PVC Schedule 40

[goaliebob99]

Hey I got PVC Schedule 40 for my 10 foot bud, if I fill this thing up with concrete and let it sit for a week in the ground will the concrete cure enough to make this thing solid. PVC seems flexible, dont know what else I could to do strengthen it up.

 

[Anole]

...don't forget the rebar:

I think you are about 17 days too late for that post, Bob. -

 

[mikekohl]

PVC is about as useless as aluminum pipe for mounting a 10-foot C-band antenna. You need to consider the gripping action of the securing nuts. Solid steel pipe is designed to tolerate such forces. PVC will very easily compress after you tighten the bolts, so if future readjusting is needed, it may be impossible to work around the indentations you may have already made in the PVC pipe.
Similar problems with aluminum pipe, again because it is very easy to indent when tightening those bolts. Consider that a 1/2 inch bolt exhibits approximately 55-60 pounds of pressure when tightened, but that a 5/8 inch bolt (we used these on Orbitron mounts when I worked there) is approximately 112 pounds. Very rough on anything but rigid steel surfaces.

 

[tvropro]

I would never use it. Go to a scrap yard and get some steel schedule 40 pipe.

 

[B.J.]

Back in the mid 80's a co-worker and I decided to buy 10.5' BUDs by mail-order. My friend got his first. Since neither of us knew anything about TVRO, he decided to read the directions, which only said to use 3" schedule 40 pipe. He went to the local hardware store, came home with schedule 40 PVC pipe, dug a hole, and set it in concrete. When he told me that, I was skeptical, but he said that the hardware store guy said that was the only schedule 40 pipe he knew about.
He then put the dish up, and I went over to help. That darn thing was swaying like a drunken sailor. It probably moved close to a foot at the top, and obviously couldn't work. We considered filling it with concrete, but that would have required taking the dish off, and we didn't think it would work anyway, although perhaps with rebar as mentioned above. We decided to try to stabilize it using guy wires anchored to pipes pounded into the ground like tent spikes, but the weight of the dish just pulled those right out of the ground, even though they went pretty deep.
Eventually we decided that this just wasn't going to work, so he called a pipe company, and asked if there was any other kind of schedule 40 pipe. We bought a 21' length of the steel pipe, cut it in half so we each had a pipe. He then planted the steel pipe next to the dish installed on PVC, then put a van, pickup and utility trailer around the 2 pipes, with ladders on each, and somehow 5 of us managed to move the dish from one pipe to another without taking it apart.
Despite the problems, it became well worth the effort after we connected the thing to it's receiver and a TV, manually moved the dish, and a network news feed popped in. Needless to say, when MY dish came a couple days later, my installation benefited from his mistakes, and went smoothly.
Anyway, don't even think about trying to put the thing on PVC. I know that some places (like where I live now) the metal pipe is almost impossible to find without driving about 100+ miles, and if you just have a regular car, it's hard to get home, and often it only comes in 21' lengths, so you have to get it cut, etc, etc, but if you use PVC, you will eventually give up on it, and switch to steel , so you might as well just use steel in the first place.

 

[Lak7]

I used a "Basement" jack / post, and it is too flexible.
Go with Electrical Conduit if you can, or Well Casing.

 

[dfergie]

I would never use it. Go to a scrap yard and get some steel schedule 40 pipe.

This is what I did for my second BUD and they even cut it off at the length I needed (but I did know and go to school with the owner ) ... Original BUD pipe was fabricated for this use...

 

[goaliebob99]

I called the local scrap yard and they want 10 bucks a foot. Seems kind of steep.

 

[dfergie]

That does sound expensive, have you priced new pipe?

 

[esteveW]

I went through this same frustration a month ago. I'm a retire pipe fitter and went to my favorite scrap yard, that also sells new (import pipes and shapes). I really hoped for a piece of scrap which would be, by weight, half the price of new. The longest 3" ips I could find was about 20". I ask about the price of new (import) 3" ips schedule 40. Even though they sell by the pound, the price worked out to be about $8/ft.

