Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Very nice. Been looking at the poly pipe hoop house by Nobel foundation, but was considering a light weight steel instead of poly pipe. Fence rail seems like a popular option.

When you say "hand bent", do you mean that you stuck one end in the pipe on one side and then bent it over to the other? Or did you use a jig.

Do you have links to plans, or is it all stored in your head?

PVC wouldn't hold up to the winds we have here and most other places here in the US. Using PVC would require much reinforcement which would drive up the end cost to probably around what the steel pipe costs, $1.20ft of pipe.

It takes a jig, which was bought from http://www.lostcreek.net, to bend this pipe the same amount each time. And even with a jig it takes practice and careful attention to not cork screw the pipe while bending it. Some people use 10ft pipes instead of the 21s just to make it easier to bend. The 21s join at the peak of the roof with a swedged end and then some tek screws.

The price of pre-bent hoops are three times the cost of what you can diy them for. This includes cost of material and bender, no labor.

Cheers,

I found that web site the other day while searching for hoop rollers/benders, so good to know it works....even with difficulty.

I was actually thinking of a machinist style set up, with 3 dyes, one of which is machine or hand crank driven, which pulls the pipe through as you bend it.

I don't know if I could get away with a human driven version, or whether I'd need to get a mill.....which is obviously blowing out cost.

Are there various top rail diameters available? Or is there a single standard size. Those looks slightly smaller than the ones I commonly see in Aus.

1 3/8" or 1 5/8" are standard sizes. You will have to find hardware to attach the purlins and rafters to the hoops so use a standard size.

We tried a standard 3 die pipe bender without success. With some major time and effort one could make this method work, which we contemplated doing. But then we found the lost creek branded one. Figured it was worth the money to try it. It ended up fulfilling our needs as a pipe bender and so you might try it.

Pics

1st picture is the heat exchanger radiator mounted inside the sediment filter.

2nd picture. Here you can see the RV crapper valve that we used as an automatic shut off in case of a power failure. The pipe this valve turns off is the gravity feed to all the plants from the sediment filter. this valve is 12Volt and switched by an overflow float mounted in the sump tank. If the sump pump or power to the pump fails then the water level rises to switch the float which in turn closes the valve. When power returns the sump pump lowers the water level in the sump tank which drops the float switch and opens the crapper valve. New valve from the internet if anybody was wondering.

Cheers, big help! Hopefully things will fall into place for me and I am get this project underway.

Lots of great work there churro

Thank you for the positive feedback from all of you.

This looks fantastic. Would you come help me build one here in Australia?