Polyvinyl chloride pipes or PVC pipes at it can often be known as, is utilized with many of the equipment we use in our daily lives. Have a glance at a few of your plumbing related pipes, your irrigation systems or possibly your sewer lines and you'll quickly learn how many different uses there are for PVC pipes.
PVC pipes are extremely popular to use as they're quite durable, easily available and won't necessarily cost you an arm and a leg to implement. However, all things that are utilized in the plumbing or commercial sectors are exposed to a lot of wear and tear, hammering and possibly severe temperature changes that will obviously bring about damage to the pipes. Damaged pipes will in the end start to leak and if left unwatched for a long time you can quickly have quite a significant issue to deal with!
You don't really have to phone a plumbing engineer just to come repair your leaking PVC pipe - with a little bit of do-it-yourself knowledge, a rag, wrench, hacksaw, measuring tape, emery cloth, PVC pipe couplings, PVC pipe and sealant you can quickly take care of the little problem.
Step one (and this is pretty obvious) is to find out where exactly the pipe is leaking. Just be sure you find the exact spot and then dry the pipe thoroughly with a clean rag. Now, before you begin acting like you've done this all before, first get your crescent wrench from the garage and shut of your home's main water valve.
Now you can take your hacksaw and typical king of the jungle style cut the damaged PVC pipe off with your hacksaw. Don't cut too close to the impaired section, rather leave a bit of space on both sides, just to be sure that any damaged pieces are eliminated. Still with your hacksaw in hand you can cut a new pipe of sufficient length to replace the part of PVC pipe you have just taken out.
Remember that emery cloth I told you to get earlier? Use this now to roughen up the ends of both the new and existing pipes as well as the inside edges of your pipe couplings a bit. The existing piping can now receive a layer of pipe sealer (around the outer ends) and the pipe couplings can receive a layer round the insides.
Now just slide the couplings over the existing pipe on both sides. It is important that the pipe only goes halfway through the coupling to enable you to insert the ends of the brand new pipes in the remaining section of the couplings. Don't forget to apply pipe sealant to the new PVC pipe before you decide to do this.
Now comes the hurry-up-and-wait part. Please do not attempt to instantly switch your primary water valve back on and treat yourself with a hot batch straight away - you need to allow at least 60 minutes for the sealant to dry.
I'm sure you will agree that the above tips can make a plumbing engineer out of any average Joe!
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