| Author | Message | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
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I bought my shower head and handle. It is a single handle Moen with a bath tub faucet. I plan to use the faucet to return the water to my holding tank while water is warming up and while shaving. I plan on putting another valve in to control this. I'm suposing this will work. Also I need to make a shut off block for all my plumbing. I'm gonna have a seperate shut off for every thing in my bay. The supply will come in from the top then I want to put a loop in going down for draining system. any suggestions? I seen a picture of one on the board but now can't find it | ||
| FAST FRED Rating: N/A |
Google "Reverso" They are a mfg of fuel and oil handeling manifolds. They are usually machined from billet aluminum stock with 6 or 7 ports you can use to controll whatever. The bronze valves are fine on water too. If you need JUST a new 7 port manifold and have your own valves , $100.plus postage, contact me. FAST FRED | ||
| Jim Stewart (H3jim)
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I just made one from copper fittings, works really well. Kind of a pain to solder together, but better than spending $100. Others have used Manabloc, a compact, plastic manifold. Others have used Pex, and most that use Pex seem to swear by it, not as susceptible to splitting from being frozen as copper pipe is, and easy to work with. The copper can probably hold more pressure, and totally blocks out light, so algae is less likely to grow in it.  | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
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Nice Manifold Jim! A hint for you (and everyone else) is this: Where you have interfaced your copper to your PVC, I have found over the years that the combination of fittings you have used tends to fail. Here's your photo with an arrow at the weak point: (ugh..see photo in following post, I screwed up) What happens is this- when you screw a solid metal male pipe into a female plastic fitting, the force of the tapered fit continually tries to force the plastic side to a larger diameter, and because it takes so much force to seal it in the first place, it will either crack one day, or simply "creep" over time and start to leak. This especially happens when using teflon tape for the sealer, as it lubricates the threads so well that it's super easy to overtighten things. It is not as much an issue with nylon or polyethylene fittings as it is with PVC, as these plastics do not tend to harden over time, and they also do not tend to creep as much as PVC does. So your spin-welded tank bulkheads are usually OK in this mode... A better way to do PVC joints of this nature is to screw a short PVC nipple into the PVC fitting (using some PVC glue on the threads instead of teflon tape), then use a female copper fitting to hook to the nipple. Instead of trying to expand the PVC, the copper female will now be "compressing" the nipples' end, and the plastic will not creep to a failure. Another way to do it is to use a sealing product such as is made by loctite, that is a combination of pipe-dope and glue that cures just like loctite does, when it finds itself in a place without oxygen (ie inside your threads) Then you can make a joint as you have but tighten it a LOT less in the beginning, and still end up with a decent non-leaker. But I don't like this as much as the "nipple" method, because it can (and does) still fail. Over the years I've abandoned making joints like yours altogether, as they seem to always fail..Sometimes after years but they eventually do. Mostly by cracking as the PVC gets old and brittle...but I've never had a female metal => PVC male joint fail. | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
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| Jim Stewart (H3jim)
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Well live and learn. What you say really makes sense. Fortunately, this fitting is only used when I fill the tank, its not under pressure at any time. I did wonder about that when I was cranking that fitting in, if it would cause the plastic to crack. I intend to live forever - so far so good. | ||
| Cliff (Floridacracker)
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Gary, I actually had mine break on my first trip out. Of course I know Jim was smarter than me and didn't use a 12" cresent wrench to tighten it  . I ended up using the method you described. Jim, Looks great as always, Its a pleasure to see your handy work. Cliff | ||
| mleibelt
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Ron... Just put a lawn sprinkler valve in the hot water line near the faucet on a "T"...take the return line and run it to your water storage tank...Put a push botton switch by the sink and no waisted hot water and filled gray water...They work on 24 VDC...cost about 15 bucks...Put 1 on the kitchen sink...bathroon sink and shower...works great.... Mark Leibelt MC-8 |