Do It Yourself Plumbing

Why pay a lot of money for someone to come and do your plumbing if you can just do it yourself? Whether you are busy remodelling your kitchen or your bathroom, or whether you are building a new house or apartment, it is very easy to do your own plumbing, and so many people do in fact do their own plumbing.
Installing pipes are a major part of remodelling your kitchen or your bathroom. There are mainly three types of pipes which you can use when you are remodelling your bathroom or your kitchen, namely PVC pipes, copper pipes, or galvanised steel or iron pipes. PVC pipes are the easiest to install.
Here are a few basic tips on how to install your own pipes in your bathroom or your kitchen.
To start with, you will need a straight PVC pipe. You will need PVC pipe fittings like tees, caps, elbows, plugs and couplings. You will also need PVC cement primer.
• First you need to measure where your pipes need to be installed, then you need to determine what fittings you will need to use to traverse the pipe’s path. Mark each pipe where you need to cut it, and then decide where the fittings should be used, in order for the pipe to traverse the required distance.
• Secondly, you need to cut the pipe and clean off the remaining burrs. Make sure the ends are straight.
• Now you do your dry-fitting. This is where you assemble your pipe and fittings to make sure that everything fits correctly, and to make sure that the pipe lengths are correct.
• Disassemble everything again. Now you apply some PVC cement primer on the ends of each part of your cut pipe – on the outside of your pipe and the inside of your fitting.
• Place the pipes in their fittings and twist it to make sure that the cement is fully spread. Work quickly because the PVC cement dries very quickly.
Sometimes, formulas are also used in plumbing. Here are two of the most common formulas used in plumbing:
• 90° fitting – divide diameter by 2, then add quotation to original diameter.
• 45° fitting – times the offset by 1.414 to get your travel, then take off the centres of the 45’s to get your cut length.