I went to another scrap yard and got permission to scrounge around. I found a 9' piece but there was a slight bend in it. I laid on a flat concrete slab and could see that the last 4 ft were straight. I paid $20 and smiled all the way home.

I wanted as much as possible in the ground, yet I needed the 10 ft BUD to be high enough to walk or at least ride the mower under. What I did was weld about 2 ft of rebar and angle on the bottom. I dug my hole the desire depth and pured one sack of SackRet in the botton of the hole and then set and plumbed the pole using the straight section for my level. As it turned out, I noticed that the concrete tended to fill the inside of the pipe by itself (it was a wet batch). I'm really happy with my pole. It is solid and still plumb to a one decimal point on my digital angle gage.

Keep looking or calling around. Used pipe is out there. Be sure to ask for 3" IPS (ID) schedule 40. You dish mount is made out of 3 1/2" and fits properly on 3" IPS pipe. NOTE: Pipe is measure and referred to by it's nominal inside size. While the OD remains constant regardless of the wall thickness. Conduit has much thinner walls but the OD will still be the same as it's Pipe counterpart. Tis allows for the use of pipe and conduit in some electrical installations. Threaded fittings, etc...

(I may be 71 but I remember the journeyman hammering this into my youthful head.)

Steve

 

[goaliebob99]

Don that was new, according to the scrap yard they dont have any used in. Allthough I do want to take a drive and look. I did find a pole / actuator on the back of the iron that holds the dish without the dish in ground at a property near by mine, but I dont know how hard it would be to get it out of the ground.

 

[Anole]

free is good:

See pix in Birdview thread and AMCI thread for pulling out poles.
Links in my signature.

The Birdview 6 inch tubing was one bitch to pull, but I got it home , and it was free!
Overall about 9' long, with 6' above ground.

The perf dish was 9' above ground on 3½" outside diameter pipe.
So I whacked it off at the sidewalk, and boogied.
Will bury 3' of that, and so it'll stick up 6'.
Free #2 !

 

[tvropro]

I called the local scrap yard and they want 10 bucks a foot. Seems kind of steep.

Payed $10.00 for a 10 foot piece of Schedule 40 3" pipe a couple years ago at a local scrap yard to mount my 90 cm Primestar on. Keep looking around you'll get a good price.

 

[melgarga]

Yes, Keep looking. Steel has dropped recently, like, copper, gold etc, it is commodities market driven. When it drops the sellers are resistant to sell at the current market prices, but have no problem buying at it!
I wouldnt trust Sak-crete for any job needing serious tensile strength, rebar or not.

 

[Radioguy41]

Check around at some welding shops too. That's where I got mine a couple of years ago.

 

[zaxxon]

don't try to use the PVC pipe even with concrete you will have a problem.

Check the phone book for commerical fence company's. They have pipe that hold up a three hundred pound gate. They always have scrap pipe. Don't try to use Lowes or Home Depot fence pipe, go commerical.

 

[iammike]

Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. I probably went a little overboard when I planted my BUD, but I used schedule 80 steel and also filled it with concrete. I put about 500 pounds of concrete in the hole with rebar through the bottom of the pipe. I can happily report the thing doesn't move a bit.

My pipe was about 10.5 feet long and cost around $30 from the scrap yard a few years ago. It was covered with surface rust, but a little TLC with a wire brush and a coat of rustoleum armored finish and it looks great.

 

[truckracer]

definitely stick to schedule 40 steel (IPS). Be sure to drill the bottom and put some large bolts or rebar across in a couple of places so the pipe does not turn in the cement under wind load.

 

[voomvoom]

I bought some pipe today from a local steel source
1 @ 3" PE Pipe Sch 40 Tested = 21' for $114.30 cut 2 pieces @ 8' plus drops, came to 5'
1 @ 4" PE Pipe Sch 40 Tested = 21' for $153.01 cut 2 pieces @ 6' 6" plus drops, came to 8'
Total after tax = $283.35