[HN Gopher] Everyday uses for PVC water pipe
___________________________________________________________________
Everyday uses for PVC water pipe
Author : fidotron
Score : 177 points
Date : 2023-09-15 20:05 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (tomtilley.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (tomtilley.net)
| Linux-Fan wrote:
| They missed the most prevalent everyday use of water pipes
| (except for their originally intended use cases maybe...):
|
| <https://www.country-reiten.de/magazin/tipps-tricks/112-klein...>
| mastazi wrote:
| one more: PVC pipe percussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC-
| jl4INaNI
|
| Edit: also mentioned by user "nomel" in this same thread
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37530235
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Missing: every budget Warhammer/Vampire: Dark Ages LARP weapon in
| 2000-10s Poland. (speaking from my personal experience here)
| Qem wrote:
| Where I live most water tubing is PVC. I always wondered if the
| transport of drinking water in tubes made of organochlorine
| compounds is a sound idea.
| loeg wrote:
| Where is that? Are you sure it's PVC and not PEX?
| Qem wrote:
| Brazil. I'm sure.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| schemescape wrote:
| One more: PVC bike rack.
|
| I bought a ratcheting PVC cutter and honestly am not sure if I
| would have been able to complete the project without it.
|
| One note: most instructions suggested doing a "dry fit" but I
| found that the pipes slid into the connectors much farther once
| they had PVC glue on them. Not a big deal, but everything ended
| up smaller than planned as a result.
| datavirtue wrote:
| You can quickly sand the ends by grappling them with sandpaper
| in your hand and twisting/squeezing. This reduces the size and
| modifies the texture, allowing them to assemble and disassemble
| easier.
|
| I like to be able to disassemble my creations so I dry fit and
| then bury a self tapping stainless screw through adjoining
| pieces instead of using glue.
| MrVandemar wrote:
| I made a vocal booth out of PVC. Easy and cheap way to build a
| small, lightweight structure.
| kmoser wrote:
| I built a bird feeder similar to
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F4wdJSEVEo only I used clear
| polycarbonate for the body which allowed me to see the level of
| bird seed remaining.
| swayvil wrote:
| Makes a sweet didgeridoo. Maybe put some silicone caulk on the
| mouthhole.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I thought PVC leached chemicals in the drinking water case?
| frogpelt wrote:
| Also, curtain rods.
|
| I don't see that listed but I used 3 PVC pipes and two 45-degree
| PVC couplings for about 5 years as a curtain rod above a bay
| window in my breakfast nook.
|
| I painted them black and glued a finial on each end to disguise
| it. Nobody ever noticed, which is quite disappointing.
| sgt wrote:
| Does the paint handle some friction?
| frogpelt wrote:
| Ok, that part wasn't too great actually. I guess you could
| put some clear finish over the paint to help protect it.
| koolba wrote:
| Best use I've ever found was a wall mounted fishing rod holder.
| Takes a bit of work to get the lip opening just right to match
| your rod side (if you're a perfectionist), but final product is
| the pinnacle of functional efficiency.
| otoburb wrote:
| Fencing weapon sheaths (sabre, epee or foil).
| [deleted]
| elihu wrote:
| Making cool stuff out of cheap materials is great, but as I
| understand it, PVC itself is nasty stuff (even compared with
| other plastics) that we should probably be avoiding if we can.
|
| I'm not sure what would work as a good general-purpose
| replacement for PVC for making things out of though. I'm not sure
| if ABS is available in the narrow diameters that PVC is. Pex is
| more bendy. Bamboo is strong, but not uniform. Wooden dowels or
| aluminum tube could work for some things, but it'd be more
| expensive.
| userbinator wrote:
| Burning PVC is very toxic, but ABS is no better in that regard,
| nor are most other plastics with the exception of pure alkanes.
|
| AFAIK the health scare is mainly around the plasticisers used
| to make PVC (very) flexible, but rigid PVC pipe does not
| contain any plasticiser.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Is that true for PEX too? If so what's the alternative for
| piping?
| bluGill wrote:
| PEX is generally too flexible for these projects. I won't use
| anything else for fresh water plumbing though.
| elihu wrote:
| I don't know. I think that may have other issues with the
| additives to make it flexible, but that's outside my
| knowledge.
|
| The East Palestine train wreck recently was carrying a big
| load of vinyl chloride among other things.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ohio_train_derailment
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride
|
| Maybe other plastics are just as bad, but it seems like not
| making stuff out of vinyl chloride if we can possibly help it
| might be a good move generally.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| Vinyl chloride (the monomer) is very different chemically
| from polyvinyl chloride.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| We can wax on about what plastic would be ideal, but ultimately
| this is about making things from stuff you can find at a local
| hardware store.
