Norwich bulletin., 1918-07-19
MODERN CONFERENCES IN RURAL HOMES

the house. There pipes cannot be buried. Their safety depends upon the house being Kept warm at all hours of day and night and in all parts where they run. If this can be done, all right. But can it always? Last winter, with several nights registered thirty or more below zero on this par ticular farm,-there was one whole week when the thermometer never once got as high as zero,-even at mid -day,-water froze thickly in dishes and pitchers in the pantry sink, not eight feet from the kitchen stove. One night, when the fire went out, water in the teakettle standing on the stove froze into a solid block of ice. Yet the average farmer can't sit up all night, throughout the winter. to see that his fires keep up adequate heat. Nor is he usually rich enough to hire some one to do it for him.
 I have one neighbor who, three or four years ago. had a complete water system put in his farm-ho That house is rather better than the average in construction and weather resisting qualities. He and his wife took a full year to study over the whole question and compare the various systems offered. They chose one which seem ed to provide the highest degree of security with reasonable cost and had it put in by competent and ex- perienced workmen. One day last winter the wife told me that they were frozen up. pipes burst, several rooms were made uninhabitable by | leakage, furniture damaged,etc. They | had sent for plumbers to repair things, but found that nothing effective could ] be done till the ground thawed out in i spring, as the supply pipes were l frozen outside. A few days ago the man of the house told me, con- | fidentially, that he had already paid l out, in the three years since the sys- 1 tenn was put up, more for repairs and l renewals than the entire original cost. And the d--d thing is dry again, now" he concluded. He faced the ne- cessity of still another big bill to have it put into commission again.
 know of another farm house where a similar supply has been in use for 1 eight or ten years and still giving ex- ! ceilent service But this house is never occupied in the winter; every fall the water is shut off from all the pipes at the spring. And the owner is so rich that he doesn't care what his | plumbers bills may be.
 Most of us farmers are not as rich as that And most of us have to live in our farm houses all the year 1 round.
 Then there's the bath-tub. It is without doubt, a comfort, a convent But it is inextricably tied up with the running water problem. Few people, city or country, would use 2 bath-tub, if they had to fill it with l water, part of which had to be first
 warmed at the kitchen range and al 1 of which had to be carried to the tul
 in pails. No, bath tub without run
 ming water, both hot and cold, would be foolish investment. Yet the tasl
 of keeping a bathroom warm and sup
 piled with ample hot and cold wate
 during such winter as last, may wei
 make any working, farmer shrink a
 Yet it is in the winter that the bath tub is most needed When the goot old summer time arrives the swim min hole in the brook is just about a
 handy. quite as sanitary, and might. | sight less trouble.
 Same with basement or cellar fur naces. 1 know several farm house l which have been equipped with then In some cases they are said to worl satisfactorily: in some they have beel taken out. Last winter I asked neishbor who has a rather big fur mace in his cellar if it kept the whol house warm. all the time. He re fiected bit before answering and thel said, in effect: well, when tn ? winds easterly. we don't try to sit i l the rooms on that side of the house And when the winds northwest, "
 keep out of the rooms on that side Otherwise, it does pretty we'll" Hi
 was a wood burner, and he regularl put up forty cords of hard wood t feed it for a winter. using the woo
 in full four-foot lengths. He later ad
 mitted that they had to have a fe,
 oil stoves to kinder brighten up" tn
 Twin room. and the bed chamber
 they happened to have guests.
 In the particular old farm house
 which I inhabit.-built a hundred an
 twenty one years ago-any possibl
 installation of such modern convent
 ences" as. running water, bath tuI
 furnace, etc, would necessitate a com
 plete reconstruction from cellar {
 garret. That, as any man of expert
 ence knows, would cost more than t
 build new house. And to build
 new house. these times, at preser
 prices for material and labor. woul
 cost more than the whole farm
 stands on would sell for.
 If ] were rich enough, l think
 could build 8 house, with hollow wa construction and plenty of deadenin interspaces, which would defy even New England winter. I think I coul provide for it a water supply whic : l would never freeze and a waste outI 1 which would never clog up. I think could find some sort of heater tn; , Eould keep it comfortable, all owe
 whether the wind was east or nortt ! | west.
 , But if I had money enough to ( all that, I should also have meme
 to oro to ItariAa