Underground Air Line

Temp97 · Sep 7, 2006

My compressor is in my wood shop in the basement of my house. I would like to run an underground line about 50' to an outdoor woodshed. The idea is for conveince only. What type of material/line should I use?

Sarge97

schmism · Sep 7, 2006

copper line is good, easy to work with but expensive.

in industraial areas its either copper or screw pipe (black pipe) but can be galvanized.

that would be my second choice.

brining up the rear would be PVC. Which works, but suffers from a perceived safty problem should you ever hit it with something.

Timber · Sep 7, 2006

Temp97 said:
My compressor is in my wood shop in the basement of my house. I would like to run an underground line about 50' to an outdoor woodshed. The idea is for conveince only. What type of material/line should I use?

Sarge97

To be honest you know what I would do is use 1 1/4 pvc in the ground and just run 3/4 airline through it. That way down the road or if you have any problems you can just pull a new line through without digging it up again

Temp97 · Sep 7, 2006

Good ideas, I really like the idea about running a line thru a pipe in case something needs fix'n.

Thanks

Timber · Sep 7, 2006

Just don't go with to small a piece of tubing. I think black plastic waterline is an even better idea. Its nice smooth walled and you can get a seamless length fairly cheep

Dougryan · Sep 7, 2006

I have a small shed (12x12) about 60' from my house. Same deal, compressor in the basement, but wanted air in my attached garage and in the shed. I used copper pipe to get from the basement to the garage, and to the outside wall closest to the shed. Then I ran two 1.5" PVC conduits to the shed. I put 5/8" air hose in one and electric in the other.

It's been working fine for about 4 years. If something ever goes wrong with the air hose, I can replace it without touching a shovel.

Also, be sure to thread a pull line through the conduit as you glue the sections together. Not sure how you could do it afterwords. Someone told me that you can tie thread (sewing thread) to a tissue and suck it through with a shop-vac, then use the thread to pull a heaver string through. Never tried it, hope I never need to.

Doug

skipperbrown · Sep 7, 2006

Timber's suggestion sounds good, but the pvc will eventually get water in it. What will that do to the hose?

texasjohn · Sep 7, 2006

To get a thread thru a pipe, take a plastic pill bottle, remove top, drill hole in bottom, size is somewaht less than plastic pipe, knot thread in bottom of bottle, blow thru pipe using shop vac. Be sure to hang on to the the thread, it's like hanging on to monofilament with a 5 lb bass on it.. really wants to get away from you

czechsonofagun · Sep 7, 2006

Why dont you use the gray electrical conduit and glue it together? That should keep it watertight.

And I am thinking about something similar - I would like to pump compressed air to the pond for aeration and the route of plastic pipe and air house sounds good to me, thanks Timber.