|
| So rather than go down this path, the way to go is to lobby
| hardware stores to carry "better" (by whatever metrics your
| judging PVC). It's not like we, as average humans, have
| unlimited choices in building materials. We choose from what's
| available at the store. PVC is at the store now.
| elihu wrote:
| Well yeah, that's kind of why I brought it up. PVC is cheap,
| available, and easy to use. Is there some other material that
| could replace PVC but made from less environmentally
| undesirable materials? Is it available at hardware store? If
| not, could it be?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| If you have a suggestion I'm sure it would be welcome.
|
| Generally, if there were a better solution we would be
| using it. If you know of one, you should share it with us.
|
| If you don't, maybe work on finding one.
| ethanbond wrote:
| GP made multiple suggestions and personally I read their
| comment as "here are some ideas, does anyone else have
| any?" Not an indictment of people using this material or
| a statement that there must be something better and
| everyone must switch to it.
|
| Your comment comes across a bit off-tenor.
|
| Also keen to hear if folks on here have other ideas
| (before you ask: I don't have any).
|
| > Generally, if there were a better solution we would be
| using it.
|
| If this were actually the attitude people adopted,
| literally nothing would improve ever.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I agree, improvement is important.
|
| There is a saying, "everyone is a mechanical engineer".
| As one, we consistently have to field this kind of
| question in design reviews, etc.
|
| The question, in general, is why don't you invent a new
| material to solve that problem, the answer generally is
| we don't have the budget on this $100k project to ask DOW
| chemical or 3M or BASF to spend 10 years designing a new
| plastic for us.
|
| So while I agree in concept, in practice it's not really
| a helpful question/suggestion.
|
| The way we MEs have learned to answer this question is to
| say we made from the most appropriate material given the
| requirements and operating conditions, if anyone is aware
| of a material that we should also try then please speak
| up.
|
| Almost never is there someone that speaks up.
|
| The other thing is there is a huge difference between
| "material exists " and material is mass produced and
| available to the general public.
|
| In this case, to compete with PVC pipe by making some new
| better resin, extruding it into pipe, then making it
| readily available on the general market so that it's
| available enough to write a guidebook on how to use it to
| make stuff. That's a billion dollar investment.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I don't think GP was asking for people on Hackernews to
| invent a general purpose, greener alternative to PVC.
|
| I think they were asking whether there's an alternative
| that hobbyist could use for these types of projects.
|
| For example, there might be a material that's
| significantly greener and a bit more expensive -- enough
| so that a large scale project couldn't justify the
| economic costs (i.e. it wouldn't be a general purpose
| replacement for PVC), but such that a small project
| hobbyist would prefer to have that melting in their
| garage shop instead of PVC.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I understand that.
|
| I dont think there is.
|
| Does anyone have any suggestions?
| nomel wrote:
| Don't forget all the various music instruments you can make out
| of them!
|
| https://www.pvcfittingsonline.com/resource-center/diy-musica...
|
| These are fun:
|
| https://youtu.be/-0gED3rn2Tc&t=200
| throwawayForMe2 wrote:
| I have made many flutes out of pvc. Shakuhachi, bansuri, Ney,
| are all good to make in pvc. I have also made recorder style,
| using a shaped cedar plug on the mouth end.
| buro9 wrote:
| Hardcourt bike polo, the polo mallet.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| We could have had an internet like this.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I know you're talking about indie content and decentralization,
| but all I can think about is an Internet constructed of a
| series of tubes-- blue PVC tubes.
| Eumenes wrote:
| this is the content i come here for
| jdietrich wrote:
| PVC pipe is a popular material for making archery bows.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyJB0O3fSQ
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| My math teacher put a pvc pipe in a pool noodle and would slam it
| on student's desks when they were caught dozing off
|
| Hope someone else remembers who that was too
| salawat wrote:
| History teacher preferred either iron pipe on the floor or
| hammers on his metal desk.
|
| The spatially adjacent classrooms never failed to detect when
| someone was dozing.
| escot wrote:
| Another "do anything" material is 80/20 which is aluminum bars
| you can bolt together to make tons of different structures.
|
| https://8020.net/
| sieste wrote:
| That hipster game controller by the same guy is awesome!
|
| https://tomtilley.net/projects/hipster-controller/
| poulpy123 wrote:
| This guy make music instruments in PVC
| https://www.youtube.com/@NicolasBras/videos (later videos are in
| english but the first ones were in french)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I made a face towel rack for the master bath after removing all
| the hardware from the walls
| cam_l wrote:
| Not as cool as some of the uses here, but we often use 350 PVC
| pipes in clients houses as laundry chutes. Best thing is the
| clean transitions which prevent stuff from getting stuck inside
| (except children, so make sure to keep these at a reasonable
| height).
