Opening PVC Pipe Joints Without Total Destruction?

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WesHowe
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Location: Huntsville, Texas

Re: Opening PVC Pipe Joints Without Total Destruction?

Post by WesHowe »

SteveHGraham wrote:but there is pressure-treated wood in the shed already, with lots of rot!
"Pressure treated" comes in various grades, like steel. The old green stuff is rated in pounds-per-cubic-foot of chromium cupric arsenate. You can get up to 2.5 lbs/cu. ft., which is rated for salt-water immersion, and is used to build docks and seawalls.

I don't know much about the yellow stuff, except it supposedly does not contain any arsenic. My advice is not to make toothpicks from it, otherwise you're fine.

- Wes
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warmstrong1955
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Re: Opening PVC Pipe Joints Without Total Destruction?

Post by warmstrong1955 »

The green stuff is what they sold in SE Alaska.
Besides raining 100" a year, a lot of contact with saltwater, spray & submerged both.
Good stuff, and holds up for many years.

The yellow stuff, works fine in Arizona, or Southern Nevada. can't imagine it would hold up in Flow-da.
Northern Nevada....nots really so good either. I will be doing some repair work soon.
A little oops on my part.

:)
Bill
Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.
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SteveHGraham
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Re: Opening PVC Pipe Joints Without Total Destruction?

Post by SteveHGraham »

Russ Hanscom wrote:Any chance of drilling a hole in the floor and creating an informal drain?
Not without a sump. This state is flat, flat, flat. The water has nowhere to go.

A cunning person would cut a trench in the driveway and run an underground pipe to the nearby storm drain, but I don't think I would like the food in the county lockup.

RE pressure-treated wood, it would not have rotted had I not neglected it, but I still lean toward metal or plastic, because I know myself.

I'm not sure whether the existing wood's treatment was intended to protect against rot from water. Maybe it was just treated to kill bugs.

Today's project, or maybe tomorrow's, is to level the pump. The union above it leaks a few drops, probably because it's not easy to align it while holding the full pump up in the air. Of course, the shed is too small to permit bringing another person to help. He would have nowhere to stand.

I keep thinking about the leveling project. Now I'm thinking I may put stainless bolts down through the eyes in the pump base, with hex nuts above and below. I could adjust the bolts so they pushed on the floor and lifted the pump, and then I could snug down the upper nuts. When the acetal rod I ordered arrives, I can turn some cups to fit over the ends of the bolts and keep them off the damp floor.

There are too many ways to do it, so it's confusing. I was also thinking I might screw a marine plywood board to the pump base and then make standoffs/feet to hold the board off the floor. It would be easier to get at everything.

I can't even imagine what it's like to live in a place where you can call a tradesman on the phone and get stuff like this done correctly. It must be like heaven.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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rudd
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Re: Opening PVC Pipe Joints Without Total Destruction?

Post by rudd »

SteveHGraham wrote:
Russ Hanscom wrote:Any chance of drilling a hole in the floor and creating an informal drain?
Good friend of mine, older - heck OLD engineer that actually knows how to build things, has a good method for getting rid of say condensate water from an air conditioner.
Get a 5 gallon bucket with snap on lid (i.e., "Homer Bucket") and enough good sized gravel to fill it. Drill lots of smallish holes in the bottom of the bucket.
Dig a hole for the bucket where the lid will be just below ground level, maybe dig a little deeper and put some of the gravel in to bring it to line.
Put bucket in hole, put gravel in bucket. Drill hole in lid of bucket *just* big enough to accept the drain pipe. Put lid on, stick drain pipe in hole, cover with earth.
If I remember Miami correctly, the earth there perks pretty darn good. You may have to hack a hole in coralstone or oolitic limestone depending on where you are, which would take a lot of fun out of it.
Last edited by rudd on Sun May 08, 2016 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rudd
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Re: Opening PVC Pipe Joints Without Total Destruction?

Post by rudd »

One other point I wanted to make.... Typically there is an electrical ground rod *only* at the main panel/service entrance. This is also the *only* place where your neutral wire is tied to ground. But note that your neutral *is* tied to ground here. If you are using unbalanced amounts of power from each hot leg of typical 220 volt residential service (which is going to be almost all the time) power is going from your neutral to ground.

To have multiple grounds can create a ground loop where your ground wire will be carrying current much of the time. Very not good.
If there is power out to this shed, there should be (should have been?) a ground wire run with the power wire that goes back to your main panel. I'd be cautious about just connecting to a ground rod that happens to be handy, much better to run a ground wire back to some point on the system where it is connected to the ground rod at the main panel.
The ground rod out by your shed may be another example of poor jack-leg work by your favorite contractor
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