Report ... on the supply of water to the Metropolis.

  • Great Britain. General Board of Health
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report ... on the supply of water to the Metropolis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    93/340 page 79
    Comparative Cost. Material and Labour. Country with soft water. Town with water from Chelsea Water Works. Soap . , Soda . Labour, say . s. d. i lb. at 6d. = 0 3 | „ 1 0 Of 5 0 S. (I. li lbs. at 6d.= 0 9 ]i ]ir7 — 0 U 10 0 5 3| 10 107 The difference does not, however, end with the additional cost in material and labour, inasmuch as the hard water requires twice the time, which is probably the greatest tax and inconvenience, as the whole house is disturbed during the process; but beyond this there is the additional wear and deteriora- tion upon all clothes, especially those of a fine texture, such as muslins and cambrics. The destruction of these is doubled by hard water; so that if five shillings represents the cost of washing a certain amount of clothes with soft or rain water, four times this sum, or one pound sterling, will be the cost of using hard water, such as the Chelsea Works supply, namely, 16 degrees of hardness, according to Dr. Clark’s soap test. It is stated, however, by the practical witnesses, that there is an advantage in soft water not to be obtained by any amount of labour or expense from hard water, short of distilling it, namely a certain quality of clean- liness and purity is imparted to all clothes by soft water, in part from an almost entire absence of alkaline or mineral ingredients, which does not fully leave clothes washed in hard water. Laundresses and persons carrying on the business of washing, on a large scale, near London, complain that the water as delivered is turbid, and discolours the linen. The following is stated as an example :—- The Manager of the Steam Laundry Old Kent Road (Mr. Krantz) stated that, when he first undertook the works, he found that the water supplied was on the intermittent system, and that it was delivered every day; but that, when the daily supply came in, the water in the cisterns was rendered so turbid by the
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