• Home
• Used vehicles
• Product news
• Dealer news
• Compliance
• Buying advice
• Archive

THE MODERN MUNICIPAL APPLIANCE.

The Benefit it Confers on the Community and the Economy it can Effect in Municipal Ex penditure.

RIOR to the outbreak of war, commercial -motor

vehicles had advanced to such a stage that serious attention was being generally given to producing machines that would snit the special reauirements of municipal work.

The hand-operated tip-wagon was one of the first steps In this direction, followed by chassis equipped with power-operated end and side-tipping bodies, and in due course the vacuum gully emptier and streetwatering and washing machines made their appearance. The outbreak of war, however, stopped progress to any great extent in this direction, as the majority of motor firms were commissioned to turn out vehicles for War Office requirements only, so that machines of these types did not advance much during that period.

However, so soon as hostilities ceased, attention was once more turned to producing suitable vehicles for municipal work, with the result that, at the present time, quite a number of efficient vehicles dealing with various duties are on the market.

In this article are reviewed the duties to be performed, together with the old-fashioned methods of dealing with them and the way in which the new machines gradually being adopted throughout the country are providing a solution to a difficult problem. Cleansing work and vehicles dealing with liquids only will be described in this issue, other vehicles being dealt with at a later date.

In the first instance we shall deal with the question of street-watering and washing, which plays such an Important part in many of the large towns and cities at the present time.

With the increase in mileage of bituminous-surraced or wood-paved roads during recent years it has been found that street watering is not needed to the extent that it was in the days of the water-bound and macadam roads. The filth that accumulates on the streets nowadays Is swept into the gutters by the rapid passage of mechanical transport, so that it is only necessary to water the road in the neighbourhood of the pavement in order to damp the above-mentioned filth to prevent it rising and causing a nuisance.

The usual practice is for a motor or horse-drawn tank to proceed along the street from 4 ft. to 6 ft. from the kerb, water from the tank being ejected on the surface through an ordinary gravity-type sprinkler

nead or 2k-in. pipe controlled by a quick-acting valve. This process is known as "channel flushing" or "channelling" and is carried out throughout the day when the prevailing conditions require it to be done. Besides damping down the filth in the gutter, the water also has the virtue of flushing the gullies—always a good thing.

In the side streets, however, watering, either by horse or motor vehicle, is still carried out to a large extent. In the Midlands and north of tngland, where the majority of streets are paved with stone setts, watering is carried out on a large scale, as the dirt between the interstices of the setts turns to dust very rapidly in the dry weather and the passage of motor vehicles causes it to rise in an unpleasant manner.

In the majority of cases the motor vehicle has ousted the horse from this type of work on account of its larger carrying capacity and the greater distance which it can cover per day. The economy effected is considerable, as one man with a motor tank replaces three or four men and horses. A point which must be mentioned in connection with biturainons-surfaced roads is that during hot weather (a rarity in England) the surface tends to soften and to form into waves by the action of passing traffic. Street-watering will do much to alleviate this, although the amount of traffic on the present-day main streets of the towns renders this operation somewhat difficult.

In recent years the practice of street washing has come more and more into use and is spreading with the increase in mileage of bituminous-surfaced and woodpaved streets.

During the wet-weather period the surface of the type just mentioned tends to become greasy and is a danger to traffic. This is greatly increased by the oil dropped by passing motor traffic. There is only one really effective way of dealing with this and that is by means of washing under pressure.

In a few places where hydrants are plentiful and the cost of operation not an important item, the streets are washed by men with long lengths of hose, each having a flat, fan-shaped nozzle. This practice, from the actual cleansing point or view, is undoubtedly the best, as the whole of the road surface and the pavements are washed piecemeal, resulting in a very fine job.

The practice adopted by the majority of towns, how535 ?ver, is to carry out this work by a motor chassis quipped with a tank and pump. As large a tank as possible is generally used, as the fewer number of Limes the vehicle has to stop and refill with water the more work will be done in a given time. A tank capacity of 1,200 gals. "to 1,300 gals. is the general rule, the rectangular type being the most used, as it is more compact and tends to keep the height and centre of gravity down. A turbine pump is fitted on to the chassis, driven either from an extension of the gearbox or through the medium of a clutch worked from the engine. To the pump is attached a number of nozzles for watering and for washing purposes. The water flows by gravity into the pump and is then delivered under pressure through sprinkler or washing heads. The pump is a great advantage where sprinkling is concerned, as it enables a much wider road to be done in one passage of the machine than is possible with the ordinary gravity type, a total spray of 50 ft. being not uncommon. The washing heads are usually of the fish-tail type, situated near the road surface and at such an angle that the greatest benefit is derived from the jets in removing the filth.

