Choosing mainline fittings for irrigation applications can often seem like building a giant puzzle with elbows, tees, crosses and coupler sets - various fittings required to connect irrigation pipework together.

However, Geoff Mellows from Yarrawonga Irrigation in Victoria may have solved the puzzle by using stainless steel mainline fittings - something that plastic fittings cannot yet match.

Poly, pvc and avs fittings are common materials in irrigation applications but because they are produced out of a mould, the combinations of size and outlet configuration are restricted.

Mellows said that by using stainless mainline fittings by ASSDA member, Pierce Australia, he can now “manipulate the angle, the shape, the variation and combination of outlets.“

The difference is simple. PVC and poly are bolted on, or welded and glued - making it difficult to change fittings”.

Stainless steel mainline fittings are the only rubber-ring jointed fittings available on the marketplace manufactured to the customers specific needs and can be fitted on any other combination because they are fabricated.

Stainless steel mainline fittings also provide flexibility of design in the angle of the fittings.

This also applies to the combination of outlets on those fittings and any other additional connections to that fitting.

With versatile stainless steel fittings, Mellows advice to customers is simple - “lay the pipe first and worry about the fittings later!”

This article featured in Australia Stainless Issue 28, May 2004.

Photos courtesy of Pierce Australia.