Making multiple (4) PVC joints simultaneously

[miamicuse]

I have a bit of a situation with my pool plumbing I am trying to resolve. Basically, my pump is sitting too high, and the 2" manifold feeding the suction side of the pump is sitting too low. As you can see in the image below, the manifold on the left is a good 12"+ lower, requiring the piping to go through two 90 elbows for this offset.

I am planning to disconnect the pump and filter., and put it on a concrete pad, and secure the pump and filter. When that happens, the pump will be lower than it is now, but still higher then the existing manifold. May be 4 inches lower.

In order to raise the manifold, everything needs to be raised. The manifold consists of four three way valves, connected together before and after with all adjoining back to back fittings, there is not a section of exposed pipe I can isolate them so I can work on them in sections. The entire section in red needs to be raised as one piece.

Now to raise the whole contraption, I need to make a cut all the way across the bottom (see the red line), cutting all four pipes. Then I can add four couplings, short section of pipe, then four more couplings.

I have looked at this multiple times and it seems to me that the final connections will be made by doing FOUR solvent welded joints at the same time, with no opportunity to twist the pipes or couplings to spread/even the cement. I am pretty handy and have done quite a bit of PVC plumbing but this is a new one. I don't think I am quick enough to apply cement to four 2 inch male pipe and four female hub and get them inserted in time to make 4 solid joints. I am not confident of this being successful, especially if I can't even twist and distribute the coupling.

Would appreciate any advice you may have.

I thought about this and every idea I have involves some kind of hack...like may be solvent weld two joints and use rubber couplings with clamps for the other two. Or solvent weld two and install unions or compression fittings for the other two. Or find some sort of magically slow setting cement that gives me say 30 seconds to do this before setting, or something else...

Ideas?

 

[JamesW]

Disconnect the pump at the union and pour the new pad at the exact same height and the reinstall the pump with the same union and no replumbing.

 

[JamesW]

You can cut at the red line and then replumb to the pump using (2) 45s or (2) 90s.

The existing valve will take a fitting to the outside.

 

[miamicuse]

Disconnect the pump at the union and pour the new pad at the exact same height and the reinstall the pump with the same union and no replumbing.

Thank you, but I cannot leave the manifold at it's present elevation which is too low. What you are seeing in the images I posted is the result after I excavated the ground around all the pipes and fixtures. Normally the pipes are half buried and during heavy rain storms the valve levers can be under water. Lots of leaves fall onto there and makes things really messy. I spent two days digging around the whole area, cutting away lots of roots that tangled with the pipes.

My plan is to build a raised concrete bad for the pump and filter. Once that's done and I can get the pump and filter sitting on it, I will raise the manifold so that it is a straight line going to the pump without any elbows and offset. I don't want to lift the pump and filter out of the muddy pit and leave the manifold half buried.

 

[JamesW]

You can use 4 unions or you can just replumb everything and reuse the valves by plumbing to the outside of the valves.

 

[miamicuse]

You can use 4 unions or you can just replumb everything and reuse the valves by plumbing to the outside of the valves.

Can you elaborate what you mean by plumbing to the outside of the valves?

Right now the pipes are 2" PVC solvent welded to the inside valve's hub. Are you saying the OD of the valve hub can act as a "spigot" to go into a female hub of a larger size PVC fitting, like 3"?

Another thought just crossed my mind, and I am not familiar with it, is I have heard that there is a type of drill bit, that can be inserted into a female hub that has a glued in piece of pipe, and will drill out the pipe leaving the hub "clean" to be reused to make a new connection. Is this a possibility or will the end result be a chewed up oval that does not make a good connection?

 

[wireform]

The outside of the valves can adapt to 2 1/2" pipe so you can use a 2 1/2" coupling to the outside of the valve and then use a reducer bushing to step it down for the 2" pipe.

 

[Dirk]

This is what is being described. 2" pipe fits inside the port. 2.5" coupler (or elbow, etc) fits around the outside. This is one way to reuse a valve. Yes, there are tools to get the pipe out of a joint. Or there are methods that use heat to release the weld. But either could potentially damage the valve. Or you just cut the existing pipe even with the end of the valve's port, and leave the glued portion of pipe inside. Then glue a 2.5" coupler or elbow to the outside.

So you can use a combination of couplers, elbows and 2.5"-to-2" reducers to rebuild the manifold one valve at a time.

 

[Bill1974]

There are slower PVC glues that will make it easier to do multiple connections at once (the glues for larger dia pipe also sets slower and has a longer open time). Also having a helper would make it easier too.
If you want to salvage the pvc fittings use a pipe reamer Reed Tool PPR200 Clean Ream

I think you could cut and extend all the pipe upstream of the valves. Chamfer the pipes, so there is a lead in so it goes in to the socket easily (but still have a interference when fully inserted). As someone else said you could use unions there too, but it might be a challenge to get them all to tighten and seal if they are not all set the same height if the upstream pipe is fixed.