When at work, the machine proceeds along the centre of the road, delivering water through the washing nozzles at a pressure of 60 lb. to 80 lb. per sq. in., the machine being usually driven in one of the intermediate gears while this operation is in progress, partly to drive the pump at a suitable speed to produce this pressure and also that the machine may go slowly enough to make a thorough job of the work. It then goes up each side of the road and washes it section by section, the number of times varying according to the width of the road. In conjunction with the washing heads, a multisection rubber squeegee, situated on the underside of the frame between the front and back axles, is lowered on to the road surface and draws the surplus water to the near side of the vehicle, thus drying the road, as it were.

The machine can effectively wash the roadway down to within 1 ft. of the gutter, the surplus water and filth lying therein being attended to by a man with a broom. If the surface of the road is in a stielty or half-dry condition, the practice is to run over it with the machine and spray it from kerb to kerb before commencing to wash. This has the effect of softening the filth and rendering it much more easy to remove. Street washing by this method is cheaper than that mentioned above, but does not clean the pavements and gutters, and they have to be attended to by a man with a broom. However, it is the most suitable and efficient method that most towns can adopt and is carried out by increasing numbers of them year by year.

A certain amount of experience is required in road washing to make a good job of it, as a great deal of water can be wasted by an inexperienced man, with very little to show for It.

One of the vehicles of this type made by a famous firm of commercial motor manufacturers in the south of England is equipped with swivel washing heads, which allow a very fine adjustment if the spray to be made, so that the maximum efficiency is obtained from the jets of water, and they can be so adjusted when the machine is working near the kerb, that mud and water are not splashed on to the pavement. Street washing is usually carried out at night when the streets are clear of traffic, and the practice is to be commended, as its effect renders the conditions during bad weather much safer, skidding being far less likely to take place on a street that is subjected to this treatment than on one which is never touched.

After the street-washing machine comes the ,gully emptier, rendered more necessary than ever by the increasing amount of detritus-swept into the gullies by flushing the streets with water. The original method for emptying gullies was by means of a horse-drawn iron tumbler cart and a man with a scoop at the end of a handle, with which he removed the detritus from the gullies, slopping it into the cart. In some cases the man preceded the cart and emptied the silt from the gullies on the side of the road, leaving the obnoxious mess to drain until the cart came and picked it up. If the authorities were particularly zealous, a horse-drawn van cathe along and filled each gully with clean water, but in many cases the outlet was left untrapped, allowing foul gases from the sewer to escape. This method was very unsatisfactory, as there were no means of telling whether the man had removed the whole of the silt from the gullies, as the water was left therein and often covered detritus that was not removed.

The first mechanical gully emptiers to be placed on the market had a tank of about 750-800-gallon capacity, connected to an air pump driven by the engine of the chassis. It was equipped with a suction pipe supported on a jib, which was raised and lowered by a hand-operated winch into the gullies.

These machines were, of course, immensely superior to the system mentioned above, but they had several drawbacks, the chief of which was that they had no provision for draining off any water from the tank, with the result that they soon became full. In the majority of cases fully 75 per cent, of the contents of the gullies is water, and, as in the large towns many of the gullies have a considerable capacity, the result was that the machines spent a large part of the working period running backwards and forwards to the tip. The suction valve was usually situated at the forward end of tile tank, making it necessary for the driver to remain in the cab to operate it. Another man had charge of the pipe in the gully, while a third man operated the hand winch. No provision was made on the machine for carrying clean water for resealing the gullies, so that another man with a horse-drawn tank followed behind with water for this purpose.

This made a total of four men, the gully emptier and one horse and tank, so that it can be readily understood that the cost of emptying gullies, although more hygienically earriea out than before, was still fairly high. Another point to consider, and particularly• in some of the London boroughs, was the fact that all the gully slop had to be disposed of by barge. The machines

were weighed in at the wharf with each load; consequently, the authorities were paying large sumslof money for taking away water, a most undesirable state of affairs.

During the past three or four years very rapid strides have been made in the design of these machines, with the result that at the present day a high state of efficiency has been obtained. Most of them have provision for carrying clean water for resealing the gullies after they are emptied, and the vehicles are so arranged that practically the whole of the surplus water in the sludge compartment can be drained off from time to time, so that only solid matter is taken to the tip.

The operation of the vehicles has been rendered much easier, the suction pipe being operated by a balanced jib, so that only two men are required to each vehicle instead of four, as was previously the case. On one of the naast up-to-date petrol vehicles on the market a patent agitator is incorporated which enables water from the sludge compartment to be delivered under pressure into the solid matter at the bottom of the gullies, thereby stirring it up and eliminating hand labour for this purpose. With these improvements the cost of gully emptying has been reduced very considerably, a saving of 1300 to £400 per annum being effected by a machine of the later type over one of the first that were placed on the market.

