This One Job Paid for Half the Cost of My Pipe Debonder

All of our favorite stories come direct from our customers. Here’s another one!

“Assembling a large manifold in a new building consisting of a 2-inch main with 11 schedule 80 PVC TEEs, each with a 2 x ½ inch reducer bushing, I received a new set of architectural drawings changing all of the bushings to ¾”.

I had just glued the half inch bushings into place that morning. Rebuilding that manifold would have required 11 new TEEs and half a day. My customer invoice would have been $480 in materials plus $360 in labor plus $180 time to chase parts for a total of $1020.

Also I couldn’t find 11 2” TEES in my city so I wouldn’t have been able to complete the work until the next day.

What I actually did was use a sawzall to cut the spokes out of each bushing leaving a thick wall glued in the TEEs. The remaining wall thickness of the cut bushing was a little thicker than 2 inch schedule 80 pipe, so I used the next larger size, 2.5” schedule 80 and selected that cycle on my Pipe Debonder. The resulting cycle time was 8.5 minutes. I used my small Pipe Debonder to unglue all 11 bushings in about 90 minutes. I was able to reuse every TEE.

After I picked up the new bushings, I re-glued the 11 TEEs in 30 minutes, completing the job in about 2 hours.

Total cost: $180 labor plus $148 for bushings plus $180 for a total of $508, a savings of $512. Plus I could complete the change order the same day.

This one job paid half of the cost of my Pipe Debonder.”