CHAPTER II.LOCATION AND CONSTRUCTION.
Location — Water Supply — Sewage — Odors and Prevailing Winds — Cleanliness — Designs and Errors — Character of Business — Requirements — Principles of Design.
Location — Water Supply — Sewage — Odors and Prevailing Winds — Cleanliness — Designs and Errors — Character of Business — Requirements — Principles of Design.
—Location is a moderate sized word with a vast meaning. It has two definitions as applied to meat packing houses.
—Location as to a live stock supply. Pioneers in foreign lands looking for a cheap supply must take into consideration the quantity immediately available, the probabilities based upon feeding, climate, natural enemies—beast and bug—and the ambition of the people to produce as well as their ability to produce.
Sometimes an apparent supply is at hand but a searching investigation will show that it is an accumulated surplus, soon exhausted, with a resultant dearth. In the case of cattle, a supply cannot be created in a day but by persistent effort and in several generations of human life.
Transportation by trooping and by train, or the ability of the cattle to withstand the first or the ability of the railways to handle for want of facilities, are at times matters of much consequence.
—Location as applied to a position for operating, applicable to domestic or foreign works. There are several items of prime importance to be considered in selecting a location from this standpoint. In many instances a plant is established near a locality producing a sufficient quality of live stock suitable for a certain purpose, for example pigs suitable for export trade. In some instances the selection of a location is made for trade reasons, or to be adjacent to a stock yards; and in instancesbecause property is owned in a certain locality. Where situation can be of choice, the matters for most serious consideration are sewage disposal, water supply, prevailing winds and transportation facilities.
—This is of great consequence. The quantity to be used for condensing purposes, refrigerating machinery operation, for cleansing, and in the regular course of business, is a very large amount, and if purchased from water supply corporations or municipalities, at prevailing rates, become a burdensome item of expense. The principal use for water can be classified under three headings:
—This naturally will be selected from available sources based upon fitness, irrespective of cost.
—First, for refrigerating machinery ammonia condensing and for steam engine condensing, in conjunction with the production of power and operating steam engines on refrigerating equipment. For this purpose cold water is desirable. If it can be obtained from wells it is the best practice, owing to such water usually being of low temperature. However, the cost of production must be considered, and that calls for engineering knowledge as to relative conditions. Usually, unless the surface water be in large quantity and available from a stream, the wells prove economical unless the water must be raised from great depths involving air lift pumping. There are instances, however, where turbidity makes water from streams undesirable and where well water is unobtainable, and in instances of this kind use of settling basins, reservoirs and cooling towers is resorted to.
—The water for cleansing purposes, for food products, fats and premises, should be clean and free from contamination that render it unfit for potable uses.
—The question of sewage disposal from a packing house is of more consequence than the water supply, which is usually determined by the relative cost. The former is a matter of disposition. No matter how carefully the refuse from the slaughtered animal is collected for passing through the rendering department, or how carefully the waters from cooking are collected for evaporation, quite large quantitiesof nitrogenous particles and many substances which are more cheaply disposed of by the way of the sewers, ultimately reach them. If the refuse finds its way to a rapidly flowing stream, it is taken care of by bacterial action, but if discharged into a dry stream or pool, or to a sewage disposal plant, it becomes a serious burden that sooner or later reverts to the packer.
—Naturally to minimize the distance of transport to stations for shipping or delivery to the consumer, or to be near to a supply of labor, every manufacturer is desirous of locating his works near to a city or on its outskirts, if not at a commercial stock yards. Where the latter are of comparatively large consequence to a community, the odors arising are usually considered a “necessary evil” and the packing plant as a part of that.
No matter how carefully the plant may be operated, if the full commercial value is taken out of all products there are some departments in which it is difficult to abate the smells, and if the prevailing winds are towards a residence district, it is likely to cause disturbance. This statement can be qualified, however, because it is a fact that plants can be designed and can be operated so as to be kept within proper bounds and be of no more nuisance than the handling of the live animals, but it will always be well for the prospective packer to recognize that he would not care to live on the premises, nor will his neighbor appreciate his works any more than he. A packing house properly belongs to a district at a reasonable distance from residence property, and where the prevailing winds are not toward the residence district.
—The features contributing most to the operation of a plant so as to avoid it becoming noisome is that of cleanliness, first, last and always; ample equipment to promptly dispose of all by-products, and to do it promptly.
—The location disposed of, the design and construction is a problem that cannot have too careful consideration. There are two grievous errors that may creep in; overbuilding and under building. Overbuilding recognizes the construction of a plant too large for present needs, thereby making the capital investment too large for the business to be done, and sometimes resulting in the handicap of insufficientmonies for plant operation with all the difficulties entailed. Under building, failing to recognize the growth that might occur and failing to so arrange that the growth can be made in a way that keeps the plant in balance and makes for economical operation. Either condition may lead to regrets.
—At this point comes the consideration of the character of the business to be conducted and the proportioning of departments one to another suitably. For instance, in a beef shipping plant for fresh beef the coolers may have a hanging capacity equal to at least three times the daily slaughtering capacity, while at some market points the ratio may be ten times. Whereas, at a freezing plant it becomes a question of room to accumulate a cargo dependent upon transport facilities.
—The requirements in the various localities, as to arrangement of departments; to comply with sanitary necessities as to light and ventilation, and the classes of materials required in construction, are changing from time to time and no set rule can be made, but these are axiomatic:
(1) Products prepared for food purposes must be quickly and thoroughly isolated from non-edible products.
(2) All departments should, so far as possible, be maintained in separate buildings.
(3) Building materials should, so far as possible, be non-absorbent.
(4) Light and air should be arranged for in plenty.
(5) The question of movement of product to minimize labor should be given proper attention. In the building of a packing house it is only within the last few years that this matter has been studied from the standpoint of obtaining the best results at the least expenditure for operating.
(6) Formerly it was considered proper to build the killing house and coolers on the ground level, excavating a cellar for the storage of some of the products; the power house, tank rooms and other buildings for the disposition of by-products were placed without reference to economy in operation. Experience has proven that it is economical to slaughter animals on the upper floor of a building, and instead of spreading out on the ground and covering a large area asformerly, to build higher over a smaller area. With a proper incline the animals will walk to an elevation of 50 or 60 feet without detriment to their condition, and it is much cheaper to do this than to kill them on the ground level and elevate the products, or to convey or transport them to distant buildings on the same level.
(7) The use of gravity is recognized as a proper procedure in all departments from a low labor cost standpoint. The locating of the buildings, one to another; to minimize the transferring of products; and the grouping of products as to convenience in shipping by wagon, by car or by boat, as the case may require, are also important.
(8) Very important is the question of grouping cold storage departments so as to minimize the wall space and exposure from radiation; likewise the concentration of buildings requiring heat to avoid the loss of fuel by reason of long steam lines, and radiation which can not be prevented.
—The crux of the plant appears to be the slaughtering department for it is here the work begins and from this source radiates the various parts for disposal. One well-known and successful designer works with the idea of beginning at the rendering department, and establishing the tops of the rendering tanks, or digestors, on a level with the viscera separating floor, from which the refuse is readily transported without the use of elevator or lift service.
The slaughtering floor is naturally above this level, and all other departments disposed to meet the various needs. Obviously there being so many controlling factors, no examples can be set out to meet all conditions. There follows however, a ground plan and sectional view of several plants of varying sizes with descriptive data.