by Barkham Burroughs
Available in 217 free installments
Owner:
Hints on House Building.--Gas pipes should be run with a continuous fall towards the meter, and no low places. The gas meter should be set in a cool place, to keep it from registering against you; but if a "water meter," it should be protected from freezing. Cupboards, wardrobes, bookcases, etc., generally afford receptacles for dust on their tops. This may be avoided by carrying them clear up to the ceiling. When this is not done, their tops should be sheeted over flush with the highest line of their cornices, so that there may be no sunken lodging-place for dust. Furring spaces between the furring and the outer walls should be stopped off at each floor line with brick and mortar "fire stops;" and the same with hollow interior partition walls. Soil pipes should never have "T" branches; always curves, or "Y" branches. Water pipes should be run in a continuous grade, and have a stop and waste cock at the lowest point, so as to be entirely emptied when desired. Furnaces should have as few joints as possible, and the iron fire-pot is better lined with fire-brick. There should be no damper in the smoke pipe; but the ash-door should shut air-tight when desired. There should be provision for the evaporation of water in the hot-air pipe. "Air boxes" should never be of wood. All air boxes should be accessible from one end to the other, to clean them of dust, cobwebs, insects, etc. Horizontal hot-air flues should not be over 15 feet long. Parapets should be provided with impervious coping-stones to keep water from descending through the walls. Sewer pipes should not be so large as to be difficult to flush. The oval sections (point down) are the best. Soil-pipes should have a connection with the upper air, of the full diameter of the pipe to be ventilated. Stationary wash-tubs of wood are apt to get soaked up with organic matter and filth. Stationary washstands in bedrooms should have small traps; underneath each should be a leaden tray to protect ceilings in case of leakage, breakage or accidental overflow. This tray should have an overflow, and this overflow should be trapped, if connected with the foul-pipe system (which it should not be if possible to arrange it otherwise). Flues should have a smooth parging or lining, or they will be apt to draw with difficulty. Gas pipes of insufficient diameter cause the flames to burn with unsteady, dim light. Made ground is seldom fit for immediate building; and never for other than isolated structures. Ashes, street-sweepings, garbage, rotten vegetation, and house refuse are unfit filling for low ground on which it is intended to build. Cobble pavements are admirably adapted to soaking-up and afterwards emitting unwholesome matters. Asphalt has none of this fault. Wood is pernicious in this respect. "Gullies" in cellar floors should be properly trapped; and this does not mean that they shall have bell-traps nor siphon-traps with shallow water-seal. Cellar windows should be movable to let in air, and should have painted wire-screens to keep out cats, rats, etc. New walls are always damp. Window sills should project well out beyond the walls, and should be grooved underneath so as to throw the water clear of the walls. Cracks in floors, between the boards, help the accumulation of dirt and dust, and may harbor vermin. Narrow boards of course have narrower interstitial cracks than wide boards do. "Secret nailing" is best where it can be afforded. Hot-air flues should never be carried close to unprotected woodwork. Electric bells, when properly put up and cared for, are a great convenience in a house; but when they don't work, they are about as aggravating as the law allows. Cheap pushbuttons cause a great deal of annoyance. Silver-plated faucets and trimmings blacken with illuminating and sewer gases. Nickel-plating is perhaps a less pleasing white, but is cheaper and does not discolor readily. Windows are in most respects a great blessing; but there may be too much of a good thing. It is unreasonable to expect that one grate or stove or furnace can heat a whole county. Don't attempt it. If you have too many windows on the "cold side" of a house, give them double sashes (not double panes), and "weather-strip" them. Unpainted trimmings should be of hardwood. Yellow pine finishes up well. Butternut is brighter than walnut. Cherry makes a room cheerful. Walnut is dull and dismal.
The Forests of the World.--The rapid exhaustion of the forests of the world, and more particularly of the once great reserves of timber in the United States and Canada, renders it
