What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of PVC Pipes?

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of PVC Pipes?

PVC pipes are used almost everywhere, but they aren’t suitable for every application. What are the advantages and disadvantages of PVC pipes? Why are they used in so many places, and why aren’t they used everywhere?

The Advantages of PVC Pipes PVC pipe is generally the cheapest type of pipe you can buy. CPVC pipe fittings price list a little more, but it has better chemical resistance. That’s why CPVC pipe is often called for in specific industrial applications. For example, PVC pipe may fail because of certain cleaning chemicals or solvents poured down the drain.

PVC pipe is easy to assemble with cutting and solvents. There is no need to weld or bring in expensive welders. This lower the labor costs to install PVC pipe. That’s aside from the fact that the pipes are lightweight and durable, so they’re cheap to transport, too.

PVC pipe comes in every size and configuration you could want. It isn’t available in widths over a meter wide, but by that point, you’ll need metal or concrete pipe anyway due to the pressure.

PVC pipe resists many acidic, basic and corrosive substances. It isn’t entirely chemically neutral, but it will resist many more substances than metal pipes. Furthermore, it can’t rust. It can’t oxidize at all. This is why PVC pipes are so often used in water pipes.

PVC pipe is incredibly smooth on the inside. This reduces how much noise you hear as the liquid flows through the pipe. This also makes it hard for scale from building up inside the pipe. PVC pipe can scale, but it will take much more time to get as bad as what you’d see inside a steel or copper pipe. Side benefits of this include reduced risk of clogging and less chance of water hammers occurring.

PVC pipe is thus safe to bury in the ground. It can be chemically treated to ward off tree roots, too, though this is typically done with wastewater pipes. The relative neutrality of PVC pipe means it can be used for both clean water and wastewater disposal pipes.

PVC pipe hardly changes in response to temperature changes. This reduces the noise you hear as pipes expand and contract as temperatures change. It also means that there is less stress on the pipes due to thermal expansion and contractions, so it is less likely to fail for that reason.

The Disadvantages of PVC Pipes PVC pipe can’t handle near boiling temperatures for an extended period of time. It can deform and leak on exposure to water coming out of a hot water heater. This is why CPVC pipe is generally used for hot water piping. This also rules out PVC pipe for hot liquid piping for industrial applications.

PVC pipe is not directly compatible with CPVC pipe. They use different solvents, and they react somewhat differently to various chemicals. For example, there are substances CPVC withstands PVC can’t. This means you must use special adapters to connect PVC to CPVC pipe, and you shouldn’t mix and match them in piping systems.