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‘Snapping together’ exhaust vent piping!

newbuilder | Posted in Construction Techniques on December 9, 2008 04:26am

I know this sounds stupid but how the hell do you snap together 4″ exhaust vent piping!? — the kind used to send bathroom air out.   It is a long shiny hunk of metal with a tightly configured little seam along both the long edges .. one ‘male’ one ‘female’ … and clearly they are supposed to be brought around to ‘snap’ into one another to form the final tube!  But for the life of me I CANNOT get it to take!!!  I’ve looked online and could find absolutely NO ‘How To’ on it…. though I DID find some other guys asking! 

Any clues or tips on how this is done?  There MUST be a trick to it!  I am normally very VERY naturally good with all things mechanical .. but this just aint workin!

Thanks!

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  1. danno7x | Dec 09, 2008 04:37am | #1

    push  the joint together and push it down into it , like your squishing the circle shape with the pressure at the joint, almost like your making a heart shape,

     

     

    Dan- apparently shouldn't write instruction manuals with a foggy description like that

  2. User avater
    mmoogie | Dec 09, 2008 04:56am | #2

    What danno said, plus start at one
    end and work your way down the pipe.

    1. newbuilder | Dec 09, 2008 05:03am | #3

      but that's the thing .. it seems like (seams like) you would have to have the entire length of the thing snap in at the same time or ... nada.  Is it really better to begin at one end?  From the shape of the length of the fittings it looks like it would be all along the seam at once or nothing.  So here I am trying, with two hands and this thing bulging back up at me wherever my hands arent, to somehow get the full length of the seam equally compressed at once!  Would it help to use a section of 1X2 or something to compress equally along the line?!                                               And also .. I don't wanna push so hard I end up folding/crimping it.   

      Yeeesh!  shouldn't be so damn difficult!

  3. webby | Dec 09, 2008 05:20am | #4

    Yeah it helps to have a helper place their hands in key spots as you work your way down the pipe. Start at one end and work it together.

    Lately though we have dotten several pieces of pipe that were tough to put together it was like the seam wasn't open enough.

    I think the main thing is to just stick with it. I put it on the ground and straddle it and work my way down. It literally feels like a wrestling match but all of the sudden it starts to take and then you have a foot, then 16 inches and then two then four feet.

    Webby 

     

  4. DanH | Dec 09, 2008 06:48am | #5

    The main thing is that you have to bend it into the heart shape as someone else described.  Then the two sides will slide together with relatively little forcing.  You're not pushing the two sides together, but just manipulating them to an angle where they will slide together.

    The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
  5. fingers | Dec 09, 2008 11:32pm | #6

    I've used a pair of rachet straps to help keep the "cylinder" closed while my hands push it into the heart shape needed for the seam to pop in place.  That way, you can direct most of your energy toward making the heart vs. holding it together.  Does that make sense?

    1. AitchKay | Dec 09, 2008 11:51pm | #7

      Bingo. Me, too. At least one hose clamp on it for a third hand. And bend it right to the point you think you're going to deform it permanently. You can always squeeze it back into round if you oval it out a bit.AitchKay

  6. Piffin | Dec 10, 2008 12:17am | #8

    I get it almost in place, then only insert the male to fem,ale lap at on end, then work it along. By time I get to the other end, it snaps together.

    I do sometimes find some that has been poorly crimped or has been damaged by someone that simply will not go all the way to snap. maybe three or four in a hundred or so. Maybe you got lucky and found some like that at the local bargain basement.

     

     

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    1. newbuilder | Dec 10, 2008 12:12pm | #9

      Ha! 

      Got it!

      And after doing one the next one was a breeze.

      I think that for me the 'starting at one end to begin and working it along' the seam is what really finally did it.  I was previously trying to start it in the middle or sorta do the whole tube at once. 

      Anyway .. THANKS TO ALL! ...

      :)

    2. FastEddie | Dec 10, 2008 04:06pm | #10

      maybe three or four in a hundred or so

      100 sections of vent pipe is a heck of a long run.  You building an underground bunker?"Put your creed in your deed."   Emerson

      "When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it."  T. Roosevelt

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