Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

https://tomtilley.net/projects/pvc/

by fidotron • 3 years ago

205 160 3 years ago

tomtilley.net

Linux-Fan• 3 years ago

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...>

nomel• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

Eumenes• 3 years ago

this is the content i come here for

syndicatedjelly• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

readthenotes1• 3 years ago

I made a face towel rack for the master bath after removing all the hardware from the walls

pengaru2• 3 years ago

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.

sokoloff2• 3 years ago

At $1-2/minute of labor, there’s a reason pros use the fittings.

pengaru2• 3 years 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• 3 years ago

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.

emmelaich• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

A potato cannon. With hair spray re-packaged as Susie's Special somethin'. It was a Christmas present from my husband. Best gift ever!!!

amluto6• 3 years ago

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.)

cameronh902• 3 years ago

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.

amluto6• 3 years ago

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.)

genter• 3 years ago

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.

briHass2• 3 years ago

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.

function_seven2• 3 years ago

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.

scotty79• 3 years ago

The only thing I really trust is pex-alu-pex. Flexible thin aluminum pipe with plastic on the inside and the outside.

seabrookmx• 3 years ago

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.

amluto6• 3 years ago

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.

bboygravity• 3 years ago

Copper is toxic to microbes, plastics are not.

Relevant for salmonella for example. This alone would be reason for me to just use copper.

VBprogrammer2• 3 years ago

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.

rcme2• 3 years ago

Most pipes get coated with minerals so you’re not really getting much benefit from the copper.

geomark• 3 years ago

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.

pimlottc3• 3 years ago

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

Qem2• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

Where is that? Are you sure it's PVC and not PEX?

Qem2• 3 years ago

Brazil. I'm sure.

elihu4• 3 years ago

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.

userbinator2• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

Is that true for PEX too? If so what's the alternative for piping?

elihu4• 3 years ago

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.

bluGill5• 3 years ago

PEX is generally too flexible for these projects. I won't use anything else for fresh water plumbing though.

iancmceachern7• 3 years ago

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.

elihu4• 3 years ago

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?

whartung• 3 years ago

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...

neilv• 3 years ago

This deserves its own HN post.

metadat• 3 years ago

Agreed, submitted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37534779

latchkey• 3 years ago

That's amazing. Some kid from some small town in Northern Vietnam, who is a genius.

supportengineer• 3 years ago

This is astounding. What I want to know is, how does one have that much free time?

tobr• 3 years ago

Is it “free time” though when they post multiple videos per month and regularly have several million views?

zo1• 3 years ago

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.

Groxx• 3 years ago

It even has windshield wipers, that's pretty wild: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&t=48m1s

toddmorey• 3 years ago

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.

jpm_sd• 3 years ago

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?

amelius• 3 years ago

Cool video except they left out all the steps necessary to reach the incredible precision.

This is not how engineers work.

jasonjayr• 3 years ago

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".

samtho3• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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.

jabart• 3 years ago

The style is similar to the way dovetails were cut by hand in drawers before dovetail machines became a thing.

2Gkashmiri• 3 years ago

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.

JoshTko2• 3 years ago

PVC is quite toxic in a variety of ways. I would never heat, cut PVC voluntarily, especially without full breathing protection

dbsmith833• 3 years ago

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!

ArlenBales2• 3 years ago

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..

MegaDeKay• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

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

chimichurri• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

Impressive, but it hurts me to see how much risk to loose his fingers he takes.

mhb• 3 years ago

Fantastic. Thanks.

gkhartman• 3 years ago

When 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.

userbinator2• 3 years ago

TIL that PVC pipe is normally blue in Thailand. In North America it is almost always white, but also finds similar structural uses.

8ig8• 3 years ago

Schedule 40 is white. Schedule 80 (thicker walls) is a darker gray. (I think.)

datavirtue3• 3 years ago

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.

Doxin• 3 years ago

In 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.

andreashaerter• 3 years ago

Be careful when burning / process PVC. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Glo...

schemescape• 3 years ago

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.

datavirtue3• 3 years ago

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.

vitaflo• 3 years ago

Speaking 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.

swayvil• 3 years ago

Makes a sweet didgeridoo. Maybe put some silicone caulk on the mouthhole.

Mistletoe• 3 years ago

We could have had an internet like this.

EvanAnderson• 3 years ago

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.

kmoser• 3 years ago

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.

frogpelt3• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

Does the paint handle some friction?

frogpelt3• 3 years ago

Ok, that part wasn't too great actually. I guess you could put some clear finish over the paint to help protect it.

otoburb• 3 years ago

Fencing weapon sheaths (sabre, epée or foil).

karaterobot• 3 years ago

Have also seen people make sleeping platforms out of schedule 40 PVC, for sleeping in the back of a car.

MrVandemar• 3 years ago

I made a vocal booth out of PVC. Easy and cheap way to build a small, lightweight structure.

cam_l• 3 years ago

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).

comprambler• 3 years ago

It is also a great material to build the frame of various kinds of antennae for SDR uses.

andersrs• 3 years ago

PVC is mildly toxic.

frogpelt3• 3 years ago

Isn't everything?

sieste• 3 years ago

That hipster game controller by the same guy is awesome!

https://tomtilley.net/projects/hipster-controller/

poulpy123• 3 years ago

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)

buro9• 3 years ago

Hardcourt bike polo, the polo mallet.

mastazi• 3 years ago

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

jdietrich• 3 years ago

PVC pipe is a popular material for making archery bows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyJB0O3fSQ

TheHappyOddish• 3 years ago

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.

jamesbfb• 3 years ago

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!

koolba• 3 years ago

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.

azinman22• 3 years ago

I thought PVC leached chemicals in the drinking water case?

pimlottc3• 3 years ago

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.

erikcw• 3 years ago

After stumbling upon this, I’ve been obsessively looking for an excuse to drill a well[0].

https://drillyourownwell.com/

samtho3• 3 years ago

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• 3 years ago

The only problem with PVC pipe is, it's brittle. And over time, it gets more brittle.

myself248• 3 years ago

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.

rpastuszak• 3 years ago

Missing: every budget Warhammer/Vampire: Dark Ages LARP weapon in 2000-10s Poland. (speaking from my personal experience here)

escot• 3 years ago

Another “do anything” material is 80/20 which is aluminum bars you can bolt together to make tons of different structures.

https://8020.net/

SillyUsername• 3 years ago

PVC pipe uses pretty much remind me of a modern day stone soup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup

Everyday uses for PVC water pipe

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