CHAPTER XXXII
POLISHING THE WATER SUPPLY
“I found a fish in my bath-tub to-day,” said I to a friend.
“Wasn’t that the best place in the house to find one?” was the reply.
“Yes,” I said, “but I can’t say I enjoy bathing in an aquarium, and my civic pride is hurt because I have been so proud of my city’s water quality and all of the sister municipalities which filter or chlorinate or both.”
In this anecdote is the crux of the filter situation.
In times gone by a filter was sold to save life from polluted waters, from streams, wells, surface sources, sewage-burdened rivers, etc. It was a dire necessity and became by its efficiency or lack of it a godsend or a menace. If it were a good filter it needed care and attention in the greatest degree to make it a boon; if it were a bad filter it continued despite care to be a curse far more dangerous than the unfiltered product because it became a collector and a breeding place for bacteria and doled out water as pure to the most modest of drinkers.
But as with every department of living in this realm, things have moved on. In this case gloriously. For since the municipalities have taken our lives in their hands the dangers from bad filters are slight and the need of good ones necessary but not a life-and-death matter. In short, the excitement about filters in the home is dead but their use goes marching on.
However, as this story will be read by inhabitants of unfiltered municipalities and towns, whatever danger and comfort can accrue from non-filtration or filtration of water will be evident after a glance at this attempt to bring it to your mind. Just as this goes to press we see in the paper that a western town of Salem has seven hundred and eighty cases of typhoid in a population of ten thousand. Here is food for thought!
Hundreds of towns (one firm alone has installed about 163 plants) in the United States have municipal filtration plants. Some even oxygenate the water by fountaining it esthetically skyward and allowing it to entice to itself oxygen (from the free air), by which it gets life and polish and becomes refreshing.
Some towns chlorinate the water supply. When water is chlorinated, minute quantities of chlorine are added which absolutely destroy the germs in the water, but do not alter its chemical or physical characteristics in the least. The difference between a water that has been chlorinated and one that has not been so treated is that in the first case the germs are destroyed, but in the second case they remain in the water to cause possible disease.
This process is rarely used in the home as the control is too difficult. But in the case of the elaborate residence with large incumbencies in the way of model farms, dairy, stables, machine shops, etc., it is used. Also the smallest plants are used in the case of large swimming pools in and out of fine residences, where, of course, the water has been found to be bacterially degenerate and where the work of purification is not done by a benign municipality.
To get to the roots of the matter you want water (you don’t care what the high-browed engineer does to it) to be:
1. Colorless.
2. Tasteless.
3. Odorless.
4. Free from suspended matter.
5. With enough oxygen gas to make it refreshing and give it life.
6. Without germs or food for germs.
What you want to keep out:
1. Suspended impurities: vegetable, animal (such as the fish), mineral, microscopical algæ (what you see on the stagnant waters), infusoria, etc.
2. Dissolved impurities.
3. Disease germs: typhoid, cholera, etc.
What you must demand in a filter:
1. All the above.
2. Durability.
3. Simplicity of management.
4. Nearest approach possible to self cleaning. (The uncertain human element makes many a good filter fall down.)
These four things are essential to the longevity of the filter and to you, if you inhabit filterless vales.
Another thing suggested by the fourth article of faith above is the care of the filter. If you have a maid you can’t be sure in what state the filter is, unless you keep close watch or have constant inspection by a service bureau. Slight danger from the nearly self cleaning filter can by care be entirely eliminated. But only with care.
To clarify after its long pipe journey (probably through rusty pipes, etc.); to insure plumbing (in case of the installed filter in the cellar) against clogging, incrustations and general wear, accumulations of material bound to enter the water on its trip through the pipes to the house--due to broken water mains, fires in the city--accidents of any kind; to give the laundry a clean appearance, for the best laundry work availeth little if the water is murky or turbid; to polish water, or render it free from flavor and turbidity.
When typhoid had its happy hunting ground in plumbing it was thought quite in keeping to have typhoid cases in abundance. In Pittsburgh and other such afflicted towns it is now felt to be a heinous sin, since filtration has become a part of the service that towns render to their inhabitants. In fact, all boards of health to-day feel it to be a felony and disgrace to find a case of such a disease in the community.
