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Everyday uses for PVC water pipe
- SillyUsername 3y agoPVC pipe uses pretty much remind me of a modern day stone soup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup
- Linux-Fan 3y agoThey 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-kleine-bastelei-geraete-halter-fuer-den-weidezaun https://www.country-reiten.de/magazin/tipps-tricks/112-klein...>
- nomel 3y agoDon't forget all the various music instruments you can make out of them! https://www.pvcfittingsonline.com/resource-center/diy-musical-instruments-made-from-pvc/ https://www.pvcfittingsonline.com/resource-center/diy-musica... These are fun: https://youtu.be/-0gED3rn2Tc&t=200 https://youtu.be/-0gED3rn2Tc&t=200
- throwawayForMe2 3y agoI 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.
- Eumenes 3y agothis is the content i come here for
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoMy 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 3y agoHistory 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.
- readthenotes1 3y agoI made a face towel rack for the master bath after removing all the hardware from the walls
- pengaru 3y agoTo 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 3y agoAt $1-2/minute of labor, there’s a reason pros use the fittings.
- pengaru 3y ago> 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 3y agoIt'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.
- emmelaich 3y agoYou 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 3y agoA potato cannon. With hair spray re-packaged as Susie's Special somethin'. It was a Christmas present from my husband. Best gift ever!!!
- amluto 3y agoInterestingly, 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 3y agoI 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 3y agoHuh. 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.)
- sokoloff 3y agoIrrigation 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.
- Qem 3y agoWhere 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.
- elihu 3y agoMaking 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 3y agoBurning 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 3y agoIs that true for PEX too? If so what's the alternative for piping?
- elihu 3y agoI 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/2023_Ohio_train_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride 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 3y agoVinyl chloride (the monomer) is very different chemically from polyvinyl chloride.
- 3y ago
- whartung 3y agoFolks 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=ygUTcHZjIHBpcGUgZXhjYXZhdG9yIA%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&pp=ygUTcHZjIHBpcGU...
- gkhartman 3y agoWhen I saw the finished model at the start of the video, my first thought was "clearly there must be some PVC sheets used". You clearly said that he's flattening the tubing with heat, but my brain just couldn't accept the work involved in doing that for every flat surface I was seeing. Truly remarkable.
- neilv 3y agoThis deserves its own HN post.
- metadat 3y agoAgreed, submitted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37534779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37534779
- latchkey 3y agoThat's amazing. Some kid from some small town in Northern Vietnam, who is a genius.
- supportengineer 3y agoThis is astounding. What I want to know is, how does one have that much free time?
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- userbinator 3y agoTIL that PVC pipe is normally blue in Thailand. In North America it is almost always white, but also finds similar structural uses.
- Doxin 3y agoIn the Netherlands PVC for sewer applications is gray. for ventilation applications it's usually white. PVC electrical conduit is a yellowed white. Makes you wonder why the stuff gets dyed at all really.
- 8ig8 3y agoSchedule 40 is white. Schedule 80 (thicker walls) is a darker gray. (I think.)
- datavirtue 3y agoColors 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 3y agoDon't use PVC for any pressure applications like potato guns!
- datavirtue 3y agoAgreed. Had one blow up in my hands, which kind of reduced my enthusiasm for the sport.
- andreashaerter 3y agoBe careful when burning / process PVC. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Global/usa/report/2009/4/pvc-the-poison-plastic.html https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Glo...
- schemescape 3y agoOne 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.
- vitaflo 3y agoSpeaking of bikes I use a PVC pipe to set the crown race on my bike forks. If you get the right size it’s perfect for pounding them on.
- datavirtue 3y agoYou 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.
- swayvil 3y agoMakes a sweet didgeridoo. Maybe put some silicone caulk on the mouthhole.
- Mistletoe 3y agoWe could have had an internet like this.
- EvanAnderson 3y agoI 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.
- kmoser 3y agoI built a bird feeder similar to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F4wdJSEVEo 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.
- frogpelt 3y agoAlso, 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 3y agoDoes the paint handle some friction?
- frogpelt 3y agoOk, that part wasn't too great actually. I guess you could put some clear finish over the paint to help protect it.
- avar 3y agoWhy paint it at all? If it's a curtain rod that uses moving rings the friction is almost entirely at the top. Just apply some painter's tape at the top when painting it. If you do want to paint it spray paint gives great results, but make sure to use plastic primer. To make it even sturdier apply a clear coat spray paint over the colored spray paint you use (so 3 layers: primer, paint, clear coat).
- otoburb 3y agoFencing weapon sheaths (sabre, epée or foil).
- karaterobot 3y agoHave also seen people make sleeping platforms out of schedule 40 PVC, for sleeping in the back of a car.
- MrVandemar 3y agoI made a vocal booth out of PVC. Easy and cheap way to build a small, lightweight structure.
- cam_l 3y agoNot 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).
- comprambler 3y agoIt is also a great material to build the frame of various kinds of antennae for SDR uses.
- andersrs 3y agoPVC is mildly toxic.
- frogpelt 3y agoIsn't everything?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sieste 3y agoThat hipster game controller by the same guy is awesome! https://tomtilley.net/projects/hipster-controller/ https://tomtilley.net/projects/hipster-controller/
- poulpy123 3y agoThis guy make music instruments in PVC https://www.youtube.com/@NicolasBras/videos https://www.youtube.com/@NicolasBras/videos (later videos are in english but the first ones were in french)
- buro9 3y agoHardcourt bike polo, the polo mallet.
- mastazi 3y agoone more: PVC pipe percussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC-jl4INaNI 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37530235
- jdietrich 3y agoPVC pipe is a popular material for making archery bows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyJB0O3fSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyJB0O3fSQ
- TheHappyOddish 3y agoWe 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.
- jamesbfb 3y agoWhen 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!
- koolba 3y agoBest 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.
- azinman2 3y agoI thought PVC leached chemicals in the drinking water case?
- pimlottc 3y agoI 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.
- erikcw 3y agoAfter stumbling upon this, I’ve been obsessively looking for an excuse to drill a well[0]. https://drillyourownwell.com/ https://drillyourownwell.com/
- samtho 3y agoWhen 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 3y agoThe only problem with PVC pipe is, it's brittle. And over time, it gets more brittle.
- myself248 3y agoAlso, 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.
- rpastuszak 3y agoMissing: every budget Warhammer/Vampire: Dark Ages LARP weapon in 2000-10s Poland. (speaking from my personal experience here)
- escot 3y agoAnother “do anything” material is 80/20 which is aluminum bars you can bolt together to make tons of different structures. https://8020.net/ https://8020.net/