Neptune Aquatics

Minimum safety for running a RODI line through a crawl space

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richiev

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My RODI equipment is in my garage. I have an approximately straight shot from an old vent hole in my garage wall, into the crawl space under my living room, across to a crawl space vent to the side of my house, where my RODI reservoir for my display is.

I ordered RO line and float valves from a combo of AliExpress & Amazon, and installed a valve on the reservoir so I don't need to fill manually. My plan was to run the line outside my house whenever I needed to fill, and just roll it up. However, now I'm thinking I should finish the job and make it a permanent run through the crawl space so I don't have to deal with doing that.

I'm wondering what the minimum, reasonable, setup is. I will not have the RO constantly running. I will continue to flip the water inlet on manually when I want to run a fill cycle. That avoids water waste (my auto shut off I don't find very effective) and reduce the risk of a major, uncaught, leak.

My assumption of options:

A. Minimum: run the RO line under the house, hanging it off the ground, run it outside, up to reservoir.

Z. Maximum: run a 1in PVC across the entire span, hang it, go fully through the vent (or drill a hole in stucco), PVC, 45 bend + 45 bend, more PVC until a plugged exit that the tubing will come out that's rodent protected. Maybe drill a hole in a low spot in the pipe in case it ever gets a leak in the lines

Something like A would be a lot cheaper and easier than something like Z. Any opinions?

CC @Srt4eric
 
Just a thought I had based on what you mentioned here. It made me think of flexible pvc verse all the hard pvc pipes, elbows, connectors.
Screenshot_20241208_064139_Amazon Shopping.jpg
SharkBite 3/4 Inch x 300 Feet Blue PEX-B, PEX Pipe Flexible Water Tubing for Plumbing, U870B300 https://a.co/d/d1iaydo

I'm not certain this would or wouldn't work for your intended purpose by any means. Yet I was thinking what would I personally consider to balance general effectiveness, with effort and cost.

[Flexible pvc 3/4 inch @ 300 ft was $123 1inch@100 ft was $81.There are several different sizes from 50ft to 500 ft at various price points. Also I didn't do any extensive search so there are possibly cheaper options as well.]


The effort of gluing it all together and trying to suspended it. I thought this flexible stuff takes up way less space one box delivered to your door verse a store trip/pipes sticking out of the car. only a few cuts, no glue, suspended easily with a few zipties ($6 for 400) and cheap brackets($4 for 100).
Screenshot_20241208_070717_Amazon Shopping.jpg
Zip Ties Assorted Sizes(4”+6”+8”+12”), 400 Pack, Black Cable Ties, UV Resistant Wire Ties by ANOSON https://a.co/d/cSAu5Pq
Screenshot_20241208_065105_Amazon Shopping.jpg
100PCS Cable Tie Mounts, Zip Tie Mounts with 5mm Screw Holes, Wire Holder for Zip Tie Mounts, Permanently Anchor to Wall, Desk or Baseboard https://a.co/d/28zep51

Even if the pvc outter sheath is determined to be over kill, the zip Ties and brackets would easily help suspending the ro lines as well.
 
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You can get aluminum-lined PEX tubing that is supposed to be resistant to rodents, and run your RODI line inside of that. Probably a lot easier/more flexible than plumbing a bunch of PVC around it?
 
If you only have one line, why complicate it by running the rodi line in the pvc? Just get a push connect adapter at each end of a 1/2” pvc pipe.

IMG_4760.png
 
If you're going to run a line under the house, then I would approach it with the intent of using a conduit of some sort. What Derek suggested would add expense and effort but also protect you. Could go with basic ½" PEX for the whole run and rodents may never even try to get at it, since the main water source would be inside the ¼" tubing. I have to deal with rats outside my home. They have never gone after my exposed pvc piping, but they have gone after my hose fittings. That's normally where they can smell the water. So if you're running a nearly straight shot of ¼" tubing inside another pipe, I think you'd be fine.

I'd leave any exposed "live" tubing where it can be easily accessed for repairs.

If you do run the ¼" tubing inside a conduit, is there any chance of bends to the smaller tubing?
 
Srt4eric said:
99% of refrigerators with ice and water just run bare tubing under a house. Just run it clean and off the ground and that's it.
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Wonderful, thanks!

Now to bribe my children to do a tubing run for me. Maybe I'll run a second line so I could have a saltwater reservoir out there too!
 
Srt4eric said:
Doesn't @Thales just say YOLO and run a ton of snaked tubing?
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Yes he does. For two decades. Had a rat problem once, and they didn't touch the lines.
I do like to keep it off the ground wherever I can, which is almost everywhere because it is so easy to fix to the substructure.
I have a 40 inch crawl space so it is easy for me. If it were smaller, I might do it another way.
 
Solid, thanks for all the feedback. Given all this I'm probably just going to have my kids run it, and let it lay on the ground. I messed up my back attempting to boogie board, forgetting that I'm old and my body is useless. I can try and hang it once I'm fully mobile again (which is probably code for I'll never do so, but that's ok).
 
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