How to Build a Water-Collecting Bucket Buddy for Your Shop Vac

Anyone who’s tried to use a small, cheap wet/dry shop vac to suck up significant amounts of water quickly discovers how ill-suited such vacuums are to the task. I have the Harbor Freight 5-gallon wet/dry vac, and I would never think to use it to suck up more than the most minor of spills.

To address this deficiency, Chris Notap has come up with a simple buck buddy container for collecting water using a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket and some basic ABS plumbing parts. No more needing to convert your vac over to wet mode or having to carry your precariously full vacuum to the sink or outdoors.


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2 Comments

  1. And to think that I thought that the shop vac was designed the exact same way. Input into one side of bucket and fan to create vacuum out the other side.

  2. If you are happy with your shop vac in wet mode, that’s great. For those of us who aren’t, this is a simple solution.

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