to take a quart cup to a kitchen faucet and note the time necessary to fill the measure with the water running at a satisfactory rate, he would find that unless the cup was filled in about ten seconds it would be considered too slow a flow.

Since it is possible for more than one fixture to be in use at the same time, the pipes ought to be able to deliver the total amount running from different faucets open at the same time, and if it is considered possible for three faucets to run at once, as, for instance, the kitchen faucet, bath-room faucet, and barn faucet, then the supply pipe must be able to deliver, under our a.s.sumption, three quarts in ten seconds, or at the rate of about six thousand gallons a day. It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish carefully between the total quant.i.ty of water used per day and the rate at which such water is used.

The first of these requirements governs the size of the reservoir from which the water comes or the yield of the well or spring, or the capacity of a pump from a pond to a distributing tank; the other requirement governs the size of the pipe or faucet or the capacity of a pump which supplies direct pressure. It should be noted also that with ordinary fixtures, the rate of delivery and the corresponding sizes of the fixtures are not affected by the number of persons in the house, whereas the first requirement, that is, the total quant.i.ty of water used per day, is directly affected by the number of persons.

_Variation in maximum rates of water-use._

The quant.i.ty of water used, however, is not uniform throughout the day or the week. It is commonly known, for instance, that on Monday, or wash-day, when the well is the only supply, a great deal more water has to be carried on that day than on any other day in the week, and this same increased demand for water is made when the water comes in pipes into the house. Probably about half as much water again is used on Monday as on other days.

Again, in the hot weather of summer, more water is used for bathing and laundry purposes than in cold weather. But, on the other hand, there is a great tendency in cold weather to let the water run in a slow stream from faucets in order to prevent freezing. This has been found to just about double the amount of water used. It is only a reasonable safeguard, therefore, if it has been decided that the family needs are such as to require twenty-five gallons per head per day, to provide for double that amount in order to meet the demands of excessive daily consumption or of the hot and cold weather extremes.

_Fire streams._

If a water-supply is to be installed for any house, the possibility of providing mains of sufficient size for adequate fire protection should always be considered, although it may not be found to be a necessary expenditure. In case of a fire a large amount of water is needed for a few hours, entirely negligible if it is computed as an average for the year, but a controlling factor in determining the size of mains or the amount of storage.

A good-sized fire stream delivers about 150 gallons per minute, and for a house in flames, four streams are none too many. The rate of delivery, therefore, for a fire should be at least 600 gallons per minute or a rate of nearly a million gallons per day, and if it is a.s.sumed that the fire might burn an hour before being extinguished, 36,000 gallons of water would be used. If a spring or tank is the source of supply, the storage should be 36,000 gallons, and the pipe line from the tank to the hydrants must be large enough to freely deliver water at the rate of 600 gallons per minute. If the distance is not over 500 feet, a four-inch pipe is sufficiently large; but if the distance involved (from the reservoir or tank to the farthest hydrant) is more than about 500 feet, four-inch pipe is not large enough. This is because the friction in a large line of pipe is so great that the water cannot get through in the desired quant.i.ty. A four-inch pipe, discharging 600 gallons a minute, would need a fall of one foot in every four feet, while a six-inch pipe would need a fall of only one in thirty. Of course, if the reservoir from which the water comes is at such an elevation that the greater fall is obtainable, the smaller pipe may be used. It is more than likely, though, that the reservoir is about 3000 feet or more away, and the entire fall available only about thirty feet or one foot in one hundred.

Then an eight-inch pipe would have to be used.

Whether fire-protection piping, therefore, is a wise investment or not, depends largely on the cost of installation. A four-inch cast-iron pipe laid will cost about forty cents per running foot, while an inch pipe, large enough for everything except fires, will cost about ten cents, so that the excess cost per foot for the sake of fire protection is thirty cents, for a distance up to 500 feet (when the grade is 1 to 4) or $150.

If the grade is not 1 to 4, then the pipe must be six-inch, and the excess cost is fifty cents or the cost for 500 feet will be $250. If the distance is greater than 500 and the fall not great, so that an eight-inch pipe has to be used, the excess cost is sixty-five cents a foot, or $650 for a 1000-foot line.

