As the laws of health become better understood, greater precautions are taken to prevent sickness. For years all evidence has been pointing to drinking water as a common source of most diseases and the principal means of spreading sickness. Every well, spring and cistern, open to surface water or walled and covered with materials through which surface water can seep, is liable to contain disease germs. Concrete walls and covers are water-tight: they afford perfect protection for both man and beast.
How to Protect Wells
Many bored and dug wells, sunk years ago, afford such excellent water that their owners prefer to keep them. This is often made possible by the use of concrete. Remove the brick of the wall down to dense clay through which water will not run, usually not more than 6 feet. If the earthen wall stands firm, only one form, fitting inside the brick wall, is needed. Make this form of narrow flooring securely fastened on the inside to wagon tires or to curved wooden templates, and long enough to extend 2 feet below the point to which the brick are to be removed and 4 inches above the ground level. If the earthen wall shows signs of crumbling, before taking out the brick, dig back the ground to the necessary depth and use an outside form. Lower the forms into place and fill them with 1: 2: 4 concrete. In placing the concrete follow the directions given under Underground Cisterns, page 68.
The steel casing for driven well must end below the frost line so as to keep the underground connecting pipes from freezing. This construction exposes the house supply to the dangers of surface water. Concrete walls or housings are the only means of protection. Make the forms and build the housing according to the rules laid down for Underground Cisterns, pages 68-70. The housing shown in the photograph is 5 by 6 feet by 4 feet deep, sufficiently roomy for inspecting, adjusting and repairing pipe connections. The walls and floor are of 1: 2: 4 concrete 6 inches thick. One-half inch bolts project 2½ inches above the walls for fastening the wooden cover. A 4-inch removable cover of concrete, molded in two pieces, makes a more sanitary covering. The service pipes were laid in 4-inch drain tile slightly above the floor of the housing. A tile of the same size, laid on a grade, carries away all the leakage of the fittings. Two men built the housing in one day.
| Materials Required |
| Screened gravel or crushed rock | 3 cubic yards at $1.10 | $3.30 |
| Sand | 1½ cubic yards at $1.00 | 1.50 |
| Portland cement | 5½ barrels at $2.50 | 13.75 |
| $18.55 |
Well platforms are made like cistern covers (see page 69) except that they are not molded fixed in place, but loose and removable, so that the well can be cleaned at any time. Concrete well covers keep mice and frogs out of the well. Even scrub water cannot seep in.
Underground Cisterns and Cistern Platforms
Underground cisterns are useless if they leak. In dry weather they are empty, and at other times the ground water seeps in and makes the “soft” water as “hard” as that from the well. Concrete cisterns have no joints to leak: they are built in one solid piece.
In placing the cistern, select a site convenient to the principal down-spout and the kitchen. Do not forget to make allowance for 8-inch walls in laying out the plan. If the ground in which the pit is dug is sufficiently firm to stand alone, no outside form will be needed. Otherwise the hole must be dug large enough to receive an outside form built similar to the inside one. Make the inside form of 1-inch boards on 2 by 4-inch studding so that the siding will be toward the earth walls. Mix the concrete 1: 2: 4 and lay a 6-inch floor on the earth bottom. Immediately set the wall forms on all sides. In filling the wall space, be careful not to shovel the concrete against the earthen wall: dirt in concrete is liable to make a leaky wall.
After the concrete side walls have been brought to ground level, set a 5-inch board on edge around the outside of the cistern, so as to hold the concrete for the platform. Saw off the uprights of the inside form 6 inches below the finished top of the concrete cover, and nail 2 by 4-inch floor joists even with their tops. Floor the joists with 1-inch boards. Braces, to keep the wooden platform from sagging, may be placed down the middle of the cistern as shown in the drawing. To provide for a manhole opening, build a bottomless box 5 inches deep, 2 feet square at the top and 18 inches square at the bottom—outside measurements,—or have the tinsmith make a round bottomless tin form 5 inches deep, 2 feet in diameter at the top and 18 inches at the bottom, just like a large dishpan without a bottom.
Begin at one side of the platform, tamp in 1½ inches of concrete, and upon it lay heavy woven wire fencing. Allow the edges of the wire to extend within 1 inch of the outside lines of the platform. Bring the platform to its full thickness by immediately placing the remaining 3½ inches of concrete. Work rapidly and do not stop for any reason until the cistern cover is completed. As the work progresses, finish the surface with a wooden float. Grease the manhole frame and place it where the opening is desired. Strengthen the floor around the manhole opening by laying four short ½-inch iron rods, placed criss-cross, 2 inches from the bottom of the slab and the same distance back from the edges of the hole. If the tin form is used, the manhole cover may be cast at the same time as the remainder of the floor. Reinforce the cover with woven wire and also with four short lengths of ½-inch rods laid in the form of a square. Have on hand an old bridle bit or hitching post ring, which will serve as a lifting-ring for the concrete cover. In placing the ring in position, provide it with a knob of twisted wire, or with a nut and large washer, to fix it firmly in the concrete. If the wooden manhole form is used, carefully remove it after 5 hours. After 3 days build the manhole cover the same as for the tin form, with this important exception—place heavy paper, cardboard or leather around the edge of the opening to prevent the fresh concrete of the cover from sticking to it. Set bolts for a pump base according to directions given for Gasoline Engine Bases, pp. 87, 88. The necessary openings for down spouts and for removing water may be made by embedding tile, of the proper diameter and length, in the concrete platform or side walls.
