The Tool-less Reservoir

$15 PVC Reservoir – Mark Goudie

I needed a cheap reservoir and someone in the OCforums recommended using PVC pipe. I went to Lowes and John and I looked around in the PVC isle for a while. He came up with the idea of using and elbow, “T” and caps for the barbs instead of drilling. The total price of all these items was around $15 – this includes everything you see in the picture. I forgot Teflon tape, but that is about $1-2.

1. The first step is to clean each joint that will you will be priming later. I used my shirt to wipe any large debris of the pipe – you could use soap and water as an alternative.
2. Then apply the primer to all the joints that you plan on gluing together. The primer dries extremely fast – I only had to wait about 5 minutes.
3. Once everything is primed and dried, you can apply glue to both sides of the joints, one at a time, and squeeze them together [ed note: Paul emailed a tip – “A suggestion for assembly of PVC to help prevent any leaks – when putting two pieces of PVC together, give them a 1/4 twist as you insert one piece into the other.]
4. Once all the joints are glued, wait 2 hours for the glue to set.
5. Then apply Teflon tape to the barbs and cap and screw on.

6. Leak test and you are done.

Mark Goudie