It is sometimes possible to economize by building a large tank containing about 36,000 gallons and using only a small pipe to fill, but always keeping the tank full. Such a tank would contain 4800 cubic feet or would be twenty-two feet square and ten feet deep, or it may be twenty-five feet in diameter and ten feet deep. This tank would have to be erected in the air, higher up than the top of the buildings, and would require heavy supports and a great expenditure. Unless, therefore, a convenient knoll or sidehill is available on which to build a concrete tank, the large pipe direct from the water-supply must be provided for fire protection. Whether it is worth while depends on the cost of insurance and whether it is considered cheaper to pay high rates for insurance or to spend the large sum for protection. A third choice is also open, namely, to carry no insurance and to install no fire hydrants and to run the inevitable risk of losing the house by fire. Perhaps the decision is a mark of the type of man whose property is concerned.

_Rain water-supply._

It will often happen that no pond or brook is available for a water-supply, and if water is obtained, it must come directly from the rain. Apparently, this is quite feasible, since an ordinary house has about 1000 square feet area on which rain water might be caught and carried to a tank. In the eastern part of the United States, the annual rainfall is, on the average, 3-3/4 vertical inches per month, or the volume of water from the roof will be 310 cubic feet. This is nearly 80 gallons a day, or enough for three or four people. The rain from the house and barns might be combined, making perhaps 5000 square feet, and giving an ample volume of water for the needs of a dozen people.

In discussing the size of tank necessary to hold rain water for a family supply, it must be remembered that for many weeks at a time no rain occurs, and that a tank must be large enough to tide over these intervals of no rainfall. In the temperate zone there is no regularity in the monthly rates of rainfall. In the eastern part of the United States, the months of June and September are usually the months of least precipitation, although the general impression, perhaps, is that July and August have less rainfall than any other months. The truth is that, while wells and rivers are low in July and August, the actual rainfall for those months is not below the normal, and the low flows in the streams are caused by excessive evaporation and by the demands of growing crops. Although June and September have usually less rainfall than other months, in Boston the fall has been as high as 8.01 inches in June and 11.95 inches in September. Again, in Boston, typifying the eastern part of the United States, and taken because of the great length of rainfall statistics available there, the two months of highest rainfall on the average are March and August, and yet, in each month, in some particular year, the rainfall has been the lowest for any of the twelve months in the year.

As shown by statistics, the average rainfall in each month, taking a period of forty years or so, is practically constant for each month, and it is only the deviations from the average which would make trouble in a supply tank depending upon rainfall. Fortunately, statistics also show that while a month whose average rate of rainfall is three inches may be as low as three tenths of an inch, it is not often that two months of minimum rainfall come together, and in looking over the rainfall statistics the writer finds that for any three consecutive months, including the minimum, the amount of rainfall is generally two thirds of the monthly average for that year; and this is stated in this way because it gives what seems to the writer a basis for determining a fair and reasonable capacity of a rain-water storage tank. It depends, one will notice, on the average annual rainfall; that is, on the depth to which the rainfall would reach in any year if none ran off. This varies from about ten inches in the southeastern part of the United States to one hundred inches in the extreme northwest, the average for the eastern part of the country being about forty-five inches, so that the monthly average is 3.75 inches.

_Computation for rain-water storage._

With this for a basis, it may be determined how large a storage tank ought to be, a.s.suming a family of five persons using water at the average rate of 25 gallons per head per day or 125 gallons each day.

Doubling this amount to take care of emergencies and of the extra water used in hot weather, let us say that 250 gallons a day must be provided, or 7500 gallons a month. If we could be sure of starting at the beginning of any month with the tank full and that exactly thirty days would be the period of no rainfall, then a tank holding 7500 gallons would be the proper size. Unfortunately, with any month, as August, in which the rainfall may be practically zero, the preceding month may also have been so short of rain that the consumption was equal to or even more than the rainfall, and the month of August would start with no rain in the tank.

But if we take a three-month period, those inequalities will be averaged and the supply will be, so far as one can foresee, ample in amount; that is, we shall take the supply required in three months, namely, 22,500 gallons, and subtract from it the amount of water furnished in the three months, which is presumably two thirds of the average rainfall on the area contributing to the tank. The normal rainfall in three months is three times 3-3/4 inches, or 11-1/4 vertical inches, and if this falls on a roof area of, say, 2000 square feet, the total amount of water is 1850 cubic feet or 13,875 gallons, and two thirds of this is 9250. The tank, then, must hold the difference between the 22,500 gallons and 9250, or 13,250 gallons, whereas a month's supply would be 7500 gallons.