So, to public-spirited citizens in unfiltered regions, your task is cut out for you. You can get rid of muddy, dirty water by municipal filtration plants or home filters and care.
For those who live in filtered towns the use of filters is manifest, too.
There are various kinds of filters in use, but only two kinds are of interest for use in the home.
1. The type affixed to spigot (or water cooler).
2. The installed filter placed in cellar or other part of the home to filter the whole water supply.
These are divided into many technical categories, but what you are interested in are the following questions: Do you need a filter? What shall you have to know to buy a filter intelligently?
Rapidly stated, it is safest to buy a filter from a manufacturer who says “my filter is not absolutely perfect but it is the nearest thing to perfection we can get. We know our filter can render water from 90 to 100% free from bacteria, as we have had bacteriological tests made by competent chemists.”
When you order a filter, put down on paper the answers to the following questions, and send them to the manufacturers who will then give you the data and prices. Choose the best manufacturer and then invest:
1. Are the fixtures all on direct water supply or are they supplied from an open storage tank or combination of the two?
2. What are the source, nature and peculiarities of the water to be filtered? Has it odor, taste, vegetable discoloration, clay or iron stain?
3. What sort of water supply system do you use and what of the water pressure? What is the size of the supply pipe? (Ask your plumber.)
4. How many gallons of water are required to be filtered per minute, per hour or per 8, 10, 12, or 24 hours? (Ask your plumber.)
5. How many bathrooms and other water fixtures are in your home?
6. Is there a municipal plant in your town? What kind?
Since 1885 thousands of filters have been patented. Years ago the smallest and most unreliable maker would put a filter on the market and promise immunity from death and let it go at that, because folks are anxious to be saved. To-day not many more than six filters are really sold with a guarantee by reliable firms backing them. Why? Because most of these filters were cheap and flimsy, did nothing but strain water and strain their point as well. These small manufacturers would spring into being one day and sink into oblivion the next. The filters, if they did filter (not strain, only), would become breeding nests for bacteria. Physicians feared and forbade them.
The filters on the market to-day are in varying degrees reliable, depending greatly on their functions, on the amount of care and wear, and how they are used. For example, coarse gravel as a medium through which to purify water might be good to take out bits of sediment--big bits--but it would not act on the bacteria.
In general, the materials used in filters through which the water must pass to be purified are: sand, quartz, charcoal, cloth, paper, etc. Another class of filters passes the water through a bougis or candle made of unglazed porcelain (Kaolin), natural stone, artificial stone, asbestos, diatomaceous earth, etc. The pores through which the water flows catch the bacteria and sediment.
With this list before you you must ask yourself if you need only a strainer. Is the water free from bacilli? Have you a municipal chlorinating plant or filter plant? If so, any good filter will do to strain out suspended matter; but if you are very anxious to have perfect water you cannot go wrong by having a filter which will catch bacteria which may have accidental entry, in any community whatever.
If you know you have dirty water and no municipal plant you cannot be too careful as to what you use in rendering safe the water from well, stream or any other source.
The most reliable faucet filter is the diatomaceous earthen candle type which is simply cleaned by brushing off its soft surface and boiling occasionally to kill furtive bacteria. The great drawback to this type of filter is that it is not a reformer and cannot force the user to keep it clean. Therefore it is up to the user, and as its agent told the writer, “Filter use in a city like New York is a matter of temperament. Some people enjoy caring for a filter in order to make a splendid water supply fool-proof, others dislike the care and do not mind the slight risk in any city water supply or the discoloration that is often inherent.”
Filters, whether installed or attached to faucets, are built to fit the occasion.
It is interesting to realize that nearly every fine home in New York, especially on Fifth Avenue, has a filter, despite the city’s excellent water supply. Not so much to save life, as it so often does owing to frequent invasions of germs into even excellent water, but for the feeling of clean unflavored, unfishy, unwoody water and for the insurance of long life of the plumbing system--and to save deterioration in plumbing is a thing devoutly to be wished.
Sand or quartz is the usual medium for filtration in the home. Bone char is often added to these to destroy taste, for there is nothing as disagreeable as water with a decided taste.
