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PVC pipe for central vacuum systems
QUESTION: Has anyone used regular plumbing PVC pipe for central vacuum systems? It
seems less expensive than the stuff the central vac people want to sell me.
Any reason why I can't use the cheap white stuff instead of the expensive
clear stuff?
ANSWER: If you've ever had a child put stuff in the vacuum outlet, and then it gets
stuck half way in one of the pipes...well with the clear stuff, you can see
where the blockage is. I'd at least recommend getting clear elbows.
I used regular old schedule 40 PVC for my central vac. It is heavy duty
as all get out and total overkill; I'm sure schedule 20 would work just
as well, but I could get the schedule 40 cheaper (probably because 2"
sched.40 PVC is so common). But there is one gotcha: all the central
vac stuff I looked at uses thin-wall (gray, not clear) PVC that is 2"
OUTSIDE diameter. 2" schedule 40 PVC has a 2" INSIDE diameter. This means
that standard central vac "plumbing" and such won't directly attach to
"regular" PVC (I personally think they did this on purpose... :-) Anyway,
I didn't find it to be that big of a deal, I bought a small section of
the 2" OUTSIDE diameter pipe, lubed it up with silicone caulk and shoved
it inside the 2" I.D. PVC, and then caulked around the "seam" and made a
fine little PVC-to-central-vac-plumbing 'adapter'.
Some cautions to think about when doing this:
Use only sweep-tee's and not regular tee's to prevent clogs in the pipe.
Use their "special" 2" elbow to connect your pipe to the wall outlets
(this is where I needed my `adapter' mentioned above) to the wall outlets
or you will have a problem fitting it in a 3.5" wall cavity...
See http://www.beamvac.com/html/install.html for a really nice central
vac install manual (PDF format) that I wished I had when I did mine totally
"off the cuff"
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