The question of the discharge 0e-the sludge at the

tip—always a difficult one, owing to the consistency of the material to be dealt with—has received attention, and the best types of machines are able to discharge their loads in from five to ten minutes.

The operation of emptying gullies is now carried out inta hygienic and efficient manner, the sludge being

removed from the gullies into the tank without coining into contact with the atmosphere, which is a great improvement.

The New Three-purpose Machines.

Recently another type of machine has appeared on the market which combines the duties of street-watering and washing and gully-emptying.

This has met with considerable success, as it particularly appeals to medium-sized towns where there is Insufficient work of either type to keep a single-purpose

machine fully employed. For a slightly larger initial outlay municipal authorities are able to purchase a

machine which will be employed the whole time instead of standing idle in the garage for weeks on end, as would be the case if it could only perform one duty.

A certain number of large towns and metropolitan boroughs purchased these machines, and use them as a

gully-emptier during the day and a street-washing

machine by night. When working on this principle the machines have a life of about five years instead of ten, as is the case with a single-purpose machine. It is recognized that, owing to rapid advances made with municipal machines as a whOle, it can be taken that a vehicle is, to a certain extent, out of date at the end of five years. Therefore, to have a machine at work 16 hours out of the 24 and then to renew it in five

years is better than having a vehicle and only working it eight hours a day for ten years, as during the last half of its life this machine is, comparatively speaking, out of date.

Further, with the combined machine, the initial outlay is not so great as with two separate-duty machines, so that the total cost per annum is less, a saving being effected on the licence, insurance and depreciation.

The third type of vehicle which we wish to describe in this Issue, dealing with the duty which it has to perform, is the motor cesspool-emptier.

This machine is not used in towns, but in villages and outlying parts of small urban areas. Sewage schemes do not exist in many of these places, drainage being of the cesspool type. These cesspools are situated in the gardens at the rear of the houses, being anything from 150 ft. to 200 ft. from the road. Under local by' laws they have to be watertight, with the result that periodical emptying is necessary.

The old-fashioned practice of doing this was to pump the liquid out on to the gardens or neighbouring laud, which, naturally, gave rise to a foul stench and was much objected to. In more np-to-date places the local authorities undertook the emptying of the cesspools, either by direct labour or by contract, the liquid being pumped out by hand through a length of hose into a horse-drawn cart in the road outside. This was somewhat better than the practice mentioned above, but still was very inefficient and Open to abuse, particularly in the ease where contractors were concerned. To save time, some of these people used to revert to the old method under cover of darkness and simply pumped the liquid out into an adjacent ditch, resulting in the council's officer, who was responsible for the work being carried out, having a very trying time through the various complaints sent to him.

Prior to the war a number of councils went in for main drainage and a Considerable number of others were about to follow their example when htistilities rendered the schemes impossible for the time being.

The question was again gone into after the war, but it was found that the tremendous cost of carrying out the work, being double and treble that of the estimates given previously, necessitated the Schemes being abandoned for the time being.

Fortunately, at this time, the motor cesspool-emptier appeared, and met with an excellent reception. Those councils who were carrying out the work with direct labour quickly realized the tremendous saving and benefit to the public health to be obtained from the purchase of these vehicles, and each invested in one— with satisfactory results.

Many councils who had always placed the work out

to contract bought a machine and ran it with their own men, with the result mentioned above, and at once all the old complaints ceased. The cesspools are now emptied under the direct supervision of either the surveyor or the sanitary inspector, and the work is well done.

The apparatus consists of a cylindrical tank fitted on to a motor chassis equipped with an air pump and anything up to 250 ft. of suction hose, the latter carried on hoards at the side of the tank. This hose is connected from the filling valve of the tank to the cesspool and the contents of the latter drawn up by the vacuum principle. The hose, being always under a negative pressure, does not leak, so that the work is carried out in a very cleanly manner.

One of the best known makes on the market is equipped with an arrangement which enables compressed air to be discharged through the hose after the pit is emptied, so that no mess is made when it is uncoupled..

Another advantage is that cesspools are now emptied of all solid matter, which used to be left by the oldfashioned pumps, resulting in the pits now holding anything from 20 per cent. to 50 per cent, more liquid. The only difficulty with this system of emptying lies in the disposal of the liquid. In the case of districts where parts of it are sewered the disposal is an easy matter, as it can be discharged into a convenient manhole or taken into the sewage works.

In the majority of places, however, the liquid has to be discharged on the land, and because of its nature and the smell that emanates from it, people will not let their land to the council for the purpose. The difficulty is overcome in some districts by the purchase of a piece of land by the council in an isolated place and the sewage is discharged on to it. In other places it is discharged into old chalk or sand pits in the woods and on ground generally unfit for cultivation.

From the above it can be readily seen that municipal appliances for dealing with present-day conditions are extremely efficient and that the work is done In a hygienic and economical manner.