Condos high and dry!!

Here's my first attempt at building condos. I went to Lowe's and I have about $20 in them each. I hope to get them wet this weekend.
http://68.209.168.198/images/Condo1%20small.JPG

Hey there Crappie1, Those are some nice looking condos. What size are the pvc and the black pipe?

I have made quite a few with rigid pvc cross pieces and i have stuck the black coil pipe straight into the bucket but I haven't built any like yours yet.

I think I will try to build some like yours.

10' Piece of 4" PVC (cut in two 5' sections)
100' roll of 1" water line (cut in 16 sections)
40lb bag of QuikCrete
I had the bucket and I cut it in two.

Pretty easy.......probably took about an hour and half.
We'll see how well it works when I get them in the water.

I think those will work great. any way to get the black pipe turned upward to avoid hangups?

at 10 each you need to get your cost down. Try and find the 5" main stuff free...It's all over the place but the hard stuff to get free in LONG sections is the 1/2" to 1" PVC. If you can get that free too (I just got some 20 foot sections from a restaurant being remolded) then you're only expense should be the concrete. I get the buckets free too. Bu I bought 3, 18 Quart dishpans, make 3 condos at a time and pop them out of the container and reuse them over and over.

I like the looks of those. I think I have enough stuff to build 5 or 6 of those I belvie. I will check and see tomorrow.
best of luck with them
Pete

Built about 25 of these in the last 8 years. You are gonna love em. I did turn the 1" stuff pointing up.

I did one thing I would change on the next ones. The holes in the big pipe are slightly larger than the smaller pipe and the pipe turns pretty easily inside the holes. If they were tight I think I could angle them upward.

if the water line is hard/slick plastic ... you shouldn't have too many hang-ups. Jigs should slide right on over them (and weedless ones certainly will). Hook & sinker rigs might be another deal, altogether ... but, that should depend on the size/gap of the hook.

Talk to local building contractors & plumbing stores/home improvement outlets ... and see if they have any "scrap" PVC that you can take off their hands for free. Also check the stores for damaged bags of "crete" ... sometimes they will discount them, to get them out of stock. Even if they sell them at cost, you both win.
Got any new homes going up in your area -- do a little dumpster diving and you'll be amazed at what is thrown out.

Lining the "forms" (buckets, pails, pans, bowls) with cheap veg oil or Pam type spays (generic/store brand) will allow you to pop the concrete base out of the "form" - and re-use it. You may also want to put a couple of slightly down pointing PVC "legs" at the base of the center post (just above the concrete) four should be enough ... this will insure that the "tree" doesn't topple over (from current, or getting snagged into with heavy pound test lines). You could substitute the PVC "legs" for the bottom four pieces of water pipe. This would allow you to place the extra pieces of water pipe as another set of "branches" ... and still have the PVC legs as "branches" AND "support legs". You could even drill the holes at the bottom (where you now have the lowest "water pipe branches"), file them out a little at an angle, place the PVC legs in the holes and set the length to reach the ground around the concrete base ... then drop some concrete down the main PVC shaft, enough to cover & hold the PVC legs in place.

Just some random thoughts ...........luck2ya .......... cp :cool:

You could get some conduit and run thru the plastic arms. Put a curve upward in the conduit and your arms will never sag or droop

Crappie1 I like those they will work great, you wont nave any trouble getting hung up in them a fish may rap you up but a hook wont stick one, but a biggun will rap you around anything. My father-n-law died this year and he had about 400ft of that black pipe in his shop and I could have got it and didn't. Good job

Actually when I put them in the water, the legs "float" and they pointed up. Worked pretty well.

they look real nice,I thought about trying to do something like that myself but for $5ea more you could have bought the "porcupine" ( 4 for $125.) so I went ahead and bought them,,

I build mine that are giant for the expense of the cement only...varies from 1.25$ to 3$ per condo but generally runs about $2 each...I went the expensive route but now I realized pretty quickly if I was going to build 100 of these at say 7 bucks each, well that's $700...I like 100 @ $2 each much better.

Is this black water line cheaper than PVC Pipe?

How thick is the base?

Yeah.....the black water line was cheaper than the PVC.

The base is a 5 gallon bucket cut in half and filled with quikcrete.

tie a small pop bottle to the ends . that will keep them floating :D . one on just one end will do and want put to much flotation on it

hey crappie1 nice looking condos i think the branches look more natual pointing down any body ever see a weeping willow tree branches pointing up