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Where PVC pipe dreams can come true

House Doctor | Gary Dymski

June 2, 2005

Charles Sanders' parents were children of the Great Depression, and they passed on at least one life lesson to their son.

"They were can-do, make-do-with-what-you-have people," said Sanders, 50, in a folksy drawl that hints of rural stock, "and I guess I inherited the same self-reliance from them."

Sanders lives on a 40-acre farm in Shoals, in Martin County, Ind., about 100 miles southwest of Bloomington. The farm has been in his family more than 100 years, and it has been his own homestead since 1977.

Sanders, his wife, Patti, and their children - Jordan, 17, Robby, 15, and Maggie, 12 - seem to have everything they need on their 40 acres - a few cows, a garden, a small orchard, timber and enough pasture for raising their own beef cattle.

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And that's pretty much how he got into writing books.

Come again?

"It seems I was always trying to make stuff work around the farm and didn't always have enough money to do things the way I wanted to do them," said Sanders, whose 9-to-5 job is as an officer with the Indiana State Department of Conservation.

Sanders figured others could benefit from his knowledge, which is how some of his projects became articles in Backwoods Home, an Oregon-based magazine that promotes homeowner self-reliance. Some of the same articles became the foundation for a manuscript Sanders sent to Peter Burford, publisher of Burford Books in Springfield, N.J., which specializes in books on the outdoors, sports, nature, travel, gardening and military history. Burford liked the manuscript, so those can-do, make-do ways ended up as Sanders' first book, "The Self-Reliant Homestead: A Book of Country Skills," published in 2003.

In February, Sanders hit the shelves with his second book, "The PVC Project Book: 101 Uses for PVC Pipe in the Home, Garden, Farm and Workshop." While it's no match for the suspense of a Stephen King or John Grisham novel, Sanders holds his own with directions for turning plastic pipe - polyvinyl chloride - into a firewood rack or a greenhouse.

"In my first book, I actually had a section for working with PVC," he said. "I always seem to have some extra pieces around. Then Peter [Burford] asked me if I had enough projects on PVC to write a book about it."

Turns out, he had more than enough. Of the new book's 101 PVC items, which range from holders for yard tools, fishing rods and glue guns to frames for signs, banners and hunting targets, about 70 percent of them are his own. "The others I got from talking with friends who, like me, have reason to make things around the house or barn."

Just when I think I'm so smart for using scrap pieces of PVC pipe for offbeat objects, along comes someone who writes a book about the stuff. Actually, several books have been published on using PVC, primarily a plumbing product, for making things, especially arts and crafts and outdoor furniture. And there's even one publication that shows survivalists and outdoorsmen how to turn PVC into weapons and temporary buildings.

But Sanders seems to be the lone author who has concentrated on making leftover PVC into something that can be of practical use around the house, barn or shed. So he appreciated the story of my first major PVC endeavor: building a pair of regulation-size ice hockey goals for my sons, which I chronicled in a column about three years ago. I also shared with him the plans for taking 3- or 4-inch PVC pipe and making a puck-holder for lugging dozens and dozens of pucks to hockey practices.

"That's what the book is about, really: giving people ideas to think up their own uses," he said. "Most of us have lots of PVC lying around, and you can put those extra pieces to good use."

Sanders' favorite PVC applications are the greenhouse, to which he dedicates a chapter (about seven pages); row hoops, or small, temporary greenhouses; and any number of birdhouses. The larger greenhouse design has a wood frame of 2-by-6s at ground level to which PVC pipes are attached with conduit clamps. Sanders figures it's his farmer's blood that makes him fond of designs for greenhouses and row hoops. What's better than giving gardeners an early start on spring planting? As for the birdhouses, Martin County's large bluebird population seems partial to Sanders' designs. "And I kind of like having them around, too," he said.

Some of my favorites from the PVC book are the simplest: a paint-can holder for ladders with hollow rungs and a hammer holder that slips onto a pants belt. For the paint-can holder, 1/2-inch pipe is pushed through a hollow rung to extend just enough to serve as a hanger for the paint-can bail (wire handle). A notch in the PVC made with a saw keeps the handle from slipping.

To make the hammer holder, two vertical slots are cut into a piece of pipe about 3 inches long. Thread the belt through the slots; the hammer handle then slips into the pipe.

One might think that such ingenuity has made Sanders a local celebrity. On the contrary. "I did a few book signings for the first book and people around here were a little interested, but that's been about it," he said.

He's still known to most friends and neighbors as "Tony," short for his middle name, Anthony. And while there are a some royalties from the books, "I'm not retiring off them, that's for sure."

As for a bestseller, huge royalty checks and celebrity status, Sanders said, "I'm still writing that book."

Order Sanders' PVC book online at BurfurdBooks.com.

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Where PVC pipe dreams can come true

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