Phembing is defined as the art of casting and working in lead and using it in building, especially in arranging pipes for conducting water. Iron has, however, almost entirely superseded the use of lead. Plumbing has been of the highest utility. Primarily it lessened human labor by bringing water within the reach of private dwellings, and latterly it has not only introduced supplies of water by the easiest methods, but has also undertaken to remove all the waste water, together with filth mid sewage. The complications arising from this double duty, as well as the further work of systematizing the general water transport of all the organic waste of large cities to places of safe deposit, make the subject assume gig-antic proportions. When the requirements of manufacturing industries and the supply of the modern conveniences of steam and gas are also added, the province of this art enlarges to a vast extent. Plumbing has recently come prominently before the attention of the public from the growing con viction that the cause of many diseases can be distinctly traced to defects in drainage, especially to the escape of sewer-gas, and a multitude of in ventions have been advocated in the aid of sanitary reform.
SaniIary necessity for such general regulations as may harmonize individual exertion for the benefit of the community at large has received extensive recognition, and the character of these re quirements may be conveniently summed up as expressed in an ordinance for the regulation of plumbing enacted by the city government of Boston, Massachusetts, in March, r883. The provisions may be condensed to the following- main points: Every building shall be separately and independ ently connected with the public sewer, when such sewer is provided, and, if stich sewer-be not provided, with a brick-and-cement cesspool of a capa city approved by the inspector. Drains and soil-pipes for the carriage of water and sewage shall be of iron when within the building, and for not less than 5 feet outside the foundation walls thereof. They shall be sound and of uniform thickness of not less than 3,g of an inch for a diameter of 4 inches or less, or -.x51. of an inch for a diameter of 5 or 6 inches, with a proportional increase of thickness for a greater diameter. They shall be securely ironed to walls, laid in trenches of uniform grade, or suspended to floor timbers by strong iron hangers, as the inspector may direct. They shall be supplied with a suitable trap, placed, with an accessible clean-out, either outside or inside the foundation wall of the building-. They shall have a proper fall toward the drain or sewer. Soil-pipes shall be carried out through the roof, open and undiminished in size, to such height as may be directed by the inspector; but no soil-pipe shall be carried to a height less than 2 feet above the roof. Changes in direction shall be made with curved pipes, and connections with horizontal pipes shall be made with Y-branches. Rain-water leaders connected with soil- or drain-pipes
shall be suitably trapped. Sewer, soil-pipe, and waste-pipe ventilators shall not be constructed of brick, sheet-metal, or earthenware, and chim ney-flues shall not be used as such ventilators.
Iron pipes, before placing, shall be tested by the water or kerosene test, and then coated inside and outside with coal-tar pitch applied hot with paint or some equivalent substance. Joints shall be run with molten lead, thoroughly calked, and made tight. Connections of lead pipes with iron pipes shall be with brass ferrules properly soldered and calked to the iron. Every sink, basin, bath-tub, water-closet, slop-hopper, and each set of trays, and every- fixture having a waste-pipe, shall be furnished with a trap, placed as near as practicable to the fixture that it serves. Traps shall be protected from siphonage or air-pressure by special air-pipes of a size not less than the waste-pipe; but air-pipes for water-closet traps shall be of not less than 2-inch bore for 3o feet or less, and of not less than 3-inch bore for more than 3o feet. Drip- or overflow-pipes from safes, under water-closets and other fixtures, or from tanks or cisterns, shall run to some place in open light, and in 110 case be connected directly with the drain, waste-pipe, or soil-pipe. Waste-pipes from refrigerators and other recep tacles for provisions shall not be connected with drains, etc., unless pro vided with traps suitably ventilated. Other particulars are clearly speci fied, with such minute directions as fully show the consideration g,iven to the subject and its importance as a means of promoting the health of the community.
In 1885 the State of Pennsylvania passed an acratithorizing the Boards of Health in cities of the first class to regulate house drainage, the registra tion of master-plumbers, and the construction of cesspools. By this enact ment, the drainage of all buildings erected before 1886 was to be inspected, and when condemned altered to the new regulations, while the plans of all new erections were to be presented for approval to the Board of Health with specifications of the size and kind of pipe, traps, closets, and fixtures. The sanitary regulations of the act were very complete, and by a later amend ment it is required in Philadelphia that all soil-, waste-, and anti-siphoning pipes, and traps, inside new buildings and in new work or alterations upon old buildings, shall be tested to an atmospheric pressure of three pounds to the square inch. So important has such general regulation been consid ered that the Society of Arts in London made a formal proposal that the Metropolitan Board of Works and the County Board of each county shall be empowered by the legislature to make provision for the inspection and sanitary- classification of dwellings upon application being made by the owners thereof, and to grant certificates of healthfulness.