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25
building like the Carlton Hotel, is a barbarous
expedient; and, as a matter of esthetics, would be
ruinous to the appearance of such a building.
External soil-pipes which serve a large number of
closets—as in the Carlton Hotel, and lofty buildings—such
as blocks of flats and artizans' dwellings, become a source of
intolerable insanitary conditions if frozen during a hard
winter. In one large block of artizans' dwellings in
London the recent severe winter froze the external soilpipes
and blocked the stacks of water-closets above, so
that for want of an outlet below, large numbers of
families had their water-closets choked and overflowing
into the staircases. The only remedy was to construct
braziers around the lower part of these stack pipes—which
in this case were, fortunately, of cast iron—and to keep
(ires alight so as to thaw the pipes from below. This was
done. It is obvious that such a condition occurring
suddenly during a severe frost in a lofty building like the
Carlton Hotel, would be a serious matter. And where,
as in the Carlton Hotel, these soil-pipes are of costly leadwork,
they could not safely be thawed by the use of brazierfires.
Nor could such fires be set up on the pavement in
Pall Mall.
Soil-pipes outside, again, are exposed to a much greater
range of temperature and to a consequent large daily expansion
and contraction of the metal, which is much more
serious than when such work is put inside the house.
Inside the building the range of temperature is comparatively
small, the hot sun during the day and the cold
at night are avoided, and the perpetual strain upon the
metal work is minimised. The result is that work of
this large and complicated character is more difficult
to keep sound when placed outside than when placed
inside the building.
In addition to the mechanical disadvantages, there is
a physical disadvantage. Vertical pipes for soil and soapywater,
when placed inside the house, are kept uniformly
warm—warmer than the outside air. This ensures, if the