There are a few filters to-day which when installed in the cellar consist of one or two vertical tanks attached to the water supply. In one tank is quartz through which the water passes and in the other is bone char to carry away flavor.
In one case the filter has a simple lever which when set at a certain spot on the dial washes out the filter beds and frees them from contamination.
As the impurities in the water are removed by a filter they accumulate in a mass or cake on top of the filter bed. If this cake or matted formation is not broken up and thoroughly disintegrated, it will roll up during the washing process and not only clog but contaminate a filter bed, utterly destroying its efficiency as a purifying medium, steadily diminishing the water supply. Hence a cutting plate is placed immediately above the bed of quartz. As soon as the operating lever is moved to the point “Washing,” the washing current is introduced at the bottom of the filter, the filter bed is lifted bodily upward and forced through the cutter, which literally tears the matted film of impurities into fragments. At the same time it thoroughly breaks up the bed, separates and perfectly scours each grain of filtering material, by the force of the reverse current of water in a space twice the size it occupies during the filtering process.
The impurities having been separated from the bed and broken up into minute particles are carried out of the filter through the waste pipe by the reverse current of water. During this process a screen at the top of the filter prevents the filtering material quartz from escaping out of the filter.
In this way by the least effort--the turn of a handle--once a week--the filter becomes a boon and not a menace. After the cleaning process is over, a matter of from ten to twenty minutes, the lever is turned to another point “designated in the bond” and the filter goes back to normal. The agitated sand and char are calmed down and ready to chasten the next lot of water.
In some localities where the water (though it may be chlorinated and bacteria-free) is dark and turbid and full of the finest sediment, the usual sand or quartz (even with the tiniest of spaces between the grains) cannot prevent this hyper-fine sediment passing through into the filter. In order to catch this impure water with its fine sediment alum is often introduced into the filter to coagulate the fine sediment (as you have seen the white of an egg coagulate coffee grounds) and permits it in the “flock” to be caught as it passes through the interstices of the filter bed.
Here you can easily see why you must be careful to give the filter manufacturer a graphic description of your water supply. Then, too, the installed filter, just described may be rendered useless if by any means the pipes in the home become contaminated.
There are some filters on the market (this caution is for the unfiltered community) which only strain.
Those fitted with paper, cloth, cotton, etc., are fine in their places, but you must know their places.
One filter, for example, is said to be very speedy. However, in this case (this filter is attached to the faucet) you are admonished to let the water run for about half a minute, because, as the water ran through before, the collection of germs must be given a chance to flow out. In this filter the water flows in at one end through bone char and quartz and the next time it is used the current is reversed and flows back through the filter bed, self-washing but carrying with it the bacteria collected on its last passage. Therefore, if you forget to let the water run for a time, you may get your stomach full of more potent germs than if you used the ordinary water with its occasional bacteria.
Good filters in the last analysis spell “safety first” wherever they may be. For despite municipal intervention accidents will happen, and even though the trouble be corrected in a short time, fifteen minutes can prove a real menace.
There is one filter just coming to our markets, made in Germany, which has been tried and tested and found good. It is affixed to the water supply (direct, not in cellar) and accomplishes filtration by the process of passage of water through a paper-like fabric of disks ¹⁄₄″ thick. These disks keep water absolutely sterile in the laboratory for 17 days but the makers, rightly, will only guarantee them for 48 hours in order to obviate danger to their promises, through the accidents which may happen. The test under German scrutiny proved that typhoid germs were rendered nil for 17 days and try as they might could not force their way through the disks.
This is a good certificate of good conduct. Sewage for example during the war was rendered harmless as drinking material by the means of this filter disk, so it is claimed.
Filtering, unlike sterilizing, does not take the life out of water or make it readily absorb odors and flavors.
Remember, that some filters remove bacteria and the finest sediment only (the candle type). Others remove sediment of all sizes and bacteria, too; while still others kill flavor to boot. Discuss the point with your plumber, architect, doctor and manufacturer and water department. As with clothes so with filters: buy what suits the need and buy carefully after securing all the advice available.
One might say pompously that the purchasing of a filter may be the purchase of life itself, or--facetiously--that the good filter takes the “imp” out of impure water.
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