Jump to content

Centralized Hookah Distribution System


Recommended Posts

Hows that for a mouthful?

One boring afternoon I decided to experiment. It started out with me making a hookah out of a 5 gallon water container. Worked pretty well, but 5 gallons is way too much water (not to mention heavy), so I shrunk it down to about half that (not actually sure how much is in there), and it worked great. I now have a 6 hose hookah! "This is fun!" I thought to myself, but its kind of a pain to drag around... then it hit me, why not centralize it? I did some experimenting and came up with the below pictures. It draws very easy and wasn't very expensive. I think all told I spent maybe $50 in parts if you include the hookah itself. Word of warning though, if you want to use PVC and glue it together, you have to be super careful not to get the glue inside the pipe cause you can't get that smell out, or more to the point the fumes. I tried... I even filled it up with baking soda and water and let it sit for 3 days and it still wouldn't come out. So I went to the "nipple" method and got only components that you could screw together. You don't even need the teflon tape. The mounts for the hoses are one sided compression fittings (they may have a more technical name). I think they're 1/4"... they were the smallest size I could find whatever the size was. I painted them black, so expect them to be white if you want to build one. The leopard skin hose fits quite well. I have a larger hose that fits even better (not pictured) and a smaller one that I had to improvise to fit (I'm talking about the diameter of the end).

Anyway, here are the pictures:

The Hookah:




The pipes:



The hose on the left is what I improvised for the smaller hose... eventually I'll just buy a bunch of the same size hose and it will look better.



Eventually I'll probably paint the whole thing so its consistent. We have a projector in our living room so we have the seating tiered. The grey carpet in the picture is actually a platform with a couch on top of it if that makes sense, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't make the whole thing longer. It takes longer for the smoke to get to the end initially, but once you've drawn it in, its pretty quick. The wierd thing is that you don't really hear/feel the hookah bubbling like you normally would since its sitting on the floor.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My only real complaint about this setup is that cleaning the water basin is annoying. I need to build some sort of quick-release for the main hose. Its also still a lot of water...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ahah wow thats cool. what if you cut out the hardpiping, so you have Y connection instead of a T? more flexible, for those times you need a little flex
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Cybersist @ Jun 2 2008, 03:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
ahah wow thats cool. what if you cut out the hardpiping, so you have Y connection instead of a T? more flexible, for those times you need a little flex


Well, somewhere you have to have some sort of hard connection, and this keeps all the connection points easy to get to. As it is, its pretty flexible. Maybe I'm not quite sure what your saying? The whole thing is screwed to that platform on either side, so it hangs a little in the middle and isn't attached to the couch in front of it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

well essentially what I was saying.... was not really a good idea....compared to your setup. lol you've put the thought in, I just saw it and thought, "ummm"
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Snoopy1966 @ Jun 2 2008, 03:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
That is pretty sweet. You could sit and game or watch movies and smoke and not worry about a Hookah getting knowcked over. Friggin sweet man!! Props to you! Hookah.gif


Now I just need to figure out a way to have the pipe attached to my face so that every time I take a breath its hookah wink.gif
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A couple of questions:

When someone is taking a hit from the one on the end, and someone closer to the central hookah starts taking a hit, does the person on the end lose a significant amount of smoke? Or does it just double the air that's being pulled through the bowl to begin with (I'm not sure how that even works with a normal multiple hose hookah, since I really only smoke single)? Do you think it's possible to "overload" it if too many people are hitting it too quickly?

Also, aren't PVC fumes toxic? I guess that may not be a problem since the smoke is cool by the time it makes it to the piping, though... I'm not questioning your judgment, just interested in your rationalization. Edited by peterjmag
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Scoop @ Jun 2 2008, 04:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
if it contains DEHP and BBzP then it has toxic components.


I forgot to mention the one way valves btw....

As for the PVC fumes, if there are, you can't smell it... not that that makes it better. That said, these are normall used to carry drinkable water through the house. Granted the application is different, but I would think that anything that could be picked up in the air would be worse in water.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (peterjmag @ Jun 2 2008, 04:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
A couple of questions:

When someone is taking a hit from the one on the end, and someone closer to the central hookah starts taking a hit, does the person on the end lose a significant amount of smoke? Or does it just double the air that's being pulled through the bowl to begin with (I'm not sure how that even works with a normal multiple hose hookah, since I really only smoke single)? Do you think it's possible to "overload" it if too many people are hitting it too quickly?

Also, aren't PVC fumes toxic? I guess that may not be a problem since the smoke is cool by the time it makes it to the piping, though... I'm not questioning your judgment, just interested in your rationalization.


You can tell when someone else is taking a hit, yes... and it gets worse, the more people try at the same time, but I don't think there's really a good way to avoid that. Ultimately your bottle neck is going to be the diameter of the pipe that the bowl is sitting on vs how much you can draw through the water. I don't know that there's a good solution to this since I don't really think you'd want to make that pipe much bigger as you might introduce other wierdness, like being able to draw too much air through the tobacco, causing it to burn differently, or over a wider surface area... Really though, I put this together more as a convenience so you wouldn't have to pass the pipe around as much.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Scoop @ Jun 2 2008, 04:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
well california might be passing a bill to ban pvc in all applications due to the harm it causes to humans


Well.... sh*t. rolleyes.gif

That's a pretty big deal... I mean pvc is used in so much stuff, not just as hard pipe too... not to mention sprinklers... not that you'd drink from your sprinklers, but kids like to play in them. And pools! rather than banning pvc, they should figure out how to fix the problem...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (Scoop @ Jun 2 2008, 04:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
well they could have made bioplastics from hemp but i think thats another argument in itself...looks good either way


I suppose it could be made entirely out of copper pipe if one was so motivated, but I don't know where you'd find all the right components without having to use at leas some pvc in there somewhere. Copper would look pretty cool though... Kind of steampunkish... hmm...

All things considered though, we're certainly not smoking hookah for our health! tongue.gif
Link to comment
Share on other sites

QUOTE (willbb123 @ Jun 2 2008, 05:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
That is CRAZY! ohmy.gif
How long does a bowl last you?
Are there 2 rows of seats there or just one?


I haven't really done any extensive testing, but I've been using a medium phunnel and I don't think I've ever had more than 4 people using it at a time, so maybe an hour? Motivation seems to run out before that, but I have a large phunnel that should get me longer than that by quite a bit.

Actually there's 3 rows, but only the first two reach. Which could really serve 6 people, which I think is probably too much anyway. Living room's kind of a mess right now, but you get the idea.



Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...