Category blogs

HDPE fails once in every 10 million stress events. PVC fails once in every 48,650. That’s a 205-to-1 reliability difference that most material comparison guides never mention. Both HDPE (high-density polyethylene) and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) dominate the plastic pipe market.…

Bending a half-inch PVC pipe takes about 2 minutes. Bending a 6-inch pipe? Over an hour. That dramatic scaling tells you everything about what you’re getting into with DIY pipe bending. For pipes 2 inches and smaller, bending PVC at…

A 450 PSI-rated PVC pipe doesn’t always handle 450 PSI. At 140F, that same pipe drops to just 99 PSI – only 22% of its cold rating. Temperature, not just the number printed on the pipe, determines what your plumbing…

Excluding ground wires from conduit fill calculations is one of the most common code violations electricians make. Every inspector has written it up. Every experienced electrician has seen it happen. Yet the NEC is clear: equipment grounding conductors MUST be…

Schedule 40 and Schedule 80 PVC pipes look nearly identical from the outside. The real difference is hidden inside: wall thickness. Schedule 80 has walls approximately 30-35% thicker than Schedule 40, which means higher pressure capacity but reduced flow and…

You’re standing in the hardware store aisle, looking at two PVC pipes. One is white, one is gray. They’re both PVC. They look nearly identical. The gray electrical conduit costs more than the white plumbing pipe sitting right next to…

When you’re evaluating PVC resin suppliers, you’ll see specifications like “K-67” or “K-57” on every data sheet—but what does that number actually tell you about how the material will process and perform? Understanding K-Value: The Molecular Weight Indicator K-value measures…

PVC is everywhere. It’s in the pipes under your sink, the flooring beneath your feet, and the insulation wrapped around your electrical cables. With global production hitting 60 million metric tons annually, PVC ranks as the third most produced plastic…

You’re looking at a PVC resin specification sheet and see “density” listed. But which number do you use? The true density? The bulk density? And why do they look completely different? Getting this wrong causes real problems. Procurement teams have…

Choosing the wrong PVC resin grade can ruin an entire production run. A K-value mismatch of just 2 points creates an 18% variation in viscosity. Use K-67 resin for injection molding instead of K-57, and you’ll face poor surface gloss,…

You’ve got a PVC pipe that needs fixing, or maybe a craft project that requires bonding PVC to another material. You grab your epoxy, mix it up, apply it carefully—and a week later, the bond peels right off. This frustration…