Tried using a fish tape to pull cat6 through a wet conduit yesterday

I was running six lines for a new office build and figured I could save time by not drying out the inside first. The tape kept binding up and I ended up snapping it on a tight bend after fighting it for 45 minutes. Anyone else had a conduit turn into a nightmare because of moisture?.

2 comments

2 Comments

terryrobinson24d ago

You said you figured you could save time by not drying out the inside first." Yeah, that's where you went wrong. Water in conduit isn't just a friction problem, it actually makes the tape way more likely to snap because it gets slippery and then suddenly binds. You really gotta blow the line out with compressed air or at least pull a rag through first to soak up the moisture. Otherwise you're just fighting the tape the whole time and probably damaging the cable jacket too.

the_jana24d ago

Learned this one the hard way myself a few years back @terryrobinson. Spent two hours fighting wet conduit and snapped three tapes before I figured out the compressed air trick. Now I just keep a shop vac in the truck for stuff like this, makes me feel less stupid about the time I wasted before.