Looks great! Do you think the grey pvc will hold up the GECE pathway bulbs without sagging? I was going to go with 1/2 emt for my borders this year. But this would be cheaper.
Those
are GECE bulbs in the pics. I used 3/4" to prevent sag.
I'll get some pictures later. But the premise of my new stakes is simply a snap-tee on a 12" section of allthread. These are the Snap Tees I used:
http://flexpvc.com/cart/agora.cgi?p=PVC-Fittings-Tees-Snap-Pressure&p_id=464-097&xm=on&ppinc=detail
That's for 3/4" pipe. They're also
available for 1/2" and other sizes as well.
The key to making this work is the close relationship between 1/8" Female NPT pipe threads and 3/8-16 screw thread. The guy at FlexPVC.com was very helpful in helping me find something that would work. He was actually thinking for me and grabbed a 3/8" bolt and screwed it into the tee he had to test it out before even shipping me anything. The threads don't match, but they're close. And since the allthread is steel and the tee is plastic, you can simply screw the rod into the 1/8" NPT side of the snap tee. You're intentionally cross threading the plastic. Sure this will render the snap tee useless for it's original purpose, but what would you use these for anyhow? You can do it part way by hand, but if you want to snug it up you'll need to hold the rod with a tool. You could do it the "right way" and double nut the allthread and turn it with a box wrench. But I'm not using the rest of the thread for anything anyhow, so I just did it the "fast way" and grabbed it with a vise-grip. The only reason I'm using allthread at all is because it's cheaper and more readily available than plain steel rod in the stores. I could probably source 3/8" rod and thread the end and it would look cleaner, but that's more work, and plain rod isn't cheap unless you're buying in bulk from a steel supplier.
So to retrofit from my original design, I just used the same allthread sections, and screwed them into the snap tees. Then I cut off all of the belled ends of the PVC pipe. It was a quick changeover and only cost the price of the tees.
The benefit to the snap tee is that while it holds the pipe rather firmly, it also allows some float in the joint. So when expansion and contraction happens, it's got somewhere to go. Each 10' stick of PVC will expand .090" for every 25 degree rise in temp. I plan for a 75 deg delta. I typically do set up on the warmest end of the range, around 65 degrees or so. I leave 1/16" or so of a gap between the ends of the pipes in the tee. then on the coldest winter days, i'll see that gap get to over 1/4" or more. It doesn't sound like a lot, but over 100' or more on my driveway borders, it really adds up.
I'm not at all affiliated with FlexPVC, but I do want to recommend them. They're really helpful and creative, and have lots of strange parts and fittings. I just wish I could walk into his warehouse some days when I'm being creative to see what fits into what. He was also very curious when I mentioned this was for Christmas lighting. He seemed to love helping people do creative and unusual things with his products.