| pengaru wrote:
| To not highlight the power of heating PVC pipe to conform into
| any shape you want is to kind of miss half the PVC story.
|
| You can do without unions altogether by just heating one end
| enough to flare it, then slide the other pipe into the flare
| while heating more to let it conform and produce a union lap
| joint in-situ.
|
| Mastering heating is key to avoiding wasting money on tons of
| adapters which rarely even produce exactly what you want.
| sokoloff wrote:
| At $1-2/minute of labor, there's a reason pros use the
| fittings.
| pengaru wrote:
| > At $1-2/minute of labor, there's a reason pros use the
| fittings.
|
| This has absolutely nothing to do with "pros", we're not
| talking about plumbing - we're talking about alternative
| applications for PVC. PVC hacks if you will.
|
| The amount of time you waste trying to find fittings that
| match your weird ass project in the disorganized and poorly
| stocked shelves of the local Home Depot you probably already
| could have had the thing done with just some careful
| application of heat. You often end up with a more streamlined
| end result too.
| eternityforest wrote:
| It's a useful technique, but part of the fun of PVC is the
| limited degrees of freedom. It's like autocorrect in real life!
|
| It tends to not produce very nice looking results because it's
| mostly right angles, but that's doesn't matter as much if
| you're using it as a frame and keeping it hidden.
|
| 3D printing also greatly expands the possibilities of pipe.
| TheHappyOddish wrote:
| We use them to make swords. Cut some skinny PVC to the rough
| shape of a sword (they have four way interconnectors, so you can
| do the blade, guards and handle), glue them together, cover with
| a pool noodle and duct tape. Great swords, can't do too much
| damage.
| emmelaich wrote:
| You can make a far more powerful shooter using propane / butane
| and a tennis ball.
|
| And more dangerous!
|
| Can also store balls in pressurised pipe to keep them bouncy for
| longer.
| susiecambria wrote:
| A potato cannon. With hair spray re-packaged as Susie's Special
| somethin'. It was a Christmas present from my husband. Best
| gift ever!!!
| comprambler wrote:
| It is also a great material to build the frame of various kinds
| of antennae for SDR uses.
| userbinator wrote:
| TIL that PVC pipe is normally blue in Thailand. In North America
| it is almost always white, but also finds similar structural
| uses.
| 8ig8 wrote:
| Schedule 40 is white. Schedule 80 (thicker walls) is a darker
| gray. (I think.)
| datavirtue wrote:
| Colors vary depending on application. You can get sch 40 and
| 80 in white.
|
| Just realized that no one mentioned potato guns. I used sch
| 80 for those. That quickly leads to using iron pipe with a
| sparkplug and a propane fitting threaded in though.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Don't use PVC for any pressure applications like potato
| guns!
| pimlottc wrote:
| I love this stuff. It's amazing how many different sorts of
| construction materials you can get for cheap at a modern hardware
| store. I just wish I knew more about what's available, I'm sure
| there's a lot of customized home hacks that would be easy to rig
| up.
| jamesbfb wrote:
| When I was living in Thailand, during the weekends I volunteered
| for an organisation that would make carts using PVC pipes for
| dogs who could not walk. Those PVC pipes are crazy resilient!
| erikcw wrote:
| After stumbling upon this, I've been obsessively looking for an
| excuse to drill a well[0].
|
| https://drillyourownwell.com/
| samtho wrote:
| When I was working in construction (electrical) we would
| "predrill" our grounding rods about 75% the length using this
| method. These are normally 1/2-inch diameter, 8ft long rods
| that must be driven via rotary hammer but the bedrock being so
| close to the surface and Sacramento valley riverbed clay
| density was just too much sometimes for the hammer.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The only problem with PVC pipe is, it's brittle. And over time,
| it gets more brittle.
| myself248 wrote:
| Also, it's almost never recycled.
|
| An awful lot of things I see people doing with PVC pipe, and
| it's not very good at it, would be much better done with wood,
| which nature already understands how to process when you're
| done with it.
| whartung wrote:
| Folks on YouTube cut, heat, and flatten PVC and then scratch
| build scale models out of it.
|
| This working excavator is rather extraordinary.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&pp=ygUTcHZjIHBpcGU...
| chimichurri wrote:
| I came here to post about this. Very impressive. I wonder how
| he got the model to such high level of 3d Fidelity. Can PVC
| objects be additively manufactured?
| genman wrote:
| Impressive, but it hurts me to see how much risk to loose his
| fingers he takes.
