PVC Piping Information

Was your central vacuum installed with plumbing PVC instead of central vacuum certified PVC? I hope not...but if so, we now have adapters that will convert plumbing PVC to central vacuum PVC elbows and inlets. There are instances where installers either

1) look for the cheapest route and the cheapest place to get pipe to run for a central vacuum,
2) the installer believes that it's no big deal installing Schedule 40 PVC instead of CV approved Schedule 20, or
3) the installer doesn't know too much about the central vacuum industry and the do's/don'ts of this market.

Would a building inspector approve your Schedule 40 plumbing PVC pipe? Probably not. They'll most likely tell you to rip it out and put Schedule 20 (certified) for the proper code regulation.

If for some reason there is no building inspector and you must use these adapters, so be it. We'll have them on the site soon to sell, although we're not encouraging it at all. These adapters will cost around 3 bucks each. We know of some websites that sell these same adapters for about 3 or 4 dollars each, multiply that by the 50-75 of them you may need, it can get very costly in the long run. So by using plumbing PVC, it can actually cost you more than if you used the right PVC the first time.

First of all, the angle of the elbow on central vac PVC is much larger than Schedule 40 so it doesn't restrict airflow. Plumbing PVC also has a smaller diameter, which is mostly made for water to travel through and is not wide enough for central vacuums. Schedule 20 PVC has a much smoother internal surface, which prevents air flow resistance which can be very harmful to your system. One internet source claims that schedule 40 PVC is ok to be used as a replacement if you cannot find proper Schedule 20.

FlowMax Gold is produced only from 100% virgin PVC material. We use no recycled material or ground-up plastic of any type in FlowMax Gold. This recycled material basically comes from discarded plastic products or scrap that is gathered together, ground up, reheated, and re-extruded into vacuum pipe. Scrap material typically varies from lot to lot depending on what has been ground up. The nature of scrap makes it hard to keep out foreign materials. Because of this, reused p:lastic often contains foreign materials like metal, stone or other non-PVC plastic materials that cancause poor glue adhesion, holes, tears, rough inside surfaces, inconsistent wall thicknesses, out-of-spec diameters, or easily cracked pipes. This pipe cuts like a dream, reacts much better to PVC adhesive and is consistent piece to piece, order to order and year to year. It's near perfect outside diameter mates with fittings like they were designed to mate.

Lots more information can be found on our PVC pipe information page.

edit: We just put it up on our website, you can find it here in the New Items section.