Evening star., 1912-11-24

east These two houses were located side
by side and both fronted on the avenue.
while their back yards ran through to ID
street. 1t became necessary to meter
them and in order to do SO the connect
ing pipes with the city mains had to be
uncovered.
There was a main in I'd street, one on
the avenue and one on y street, to any
one of which the houses might have been
connected As the water supply to these
particular houses had been installed many
years ago. there remained no maps
showing the location of the pipes, and
the question was: Which main did the
houses tap?' The owner of one of the
houses was sure that his pipes ran right
straight back to D street. He knew this
absolutely, he said. because he had had
to dig down to them some years before
AS result of his assurances trench
two feet wide and eight feet deep was
dug in street, paralleling the back
yards of the two adjoining properties 1t
required two laborers two days to dig
those trenches, to say nothing of the
time of the inspector, who had to pay oc-
casional visits to see how the work was
getting on. All told, the trench cost 80
and nothing had been uncovered The
owner was assured that if the pipes took
the course he said they did the workmen
would surely have struck them, for as
rule the water pipes are laid within four
feet of the surface. Nevertheless, the
owner was positive that the pipes ran out
through MS DdCk ydTu TO II NIL
Grove was put on the job with his pipe
detecter, which he had then just about
finished.
He found that the owner was both
right and wrong. The pipes did go
through the back yard, but then they
took right angle turn and. hugging the
building line close. ran off to the I'd
street main. 1t would have taken the
water department a week of digging to
find that kink in the service pipes. The
pipes of the next door house, Mr. Grove
found, also connected with the I'd street
main. but did so by issuing onto Massa-
chusetts avenue from the front of the
building and making d sharp turn to the
right under the parking. In both cases
il was natural to suppose that the pipes
connected with either the d street mains
or the Massachusetts avenue mains for
both were much nearer than was that
running through I'd street
This was rather unusually compli-
Gated case for Mr. Groves pipe-detector.
1t took him an hour to locate both pipes.
have the necessary trenches dug and fill
ed in again. The whole job cost dollar
Another curious case was found by Mr.
Grove at a house on n street northwest
This house was situated in the middle
of the block, which was bounded on
either side by 2?tH ana Utn- streets, ana
in the rear by Olive avenue. The service
pipes supplying this house took the long
est way possible to a city main-they ran
back halfway to Olive avenue. then gen.
tly bent to the west passed under house
on Both street, and finally joined the main
in that thoroughfare. The location of
this complicated route by excavation
would have required days of ditch
digging.
Especially interesting was the stua-
ton when Mr.. Grove explored the serv-
ice connections of two houses on Naylor
alley between 4th and 9TH streets north
west. These two houses were piped to a
common connection, which ran parallel
with the water main for seventy-five feet
before joining it. The system had been
installed SO many years ago that the
location of the pipes had passed out OF
the memory of every one. and could have
been ascertained only after great labor il
it had not been for Mr.. Grove and his
detector. After the discovery of the
, paralieling pipes, an old resident then
remembered that at one time the city
main had run only halfway down Naylor
alley, and that a private pipe had had 10
be run up for the connection. Whal the
city main was extended clear through
the paralleling portion of the private
service pipes had not been disconnected.
with the anomalous result that water
was flowing into these houses from two