| mhb wrote:
| Fantastic. Thanks.
| supportengineer wrote:
| This is astounding. What I want to know is, how does one have
| _that much_ free time?
| tobr wrote:
| Is it "free time" though when they post multiple videos per
| month and regularly have several million views?
| zo1 wrote:
| The channel has 500k subscribers, so it's probably a full
| time job/business. I wouldn't be surprised if they take
| shortcuts by having parts made off camera by "helpers".
|
| At the end of the day, these things are entertainment for us
| to consume and they don't have to show us all the effort
| happening off-camera.
|
| I say this generally for these kinds of channels, not this
| one specifically.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| I started watching this and couldn't stop. It is ridiculously
| impressive.
|
| I would guess he would have used some CAD tool to design this
| excavator? It had to have been very carefully thought out to
| ensure proper access to put the pieces together and take them
| back apart all along the way. Does he say in other videos what
| he uses?
| bragr wrote:
| I would have assumed the same, but at 16:08 and 17:58 he's
| sketching parts by hand overlaid on a computer monitor with
| reference images
|
| What a mad man
| Groxx wrote:
| It even has windshield wipers, that's pretty wild:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&t=48m1s
| toddmorey wrote:
| He hand drilled each and every hole for the perforated step
| plates. Just in awe of both the skill and the patience.
|
| He also seems to be working with several tools he made
| himself.
| neilv wrote:
| This deserves its own HN post.
| metadat wrote:
| Agreed, submitted
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37534779
| jpm_sd wrote:
| This might be the craziest thing I have ever seen. How is this
| even possible? He doesn't measure or mark anything?? How can it
| fit together? How are the repeated parts so perfectly
| identical?
| latchkey wrote:
| That's amazing. Some kid from some small town in Northern
| Vietnam, who is a genius.
| JoshTko wrote:
| PVC is quite toxic in a variety of ways. I would never heat,
| cut PVC voluntarily, especially without full breathing
| protection
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| I was wondering about that myself... It also gave me the
| willies when he was using the table saw cutting those tiny
| little strips with his fingers so close to the blade!
| elteto wrote:
| It's not a blade, it's a sanding disk (at least the one
| seen in the first few minutes of the video).
| ArlenBales wrote:
| Realistically, given the tiny size of that table saw and
| the small parts needed to cut, what other way would there
| be to use it?
| ArlenBales wrote:
| We never see his face so I'm not sure where your assumptions
| are coming from, but I'm sure someone with enough PVC
| experience to make a working model excavator out of PVC is
| probably taking the necessary safety precautions..
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Talent at fabrication and wisdom/access to adequate PPE's
| are almost entirely uncorrelated
| JoshTko wrote:
| I think this sequence is sufficient to infer that their
| approach to safety is not commensurate with their
| engineering skill.
| https://youtu.be/Z6JvAZHJCAo?si=y-nWawnkC_mIAvVM&t=123
| amelius wrote:
| Cool video except they left out all the steps necessary to
| reach the incredible precision.
|
| This is not how engineers work.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| It occasionally cuts to measuring items with calipers, a
| multimeter, using a compass, and parts show up on screen with
| score marks, so I assume the creator is _definitely_
| measuring things off camera.
|
| The video is an hour long, but the fast scene cuts, and
| focusing on the actual assembly actions makes the video
| somehow more compelling and "can't-look-away".
| samtho wrote:
| An engineer is not a YouTube video which is essentially a
| (maybe) narrated highlight reel of a process. I don't find it
| disingenuous to condense this down for general consumption
| because there just is not a ton of value from showing every
| measurement, each individual cut, and inevitable mess-ups of
| this process.
| js2 wrote:
| I've only gotten to the part where he makes the gear... despite
| having a few jigs, I can't get over how much he's doing by hand
| and by eye with sufficient precision. The teeth were hand drawn
| and match up with the spacing of the tracks made earlier. Very
| impressive work.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| https://youtu.be/qam0DmWq_No?t=971
|
| this is fucking amazing. stencil a photo from a screen and
| trace it on to an object.
|
| i am generally hateful towards 5 minute crafts but this is
| serious engineering.
| jabart wrote:
| The style is similar to the way dovetails were cut by hand in
| drawers before dovetail machines became a thing.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Have also seen people make sleeping platforms out of schedule 40
| PVC, for sleeping in the back of a car.
| amluto wrote:
| Interestingly, plumbing your house with PVC water pipe is not a
| fantastic idea and is not allowed under most plumbing codes. The
| specific issue is that PVC loses strength at higher temperatures,
| so performance at household water pressures with household hot
| water is somewhat marginal. Manufacturers don't rate their pipe
| at all above 140 degrees F. Having your pipe burst when you run
| hot water through it is undesirable, and inspectors can't easily
| tell whether a pipe is a hot water pipe or a cold water pipe, so
| PVC is generally not permitted for indoor potable use.
|
| CPVC has much better hot water performance, isn't terribly hard
| to find, and glues just like PVC as long as you use the right
| glue.
|
| (Very confusingly, CPVC pipe is usually sold in "copper tube
| size" instead of Schedule 40/80. But this means that many push-
| to-connect fittings work on CPVC pipe.)
