Not really

Working ahead of our upcoming kitchen gut renovation I’m going to be installing a subpanel for it and working with an electrician from my work who does side jobs. He is having me run the 4/3 cable the 35 feet or so across the basement to the subpanel location. That stuff is THICK…STIFF…HEAVY.

Also ran about a 80 foot run of 10/3 Romex to replace an ancient 3-wire (ungrounded) dryer circuit. That stuff is also thick stiff and heavy.

Finished with running a new circuit of 12/2 for new patio receptacles. I know someone here said they hated working with 12/2 Romex but after wrangling 4/3 and 10/3 all day, that 12/2 felt like I was working with string!

I’m sure I’m not going to win any prizes for neatness or professional looks with what I did but it will work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PASig,

I hope no fishing was involved, it can be the stuff of nightmares.

We ran two runs of 10/2 Romex through one inch pvc conduit today. Out of one garage and underground to the pole barn. Glad when that was done.

Gutted, remodeled, rewired three houses, added subpanels, upgraded service in two. Never was the most fun thing to do. SEC is a lot of fun to bend.

Makes me wish I could have afforded conduit throughout my entire house.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Makes me wish I could have afforded conduit throughout my entire house.

If you lived in Chicago , it would be required .

 
It definitely takes two people, and I have found that the "pusher" is much more important than the puller, for keeping things smooth and not kinked. Two way communication is a big help. Wire pulling lubricant is also a help.
 
When we had our house built in 2002, I had the builder run conduit to every room as well as the outside RV pad. All of the conduits return to a central wiring box, so each run is a home run. At the time I pulled cat5e, which is running a Gigabit copper network just dandily. I do a lot of local network copying. My wife, not so much. I am future-proofed if I decide to go with fiber sometime in the future.

All of my clients are pretty well off, and about half of them are true believer leftist. I tend to charge them more than my conservative clients, but as long as everyone is upfront about it, no harm no foul.

Anyway, quite a few of them have bought into the electric car scam. Most of them own more modern houses with plenty of room in the panel. When I bring my electricians in, to install the sub panel in the garage, I’ve already scoped out the pathway and cut access holes. Even so, the three ( 1 electrician, 1 helper and me)of us have a bear of a time pulling 4/3 from the panel to the garage. All three cell phones on speaker. Even then, 4/3 will knock furniture over if not careful. Then I spend a couple days putting it all back together. I love the look in their eyes when I figure the bill.

I have one guy who still uses a public charger. His house, though very expensive, does not have enough service to handle the sub panel. We are working up a design to remodel the house. No use pulling the wire now, if we are going to do a lot of demo soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
We ran two runs of 10/2 Romex through one inch pvc conduit today. Out of one garage and underground to the pole barn. Glad when that was done.

I hope you didn't put Romex underground.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
We ran two runs of 10/2 Romex through one inch pvc conduit today. Out of one garage and underground to the pole barn. Glad when that was done.

I hope you didn't put Romex underground.

Question: Is it ok to pull UF cable through a conduit?

My brother wants me to help wire his detached garage. We will be adding a sub panel with a 100a service. He also wants to have a chest freezer in the garage that is fed from his critical-load sub panel in his house. The critical load panel is supported by solar/battery during outages.

Since the code allows an exception to allow for two feeds to a structure for critical loads like this, I was thinking of running a UF home run from that panel to the garage, to avoid having to install conduit or junction in the house. I know this will add more than three conductors in the conduit, but we are already over sizing the conductors for other reasons.

IIRC, you do not pull Romex or UF through gray conduit. You are supposed to use individual conductors of the required size for your load and length of run.

Pulling lines are never fun. But the rewards make it worth while.

Back about 15 years ago we had a second floor addition put on. Home runs from the panel to upstairs. A couple years pass and the cable in my bedroom is terrible. I called Xfinity, guys comes out, goes in the attic, and the picture is great. Only to find out he cut all the home runs and left my bedroom connection. Said too many connections were degrading the signal. I felt like pushing him down the stairs but kept my cool and told him to get the F out of my house.

I don't like to sit and watch over contractors, Let them work then check in during the day with them. When I was in the the engineering department I spent weeks on job sites watching over the contractors. They had to go by the specs, so it was cut and dry if they screwed up. But I never liked standing over people working.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
We ran two runs of 10/2 Romex through one inch pvc conduit today. Out of one garage and underground to the pole barn. Glad when that was done.

I didn't think that was allowed? You are supposed to use THHN wire which is basically the individual wires inside Romex, on a spool, minus the outer sheathing.

quote:

Originally posted by Blackmore:
IIRC, you do not pull Romex or UF through gray conduit. You are supposed to use individual conductors of the required size for your load and length of run.

You can absolutely run UF underground in any kind of properly sized conduit, metal or PVC.

But NO on NM/Romex.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
We ran two runs of 10/2 Romex through one inch pvc conduit today. Out of one garage and underground to the pole barn. Glad when that was done.

I hope you didn't put Romex underground.

Question: Is it ok to pull UF cable through a conduit?

My brother wants me to help wire his detached garage. We will be adding a sub panel with a 100a service. He also wants to have a chest freezer in the garage that is fed from his critical-load sub panel in his house. The critical load panel is supported by solar/battery during outages.

Since the code allows an exception to allow for two feeds to a structure for critical loads like this, I was thinking of running a UF home run from that panel to the garage, to avoid having to install conduit or junction in the house. I know this will add more than three conductors in the conduit, but we are already over sizing the conductors for other reasons.

100a sub fed with UF? I don't know if I've ever seen bigger than #6 UF. I don't know of anything that prevents you from doing it, but I don't know how you'd calculate conduit fill or wire derating. I've never done it for any application. Typically it's direct burial then sleeved in conduit to protect from physical damage.

I used to pull 3 runs of 200 feet of 4/O weld cable through 3 inch pipe for weld lines. Don't think I could even pick that up now. I'm too old and out of shape. Another life...

I hate residential wiring, unless it's a new build.

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:
You can absolutely run UF underground in any kind of properly sized conduit, metal or PVC.

But NO on NM/Romex.

Thanks for the correction

Why would it be acceptable to direct bury underground feeder, but be prohibited to put it in conduit?

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Why would it be acceptable to direct bury underground feeder, but be prohibited to put it in conduit?

I think you can, it's the regular Romex that isn't supposed to be? The UF is weird stuff, I pulled some out of my basement and tried to strip it, had never seen it before. Ended up tossing it, too much work to strip when the plastic insulation is molded on like that.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Why would it be acceptable to direct bury underground feeder, but be prohibited to put it in conduit?

I don't think it's prohibited in any way, there's just no table or charts to size the wire/conduit. I can't think of a reason to do it though. Direct burial cable is made to be buried without a conduit. If I'm spending the effort to do conduit run, then I'm going to use individual conductors.