The actual tank, therefore, is made to hold a little less than two months' supply. Such a tank would be ten feet deep and fourteen feet square, a good deal larger tank, of course, than one ordinarily finds with a rain water-supply; but the estimate of the use of water has been high and a long period of rainfall has been a.s.sumed, so that there is little likelihood of a house with this provision being ever without water.

_Computation for storage reservoir on a brook._

In determining the quant.i.ty of water that may be taken from a small stream the area of the watershed answers the same purpose as the area of the roof which delivers water into a tank, the only difference being that from the roof all the water is always delivered, except a small proportion that evaporates at the beginning of a rain in summer. From the surface of a watershed, on the contrary, a large amount, and in some cases all of a stream, will be absorbed by the ground and by the vegetation and will never be delivered into the stream which drains an area. On large streams it is fair to a.s.sume that, on the average, only one half of the rainfall on the area will reach the stream, while with sandy soils this may be as small as 20 per cent. From December to May inclusive, when the ground is frozen, when there is no vegetation to absorb the water, and when evaporation is very light, practically all of the rainfall reaches the streams. From June to August, on the other hand, when the soil becomes rapidly parched, when vegetation is most active, and when evaporation is high, frequently no rainfall reaches the streams and the ground water sinks lower and lower, so that often streams themselves dry up. It is necessary, therefore, in providing for a definite quant.i.ty of water to be taken from a reservoir built on a small stream, to make the reservoir large enough to furnish water from June to September without being supplied with rain. This does not call for a very large dam or a very large storage, and three months' supply will usually be ample.

We have already estimated above that the quant.i.ty of water needed for three months will be 45,000 gallons, or about 6000 cubic feet. If the reservoir is built in a small gulley or ravine, its width may be twenty-five feet. If the length of the reservoir or pond formed by the dam is 240 feet, then the reservoir will furnish 6000 cubic feet for every foot of depth, and a reservoir of that size holding one foot of water will tide over a dry season.

Evaporation during these same three months will use up about a foot and a half in depth over whatever area the reservoir covers, so that two and a half feet in depth must be provided above the lowest point to which it is desirable to draw off the water. It would be well to allow a depth of at least ten feet in order to avoid shallow, stagnant pools, and if this depth is provided, even more than the two-and-a-half foot depth mentioned might be withdrawn in extremely dry seasons, though perhaps at some reduction in the quality of the water.

_Deficiency from well supplies._

A large number of water-supplies in the country, perhaps the largest number, at present comes from wells, either dug or drilled. It often happens that after plumbing fixtures have been installed with a pump to raise the water to the necessary elevated tank, the increased consumption causes the well to run dry for a number of weeks in the summer. The question then arises, Shall the well supply be supplemented or shall an entirely new supply be developed?

There are two methods of supplementing a dug well supply, and it may be of advantage to point them out. If the sand or gravel in which the water is carried is fine, it may be that the water will not at times of low water enter the well as fast as the pump takes it out. Such a well always has water in it in the morning, but a short pumping exhausts the supply. One remedy here is to provide a more easy path for the water, and that can be done by running out pipe drains in different directions.

If there are any evidences that the underground water flows in any direction, then the drains should preferably run out at right angles to this direction, to intercept as much water as possible. The drains must be laid in trenches and be surrounded with gravel, and of course the method is inapplicable if the well is more than about fifteen feet deep, because of the depth of trench involved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 22.--How a pump works.]

Another remedy is to sink the well deeper, hoping to find a more porous stratum or to increase the head of water in the well. In one well, the writer remembers seeing two lengths of twenty-four-inch sewer pipe, that is, four feet, that had been sunk in the sandy bottom of the well by operating a posthole digger inside and standing on the top of the pipe to furnish the necessary weight for sinking.

Still another remedy is to drive pipe down in the bottom of the well, hoping to find artesian water which will rise into the well from some lower stratum. This method has been successfully employed in the village of Homer, New York, where the public supply formerly came from a dug well twenty feet in diameter. The supply becoming deficient, pipe wells were driven in the bottom and an excellent supply of water found fifty feet below the surface, the water rising up in the dug well to within eight feet of the surface of the ground.