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I don't think I've ever seen PVC/CPVC pipe used for water in
| the UK, only ever seen it used for electrical conduits.
|
| Most indoor water pipes are still copper but PEX is becoming
| more popular. Outdoor is now nearly always MDPE.
| amluto wrote:
| Huh. In the US, HDPE outdoors is somewhat common in larger
| installations and for utilities, and PVC is used for almost
| all landscape irrigation. Galvanized steel is still
| surprisingly common indoors and outdoors despite its near
| complete lack of redeeming features.
|
| Indoors, fancy contractors seem to prefer copper and less
| fancy contractors seem to prefer PEX. Those fancy copper-
| using contractors seem to mostly mess up and use non-water-
| soluble flux, which is against code and is very much a
| mistake on cold water pipes.
|
| Residential fire sprinkler pipes are almost always CPVC. PEX
| is permitted in most jurisdictions if the pressure is
| regulated, but almost no one uses it despite being much less
| fiddly than CPVC. (Commercial fire sprinkler pipes seem to be
| mostly steel (!). I don't know why. It always seems like a
| dubious idea to me.)
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Landscape irrigation isn't that common in a domestic
| setting here. We get plenty of rain normally, but in the
| (increasingly common) periods of drought, most people just
| let their lawns dry out and manually water the flowers.
|
| Domestic fire sprinklers are also, sadly, quite uncommon.
| They've started to become more common in flats,
| particularly since Grenfell, but still, I've never had
| cause to touch the pipework for one. Fire safety in the UK
| is pretty poor compared to the USA.
|
| Copper has has been the dominant form of indoor plumbing
| for ages here, so every plumber knows how to work with it.
| It's still seen as the preferred option, and most people,
| myself included, consider PEX as a cheap alternative. As
| far as joints go, compression fit seems to maybe be more
| popular now than soldering for domestic plumbers due to
| speed of installation, but I personally prefer soldering as
| I've had bad luck with compression fittings developing
| weeps after years. Push fit has been making some inroads -
| but I wouldn't trust it myself!
| amluto wrote:
| John Guest has been making what seem to be very nice
| push-to-connect fittings in the UK for a long time. I've
| only used the US versions, and I've never seen one fail.
| If you avoid putting bending stress on them, they seem
| quite secure.
|
| John Guest also has some very nice "ProLock" build-your-
| own-manifold fittings.
|
| For what it's worth, there are a couple of applications
| for which plastic or stainless steel are the only
| credible choices. Carbonated water is dangerous when in
| contact with copper or brass, and boiler condensate
| (which is basically carbonated water) will rapidly
| destroy copper or brass. So your boiler condensate
| drainage system generally ought to be made entirely of
| plastic.
|
| I've personally had some rather impressive failures of
| copper pipe due, I think, to aggressive water at
| excessive velocity. Copper's ability to resist corrosion
| is finicky.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Irrigation is PVC in parts of the US, but black poly in
| others. I'm in New England where black poly is much more
| common (as it's somewhat more freeze breakage resistant,
| even though we still blow them out). PVC is more common in
| areas with mild winters.
| dessimus wrote:
| > (Commercial fire sprinkler pipes seem to be mostly steel
| (!). I don't know why. It always seems like a dubious idea
| to me.)
|
| Because steel can withstand much higher temperatures than
| CPVC, PVC, or Pex, by at least an order of magnitude, not
| to mention withstand much higher water pressure too.
| bombcar wrote:
| And also commercial fire pipes are often dry (they're
| pressurized with air or carbon dioxide, and when the
| sprinkler glass breaks, then the water flows in).
