Before anyone gets uppity: PEX is NOT PVC. "Plastic" isn't a generic thing. There are different kinds of plastic.
I think most of us are in the same boat: dragging cords and air hoses around the shop sucks and it's a tripping hazard. I don't have a huge shop, but with the compressor all the way in one corner, I didn't want to have 40ft of hose on the floor all the time.
I was at home depot the other day and noticed that the one closest to me had their 300ft rolls of radiant heating PEX (with oxygen barrier) at a deep clearance price. For 1/2" pipe, the original price was $119 for 300 feet, it was down to $30 (10 cents a foot). From what I've read, the PEX-AL-PEX that is used for radiant underfloor heating is good for air because it has little or no vapor permeability, whereas normal PEX can allow tiny amounts of air (like molecules at a time) to leak through the plastic itself. Anyway, I bought one roll and a bunch of fittings and got to work.
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I decided to do this project as though it were a typical water line install - home runs from a manifold directly to each outlet with no fittings in between. Because the pipe was so cheap, even one tee would have been more expensive than the extra tubing I used. Plus, and this is the big advantage of pex, without any fittings or junctions between the start and end of the run, there's no chance for hidden leaks.
I used a 6-port manifold and did 6 runs overall; four to connections mounted on the walls, and two hoses hanging over my workbench area in the center of the shop.
Six runs might be excessive in a 14×25ft shop, but it opens up the possibility to use pneumatic jigs and fixtures. For example, I added a drop near where my shaper sits, because I want to build a coping sled for it with pneumatic cylinders as hold-down clamps.
My total cost for this project was about $180, not including the crimping tool which I already owned ($65).
I think most of us are in the same boat: dragging cords and air hoses around the shop sucks and it's a tripping hazard. I don't have a huge shop, but with the compressor all the way in one corner, I didn't want to have 40ft of hose on the floor all the time.
I was at home depot the other day and noticed that the one closest to me had their 300ft rolls of radiant heating PEX (with oxygen barrier) at a deep clearance price. For 1/2" pipe, the original price was $119 for 300 feet, it was down to $30 (10 cents a foot). From what I've read, the PEX-AL-PEX that is used for radiant underfloor heating is good for air because it has little or no vapor permeability, whereas normal PEX can allow tiny amounts of air (like molecules at a time) to leak through the plastic itself. Anyway, I bought one roll and a bunch of fittings and got to work.
I decided to do this project as though it were a typical water line install - home runs from a manifold directly to each outlet with no fittings in between. Because the pipe was so cheap, even one tee would have been more expensive than the extra tubing I used. Plus, and this is the big advantage of pex, without any fittings or junctions between the start and end of the run, there's no chance for hidden leaks.
I used a 6-port manifold and did 6 runs overall; four to connections mounted on the walls, and two hoses hanging over my workbench area in the center of the shop.
Six runs might be excessive in a 14×25ft shop, but it opens up the possibility to use pneumatic jigs and fixtures. For example, I added a drop near where my shaper sits, because I want to build a coping sled for it with pneumatic cylinders as hold-down clamps.
My total cost for this project was about $180, not including the crimping tool which I already owned ($65).
