Pipe visualisation

If this is what you want, I'll explain how I did it.

This was something I was just playing with to see if I could do it. It emulates the kind of things that are done here: http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/ <- my "go to" reference for chart questions.

Column A is the month
Column B is the Value for the month
Cell C1 is the Maximum of Column B
Column C is the negative value for the month.

Column D is the "upper limit" It's Column B + Cell C1
Column E is the "lower limit" It's Column C + Cell C1 - this is why I find the max - I want the minimum value here to be zero

I plotted D & E as area charts with D having normal fill and E having fill to match the background.

I also made a line chart with Column B values. This comes out "behind" the area charts and is obscured. Actually I should change the markers and line to no fill. I use this to get the left axis (true values) - I have to figure out how to hide the right axis.

The thing does not "throttle down" to zero unless the value is zero. I am plotting actual values I am not plotting the differences between former and next points.

Now you'll have me researching "Smart Art"

Not 100% sure what your expected graphic should look like but perhaps you can use a column chart.

These 2 examples use column charts.
First is a 2 series version with +/- data point. Set series overlap to 100 and gap width to zero

Second uses 2 series in stacked column.