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Commercial fire sprinkler pipes are steel because it has a
| high melting point, it's durable, and it's less expensive
| than copper or brass. The water pressure in a fire
| sprinkler system can be 100-200 psi.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Copper is toxic to microbes, plastics are not.
|
| Relevant for salmonella for example. This alone would be reason
| for me to just use copper.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| This seems like borderline paranoia. Water travels
| potentially dozens of miles from the place where it is
| cleaned and treated with chlorine to kill bugs. The vast
| majority of that in non-copper pipes. The last few feet
| inside your house seems unlikely to change anything.
| xeonmc wrote:
| Yes but the dozens of miles is moving water whereas the
| last few feet in you house is stale water.
| wrycoder wrote:
| You don't have daughters.
| xinayder wrote:
| I have a filter before the water comes in and after it
| comes out of the water tank.
|
| Heated water is kept in a different reservoir and the
| piping uses heat resistant PVC.
|
| In Brazil, most times the water has a smell of chlorine
| so I guess the chances of it having deadly/lethal
| microbia there are next to null?
|
| Drank water from the tap (where plumbing is done
| properly) for all my life, never had any problems so far.
| jiofj wrote:
| You don't let the water run for a bit before drinking it?
| oogali wrote:
| If you have a water dispenser (through a refrigerator),
| do you fill and dump two glasses before getting yourself
| a glass of water to consume?
| jiofj wrote:
| I guess I would. It seems dangerous not to for the
| reasons mentioned here.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I hadn't got a water dispenser like that but I'd be
| really surprised to find that the internal reservoir and
| piping was made of anything except for plastic.
| bombcar wrote:
| Some actually have coiled copper (it transmits "cold"
| better) - but almost all of them have a filter.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I think it's safe to say many, many people don't do this.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I don't, why should I?
| geomark wrote:
| In the country I live virtually every house is plumbed with
| PVC. Works great and only fails if done extremely poorly. Of
| course, they don't run hot water through it. Most people here
| think it is bizarre to have a big tank of hot water at one end
| of the house (often the garage) that is sent throughout the
| house, rather than having instant hot water heaters at the
| point of use.
| pimlottc wrote:
| The efficiency of hot water heaters is actually surprisingly
| good. A modern insulated tank retains heat very well. And
| it's more flexible for heating options since the water can be
| heated slowly over time. You can now get heat pump water
| heaters that are more efficient than tankless heaters. [0]
|
| Water heaters are pretty clever, in a low-tech sort of way.
| Technology Connections did a good video about them recently.
| [1]
|
| 0: https://livefreehc.com/blog/heat-pump-water-heater-vs-
| tankle...
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm7L-2J52GU
| genter wrote:
| CPVC might be better than PVC, but it's still way worse than
| copper or pex. Both PVC and CPVC will shatter if stressed
| beyond it's yield strength. Go hit it with a hammer, and
| compare that to hitting a copper pipe or pex. This is also the
| reason why pvc is super dangerous for compressed air.
| function_seven wrote:
| > _This is also the reason why pvc is super dangerous for
| compressed air._
|
| Back in the day all us kids knew to get the ABS stuff when
| building our potato cannons. I was terrified of the
| combustion chamber shattering right next to my face.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| We didn't know this and I'm realizing now were incredibly
| lucky!
| Infernal wrote:
| Oh shit - we did not know. I guess we got lucky too!
| macNchz wrote:
| I remember hearing the opposite, 20 years ago when I made
| one-that PVC was preferable to ABS because you couldn't
| readily buy ABS with any sort of pressure rating.
| wrycoder wrote:
| That's why you do a pressure test at twice the working
| pressure, with the thing under a blanket.
|
| This should be repeated every year.
| briHass wrote:
| It's certainly not 'way worse'. CPVC/PVC has its advantages
| and disadvantages, just like every other piping method. CPVC
| can become less pliable over time, particularly for hot
| water, but properly (by code) supported/strapped and glued,
| it can last for decades. It, like PEX, should be run to a
| well-secured, copper stub out where it sticks out of the wall
| in an area where it could be damaged.
|
| Copper is not without its disadvantages: it's outrageous
| expensive as of late, soldering can be dangerous (banned in
| some cases due to fire risk), it takes longer to install than
| most other options, and some water supplies have a
| composition that leads to premature failures.
|
| PEX is a universe of options: PEX-A, PEX-B, crimp rings,
| clamps, plastic/brass fittings, etc. It also needs to be
| properly installed - PEX B has very specific locations for
| the crimp/clamp rings on the fitting, and the difference
| between a proper crimp/clamp and a failure waiting to happen
| is very subtle.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you go PEX, I highly recommend going the entire Uponor
| route and use the expansion tooling (get the powered one).
|
| No need to worry about incorrect crimps and it just works.
| amluto wrote:
| If only Uponor would flesh out their fitting portfolio
| for 3/8". 3/8" PEX is a near-perfect material for hot
| water distribution to sinks and showers -- jurisdictions
| seem to have settled on the 0-2gpm range for sinks and
| showers, and 3/8" PEX high velocity at moderate pressure
| loss at these flows, which is exactly what you want. [0]
| But Uponor has very limited 3/8" parts, and using their
| brass fittings in that small size makes me a bit uneasy
| due to potential erosion issues. Give me stainless steel
| or plastic, please, or at least something where the very
| narrow part that inserts into the 3/8" PEX tube is highly
| resistant to fast-moving hot water.
