SPRINKLER TALK FORUM - You Got Questions, We've Got Answers

The "best" way would be to utilize that "stub" at the manifold ment for "future expansion".

You didn't include an expasion stub in your manifold? (Or you don't have a manifold at all?)

Then the next best thing is to just install a Tee somewhere along the mainline. Some people say that if you expose enough pipe and just the pipe to just the right length, you can bend it to insert a Tee.

The best way without attempting to bend PVC pipe is to use the old "4 elbows" trick. Basically, you cut out about 12" of pipe. To the exposed ends, glue two 90 degree elbows so that they point in the same direction. Glue a set of elbows to a Tee such that the elbows are exactly the same distance apart as the elbows that are in the ground. Finally, glue the Tee with the elbows to the existing elbows

The thing about a "stub on a manifold" was sort of said "tounge-in-cheek" because you would already know to tie in there if you already had one.

A "stub" is when you are building a manifold and you use a Tee at the last valve (rather than a 90 degree elbow) and cap the unused side of the Tee (usually by installing a short piece of strait pipe with a cap on the end of it). The idea is that when you need to expande the system in the future, you simply remove the cap and insert another Tee for the new valve, and add another "stub" to the unused side of the Tee again for more future expansion.

As for bending the PVC, we're talking about a long strait run and you have the ability to expose several feet (at least 5 feet if not 10) of the pipe. If you can expose that much pipe, even Sch 40 will bend just enough to let you slip in a standard Tee. You just make two cuts in the pipe the exact size to fit a Tee (i.e. the inside stop point on the Tee to the other inside stop point of the Tee, not the full width of a Tee). You then glue the Tee in place to one of the two pipe ends. To insert the other pipe into the Tee, you arch the 5 to 10 feet of pipe so that it backs up that about 1" needed to get the pipe to slide in. It's really not that difficult... other than exposing the 5 to 10 feet of pipe needed to get it to bend (obviously the shorter the exposed pipe, the sharper the required bend and the more difficult/more likely you are to break the pipe).

As for Wet_Boots' advice on using Unions, the word of warning I have there is to make sure that you screw the unions together as tight as they will need to be before the glue sets to the union. The reason I say that is because I've learned from experience that when dealing with unions, they have to be pefectly aligned or they risk leaking. But even unions are going to require a little bit of pipe bending to get the union in place. No where near as much as you would for being able to slip and end of the pipe into a Tee, but you still have to bend it enough such that once one end of the union is in place, you've got to lift the other end of the pipe to clear the union to give yourself enough room to slid the other union side in place.

Use two unions, and no bending of pipe required. Or find the special fittings by Dawn, like the Kwik-Repair tee.