Proper Water Supply and Drainage Piping for Hotels

Abstract

The problem of proper water supply and drainage piping in a hotel is of vital interest to every water works official and those charged with the responsibility for safeguarding the public health. If the full truth were known, this problem would also be of vital interest to every person who has occasion to stop at a hotel. In recent years this problem has forced itself upon the attention of public officials and the general public by reason of occurrences of water borne epidemics traceable to faulty water supply and drainage piping in so-called first class hotels. In August, 1927, Mr. William C. Groeniger, consulting sanitary engineer of Columbus and former chief of the Bureau of Plumbing Inspection, Ohio Department of Health, read a paper before the annual meeting of the American Society of Sanitary Engineering in which were cited the results of the work of a research committee of that Society and pointing out the possibilities of outbreak of water borne diseases through faulty plumbing fixtures (1). The prediction was made by Mr. Groeniger that unless those officials charged with the responsibility for manufacture, installation and maintenance of water supply and drainage piping in modern public buildings should give more attention to the proper arrangement of such piping, serious outbreaks of water borne diseases would result. His predictions have been borne out by experiences, notably in Chicago. In a discussion before the American Society of Sanitary Engineering in August, 1928, at Milwaukee, Mr. Joel I. Connolly, Chief of the Bureau of Sanitary Engineering, Chicago Board of Health, brought out forcibly the evil results arising from the carelessness in water supply and drainage piping arrangements in hospitals (2). In 1930 a paper was read before this Association by Mr. Connolly upon the subject of crossconnections in buildings. In June, 1934, Dr. Herman N. Bundesen, President of the Chicago Board of Health, read a paper before the Annual Conference of the State and Provincial Health Authorities