|
| If you consider push-to-connect fittings acceptable,
| something like this could be very nice for connecting
| tubing to shower valves:
|
| https://www.johnguest.com/us/en/cts-
| fittings/prolock/threade...
|
| (3/8" is permitted by code, but not by the tables in the
| UPC - actual math is required.)
|
| [0] PEX, unlike copper, tolerates fairly high velocity
| hot water. Copper has a delicate passive layer on the
| inside, and scrubbing it off will erode the pipe. The
| interior of a PEX pipe, is, drumroll please, just PEX,
| which is a rather tough polymer that is not going to be
| easily eroded away.
| cmclaughlin wrote:
| > 3/8" is permitted by code, but not by the tables in the
| UPC
|
| Can you elaborate on this please?
|
| It takes 90 seconds for hot water to flow from my water
| heater to my kitchen in the winter. I'm not sure if I
| have 1/2 or 3/8 pex (I'd have to crawl under the house to
| check). I've been thinking of adding a small Bosch water
| heater under the sink or a recirculation like, but maybe
| I should reduce the size of the pipe too
| samtho wrote:
| Both PEX-A and PEX-B require a separate tools (segment of
| the tool, or swappable tool head) to perform the pipe to
| fitting connection. In most cases, it's easier to just
| upsize the pipe and have your final termination point be
| the size you need. I'd rather have very cheap 1/2 inch
| available than have slightly more expensive 1/2 and 3/8
| inch. If needed anything that required the 3/8 in, I
| would just use copper because it's likely a very small
| and isolated case.
| amluto wrote:
| You're missing my point.
|
| For domestic hot water, for the connection from whatever
| part of the system stays hot (the header, the recirc
| loop, etc) to the fixture, the amount of time and wasted
| water needed to get hot water to the fixture is directly
| proportional to the volume of the interior of the pipe,
| and for a fixed length of pipe, it's inversely
| proportional to velocity. So you want the _narrowest_
| pipe you can get away with. 3 /8" PEX has about half the
| interior cross-sectional area as 1/2". This means you get
| hot water about twice as fast. 3/8" PEX loses about 26
| psi/100 ft at 2 gpm and much less at lower flow. If you
| have 40 psi water and you have a short-ish pipe, that's
| usually fine. Or if you have higher pressure and a longer
| pipe, you're still fine.
|
| The issue here has that, while the 3/8" PEX is near-
| perfect for this application, the rest of the system is
| not amazing. Your sink is likely (sigh) "3/8 female
| compression", aka non-standard 9/16 UNEF or so, but the
| flow rate is well under 2 gpm, so this isn't a big deal -
| use whatever adapter you like.
|
| But your shower likely has 1/2" NPT brass female threads.
| To get the benefit of 3/8" PEX, you need to adapt it _at
| the shower_.
|
| > If needed anything that required the 3/8 in, I would
| just use copper because it's likely a very small and
| isolated case.
|
| No, don't do that. From the horse's mouth (this
| particular horse very much wanting you to use copper):
|
| https://copper.org/applications/plumbing/cth/design-
| installa...
|
| > [Copper Pipe] Water Velocity Limitations
|
| > To avoid excessive system noise and the possibility of
| erosion-corrosion, the designer should not exceed flow
| velocities of 8 feet per second for cold water and 5 feet
| per second in hot water up to approximately 140degF. In
| systems where water temperatures routinely exceed
| 140degF, lower flow velocities such as 2 to 3 feet per
| second should not be exceeded. In addition, where
| 1/2-inch and smaller tube sizes are used, to guard
| against localized high velocity turbulence due to
| possibly faulty workmanship (e.g. burrs at tube ends
| which were not properly reamed/deburred) or unusually
| numerous, abrupt changes in flow direction, lower
| velocities should be considered. Locally aggressive water
| conditions can combine with these two considerations to
| cause erosion-corrosion if system velocities are too
| high.
|
| A 2.2 gpm shower head fed by 3/8" copper is out of spec.
|
| I have personally seen copper tube fail when used with
| plain water at excessive velocity. It's not pretty.
| Fortunately it was outdoors. Don't do this inside your
| walls. Most vendors seem to think 8 ft/sec in PEX at 140F
| is fine, though.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think everyone just uses 1/2 and doesn't have junctions
| at all.
| Vvector wrote:
| "it can last for decades"
|
| Just my personal opinion, that's the problem with US
| housing. We build stuff to last 20-30 years(if properly
| installed) , instead of 100s of years.
