All of us have gotten accustomed to using Spider Pipe Guides because they have been around forever. In looking for a better way, we found the following areas for improvement:
1).There is no single Spider Guide for any pipe size. The ID is standard, but the length of the guide fins and the ID of the housing all vary with insulation thickness. There can be as many as five selections for the same diameter pipe. This makes stocking difficult and the contractor cannot buy without knowing the insulation thickness.
2). While they are used in other positions, most Spider Guide have no allowable load ratings as they are single purpose Guides.
Our primary objective was to solve these two problems, so we came up with the idea of a simple insulation height adjustment. Just loosen two bolts on each side of the base and move to the higher position when job requirements call for thicker insulation. Not only are they easier to order and dimension, but the price remains the same regardless of insulation thickness. This is not true with the spider design as cost is based on the shell OD. Cost estimates are no longer difficult with our single price per size.