When the platform is two weeks old, remove the manhole cover, bore a hole in the wooden floor, saw an opening, descend and loosen the roof form, passing it out through the manhole.
If the cistern water is to be used for cooking and drinking, provide a filter on the outside of the cistern wall. Construct the filter similar to the cistern, of dimensions 4 by 3 feet and 4 feet deep. While building the cistern wall, lay an 8-inch tile through it, at the proper height to connect with an opening of the same size in the filter wall at its floor, and place a removable screen of ¼-inch mesh over the opening. Fill in 2 feet of coarse charcoal. Cover the charcoal with 1 foot of sand and gravel. Lead the water from the roof into the top of the filter. Cover the filter with a loose concrete slab.
Four men built a cistern 8 feet square and 8 feet deep, with a 6-inch floor and a 5-inch platform, in two days. The cistern holds 122 barrels of 31½ gallons.
| Materials Required |
| Screened gravel or crushed rock | 8 cubic yards at $1.10 | $8.80 |
| Sand | 4 cubic yards at $1.00 | 4.00 |
| Portland cement | 13 barrels at $2.50 | 32.50 |
| $45.30 |
“Soft” water is not only better for the bath, but also makes the washing easier and the clothes whiter. Mischievous children cannot remove concrete manhole covers.
Making Spring Water Sanitary
To the planter and stockman, a flowing spring is worth a great deal of money. Properly cared for, it will afford cold, sweet water for the house, the dairy, and the watering tanks. Improperly protected, it is not merely a mud hole, a nuisance to the milker of dairy cows, but is too frequently the cause of disease.
To improve a spring, first open up the channel and drain out all the water possible. Clean out the spring so as to increase its flow. Lay the necessary feed pipes to the house and barn. Wall up the well of the spring with concrete blocks, laid without mortar to a point just above the in-flow streams of the spring. Complete the walls with blocks laid in 1: 2 cement-sand mortar, or, using wooden forms, with a 6-inch solid wall of 1: 2: 4 concrete. Carry these walls high enough to keep surface water out of the spring well. If the spring is to be used as a drinking tank for stock, make the walls equal to the usual depth of such tanks. (See Watering Troughs and Tanks, page 74.) Lay a 4-inch floor of 1: 2½: 5 concrete (on a drainage foundation) 10 feet around the field spring on all sides.
At the edges of the floor, turn down a concrete “apron” or foundation, 2 feet into the ground, the same as for Feeding Floors, page 43. This prevents the frost from getting under the floor and cracking it.
Make provision for the over-flow at a point where it can be carried to the stream by a gutter in the floor, or by a drain tile under it.
With such improvement, since there is no mud, the stock cannot mire and the udders of the dairy cows are always clean.
To keep rats and rabbits out of springs from which the water is drawn for house use, provide a concrete cover like that described for Underground Cisterns, page 69. For small springs this cover is often made removable as shown in the photograph on page 73.
New Style Cistern Built on Top of Ground
The photograph shows a cistern, 6 by 6 by 12 feet, inside dimensions, with 8-inch walls, 6-inch floor, and 4-inch roof.
Dig a pit 12 inches deep, and of the size of cistern desired. Cover the bottom with a well tamped fill of gravel to a depth of 6 inches. Mix concrete 1: 2: 4 and place it to a depth of 2 inches over the surface of the fill. On top of this lay sections of heavy woven wire fencing. This wire should be laid in such a way as to extend 6 inches beyond the outside edge of foundation—the ends being bent up, so as to stand upright, 3 inches back from the edge of the concrete flooring already placed. Immediately lay the remaining 4 inches of concrete floor. Give the surface a finish with a wooden float to within 6 inches of edges.
Without delay, set the forms, made up in the required sections, resting the inside form on the concrete floor and the outside form on the ground. Place the inside form first. After setting the inside form, place woven fence wire, supporting it against the inside form by means of staples driven lightly into the form and holding the wire 4 inches away from it. Care should be taken in placing the concrete that the wire is kept near the outside of the concrete wall. This reinforcement is carried 1 foot beyond top of wall. The projecting wire mesh will later be used to tie the concrete roof to the side walls. The timber required for the forms will be 1-inch siding and 2 by 4 uprights, spaced every 18 inches.
In placing the concrete in the forms, it will be easier to leave off the two top feet of planking of outside form until the concrete reaches its level. Then add this planking and fill the two top feet. The concrete will probably have to be passed up to a man on top by means of buckets.
The luxury of soft water for the bath, and its advantages for laundry purposes, are understood better by farmers than by their city cousins. Cisterns were originally built in the ground, but a thinking farmer used concrete to build a cistern on top of the ground, no doubt taking the idea from the old-fashioned rain barrel. While it requires more forms and more reinforcement than a cistern built in the ground, yet the large cost of digging a deep hole is saved. As the water is piped to the house, direct water pressure is provided, thereby giving the farm-house all the advantages of a city water system.
Build a wooden platform inside the cistern, in the same manner as directed in Underground Cisterns, page 69. The materials required for the concrete are 10 yards of crushed rock or screened gravel, 5 yards of sand, and 17 barrels of Portland cement.