| bluGill wrote:
| We build most houses to last for centuries when properly
| maintained. We also know from experience that few houses
| go more than 50 years without a major remodel so we don't
| overbuild making that impossible.
| User23 wrote:
| > We also know from experience that few houses go more
| than 50 years without a major remodel
|
| Well obviously, if we don't build houses to last longer
| than a few decades. You're describing a symptom not a
| reason.
| bluGill wrote:
| People's needs change. Technology marches on. My house
| was built in 1973, next week i'm throwing away a furnace
| that is still working like new because it is 60%
| efficient. I don't know how efficient the air conditioner
| is, but it is being replaced by a heat pump that will be
| better. If it wasn't so expensive the windows that are
| working like new would go as well for something more
| energy efficient. I'm also considering (unlikely but
| considering) options to make my kitchen larger like what
| a new house would have as this lacks some functionality
| of a modern kitchen. Previous owners added a few extra
| bedrooms in the 1980s. This house was built without cable
| tv or internet wiring, some of that was added latter, but
| not to every room (and.with modern wifi probably isn't
| needed anymore. I haven't tested, but i'm sure the pipes
| were soldered with lead, the paint might have lead
| underneath, and there could be asbestos in places.
|
| My house is typical for a house its age. I have no idea
| what people will want from a house in 2073, but it will
| be at least somewhat different from today. Some of that
| will be style of course, but some will be real functional
| differences.
| User23 wrote:
| It's not like these needs can't be anticipated. The
| wiring problem can be solved by running conduit, or at
| least making fishing easy. As for the heating, the basic
| problem of pushing around hot air or hot water just isn't
| going to change, regardless of the details of how it's
| accomplished.
|
| My point is that it's possible to build a house with with
| a lasting structure that can be updated for new
| technologies as they arise relatively easily, but we
| don't do that because the home building industry is
| overrun with corner cutting.
|
| If you visit old houses (pre-war) you can see that the
| general quality of the construction is just considerably
| higher than the crackerjack boxes we've been erecting
| since the '50s. Sure, there is an element of survivorship
| bias, and some of the legacy stuff is ugly to deal with
| (lead paint, asbestos, horsehair, and knob and tube, I'm
| looking at you), but overall they were built to last in a
| way that new construction today just isn't.
| bluGill wrote:
| You obviously have not looked at old houses in detail.
| They are far worse quality than today. Sure they may have
| used old growth lumber which was slightly stronger, but
| they had no concept of what was quality. I've seen 2x4
| used for floor joists, no insulation in walls, and many
| other engineering failures. And of course there is
| survivorship bias, the worst examples are torn down
| already.
|
| Sure the old houses looked stronger, and and often were
| in places where strength is not needed. However they
| often are lacking in critical areas.
| foobarian wrote:
| I'm OK with multi-decade life for certain things like
| roofs or fences or siding. But not for plumbing. What
| happens, one day the pipe just bursts and destroys the
| house?
| bluGill wrote:
| Depends. PVC tends to fail catastrophicly so if you are
| nnot home to get the valve off you are in trouble (odds
| are you are home, as pressure changes from turning a
| faucet off are likely to cause this. Metal pipes develop
| slow leaks over time so if you look at the house monthly
| you will probably catch issues before they do too much
| damage. So long as PEX isn't exposed to UV is is probably
| good forever (but the joints are not).
|
| Floods generally will not destory a house structure but
| it will destory the drywall, carpet, and the like so the
| cleanup is expensive.
| seabrookmx wrote:
| In my experience 99% of indoor plumbing in new builds in Canada
| (US too I believe) is PEX, not (C)PVC.
|
| PVC is common in sewage, drainage, and as conduit.
| amluto wrote:
| PVC is quite common for water utility use in the US in the
| form of AWWA C900. I once said hi to the project engineer of
| a water main replacement project (he was walking around the
| site), and he waxed poetic about C900 pipe. It's installed
| using crowbars, and the joints need to be externally
| restrained.
|
| Those dinky 1" pipes in your house develop quite modest
| tension at 100psi. 8" underground pipes are a whole different
| story.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Whenever there are elevation changes for underground
| pressurized pipes there are usually cast in place concrete
| thrust blocks that take the load from the pipe and give
| more soil area to push against, minimizing movement.
| Otherwise you're just depending on friction.
|
| But public infrastructure that wants to move is always
| scary conceptually
| andreashaerter wrote:
| Be careful when burning / process PVC.
| https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Glo...
| andersrs wrote:
| PVC is mildly toxic.
| frogpelt wrote:
| Isn't everything?
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