Before the electricians could pull their wires in our project’s buried conduit, we had to suck the water out of it. The conduit ran 3 ft. underground and was more than 160 ft. long. My boss, Aaron Langfitt, and I were planning to use a shop vacuum to remove the water from the line, but we needed a way to make an airtight seal between the 1-in.-dia. vacuum hose and the 4-in.-dia. conduit.
It turned out to be a job for a toilet plunger. We removed its handle and drilled a 1-in.-dia. hole where the handle once screwed into the plunger head. We pushed the hose through the plunger head, extended the hose into the conduit, and pressed the plunger over the 4-in. conduit. The plunger made a perfect seal, and we evacuated more than 20 gal. from the line.
Matt Davidson, Ridgeway, MO
Edited and Illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #212
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