This is probably old news to most of you, but I used it for the first time today. Have a buddy that needed to pull a phoneline for his alarm on his new shop. The conduit was buried months ago, so we needed a way to pull a string through the conduit as a feeder. We tied a piece of paper to the end of his twine and crumpled it up. Then we hooked the shop vac to the other end, making sure the hose was tight around the conduit......start feeding. It worked the first time. Now all you have to do is tie the phone wire to the string and pull.
I need to run a phone line out to the shop also. I'll give that a try in the next few days when I have time. Thanks for the tip.
Hey guys I've been an electrician for 16 yrs. and beleive it or not they make "mouses" just for this purpose. A piece of foam with an eyelet at the end. You can buy 'em at the supply house, but I've found that a plastic bag like you get at Wal-Mart works best. Who would have thought.
FWIW - if you want to pull multiple wires in the conduit fish the string like above and then tie a small rope to it and pull it back thru to use it to pull with. This way you dont break the string under tension. The supply house sells "fish tape" which is made for pulling wire, it also is handy to use for tie downs. Use liquid soap as a lubricant when pulling wire to reduce friction. They also make a belled end hub to go over the conduit end for pulling that will not let the end of conduit strip/rub the insulation. And, pull spare wires in the conduit for future use if you want to add something later on. Just be sure to label the ends and coil up enough to at least make a connection.
Don't use just dish soap as a lubricant if you ever even think you may pull that wire out. It will set up like cement. Use a cable lubricant (Yellow 77 or equivelent). Just my $.02 worth. Telecom man 35 years.
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