PVC Gazebo Plans for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCL

Should've stuck with a canopy, Jane

 Let's say you actually did want to build a gazebo out of PVC pipe: either you'd already be fairly familiar with using PVC or you would need a lot of help. Help? you know, information on how PVC fittings work and how to choose the correct fittings; information about the structural strength of PVC; tips on the size of the PVC pipes needed to build a sturdy structure that wouldn't look spindly... You'd certainly need more information than "just stick some poles in the ground and shove a commercial 'gazebo cover' over them." That model, however, is precisely what eHow.com's "Jane Smith" wrote in the HomeSteady.com post, "How to Make a PVC Gazebo." Yeah, sure...

Smith, who claims an education degree and an apprenticeship in "metalworking," most assuredly did not think the project through. She cited only one reference, a site that sells offers plans for PVC projects (their offerings do not include gazebo plans), although it appears she merely repurposed another eHow article. Would that she had done a better job of copy-reword-paste...

According to Smith, you should,

"Purchase a cloth-covered octagonal gazebo top of your desired diameter."

Keep in mind that description: "octagonal"... Jane reinforced that shape at least twice, telling her readers that they will need "10-foot long, 2-inch diameter PVC poles, 8" and then instructing them to,

"Lay the top on the ground where you intend to build your gazebo. Mark the eight corners with stakes."

Sounds like a plan, eh? Where Jane ran into trouble – we hope her BS in education wasn't as a mathematics teacher – was when she instructed her readers to,

"Assemble the top frame of your gazebo. Apply PVC cement to one end of one of the PVC poles you've cut for the top frame. Allow the cement to dry until tacky. Insert the pipe into a three-way connector. Continue until you have all eight pipes connected in an octagon, with the third connection at each point facing the sky."

It was obvious to everyone in our shop who had ever used PVC pipe that Smith was ignorant of the geometry of both 3-way connectors and octagons. Standard 3-way connectors are T-shaped, so Jane's instructions just make a straight line. You can also buy furniture-grade fittings (but not in 2-inch OD) that will allow you to build a square with four of them, but those won't work either. Jane's problem? She wants to make an octagon, which means that the internal angles of her 3-way fittings must be 135°, not 90. Oops: math fail.

Not that the remainder of Smith's instructions are much better. When setting the posts, Jane wants you to "Backfill each hole with flat sided¹ gravel." and then – we kid you not:

"Fill each hole with concrete."

How you can fill a hole with concrete after it's already been backfilled with gravel of any description escapes us. We also nearly fainted at her last instruction:

"Hang a plumb bob from a spirit level set on top of each corner of the gazebo one at a time. Adjust the posts until they are vertical and even with the plumb line."

Again, WTF? It's like Janey has no idea what either a spirit level or a plumb line is!

Let's be honest here: even if you could build this monstrosity, it would look like crap, not to mention that the only thing gazebo-like about it is the top, which Smith neglected to mention ever installing. And here you wondered what this putz had done to merit a Dumbass of the Day award. Well, now you have it...

¹ We googled "flat sided gravel" and the phrase doesn't appear anywhere on the internet except here and in snippets of rubbish that use this as a source. We have no idea...

MM - GEOMETRY