How many men
- Thread starter laketime
- Start date
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walkerj
Senior Member
- Location
- Baton Rouge
If they are on individual spools:
Two men to unspool, one to feed/lube, one to operate tugger, and one to pull rope off of tugger.
Your mileage may vary.
Two men to unspool, one to feed/lube, one to operate tugger, and one to pull rope off of tugger.
Your mileage may vary.
walkerj
Senior Member
- Location
- Baton Rouge
You do not want to pull this without the tugger.
It would take all day to pull by hand vs. 3hrs with the tugger, plus your guys won't curse you when your not around.
It would take all day to pull by hand vs. 3hrs with the tugger, plus your guys won't curse you when your not around.
hardworkingstiff
Senior Member
- Location
- Wilmington, NC
A whole hearty AGREE!
I'd say you would not get it in by hand. Pull in in 3 hours or less, yes, but I'd still allot the whole day (setup breakdown time).
I'd figure a half day with 3 guys minimum.
Best case, you are done by 10 AM and you can sit around and BS about how you kicked it's ass.
You already know what worst case is.
Patience, preparation and communication are the keys here. You do not want this one to go South.
Best case, you are done by 10 AM and you can sit around and BS about how you kicked it's ass.
You already know what worst case is.
Patience, preparation and communication are the keys here. You do not want this one to go South.
petersonra
Senior Member
- Location
- Northern illinois
- Occupation
- engineer
Being a dumb engineer and all that, I have often wondered why these kind of things are not broken up into shorter chunks to make it easier to pull. It would seem to be a whole lot simpler to pull this in 2 chunks, maybe starting at each end, and connecting at a jbox in the middle somewhere.
It would seem to reduce the risk of something going really bad by a lot, as well as reducing the labor.
cadpoint
Senior Member
- Location
- Durham, NC
Once the wires are made up into a pull like the OP described is made up, it should be good for the pull.
Addressing the Head (of wire) can be a minimun of 15 to 30 minutes alone. This is just a consideration of one pull
Usually additional time due to the size of wire...
Making up of a convience joints/or box(pull point) in a box is just negative time and also a protentional induction to or for human errors... IE; one has to remark wires, and setup the reels again to a new pull point (maybe/maybe not), it's frankly just more "Time" O/A
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growler
Senior Member
- Location
- Atlanta,GA
That's why they don't let engineers get near this sort of thing.
The only reason this job is going to take so long with so much labor is because there is only one pull. There is no way around it, it's just not efficient to make one pull, but it has to be done. If this were on a large project with 100s of pulls then all the men and equipment would already be at the job site and a little pull like this would be a piece of cake.
Making splices in small cable is one thing but the bigger it gets the more trouble it is. For a splice you need access and that's not always easy and then the time and trouble of splicing. Then the chance of a bad splice and the cost of failure.
If you watch the guys do a pull like this on an industrial site it will be over in less than an hour but on a smaller commercial or residential site it will take longer because it's not something that's done everyday and the men and equipment will not be as readily available.
Cow
Senior Member
- Location
- Eastern Oregon
- Occupation
- Electrician
How would adding a pull point in the center reduce the labor??
You have to figure time for:
installing the j-box and associated 90's etc to stub up into the box
setting the wire in the center and having to move the tugger after the first pull
splicing the wires
Nothing is as fast as a tugger or winch sitting there pulling with no interruptions.
We pull long runs fairly often. We have a boom truck with 2500+ feet of 3/8 cable on a hydraulic winch. Hang a pulley from the boom, feed the cable over it and down into the conduit. Hook the wire on, start the winch and wait for the head to pop out. Easy.
jmellc
Senior Member
- Location
- Durham, NC
- Occupation
- Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
As someone said, don't try this w/out a tugger. If your budget is tight, have 1 man at the tugger and 3 guys feeding. Line up the spools in a straight line, feed 2nd over 1st, 3rd over 2nd. Same w/ground or, if space permits, you can lay it out and let it drag the floor, still carry over the spools. 1 guy actually feeding/soaping, 2 pulling off and feeding to him. If budget allows, 1 at each spool is good, watching for kinks or tipovers. Keep spools low as possible on stands. Another guy at tugger is good if you use radios, 1 can comm while other keeps tugging.
Soap the conduit as much as possible before the pull. Soap the wires generously and keep them straight as possible going in. A twist or overlay can be a big problem, especially after a 90. If the building has a boiler room or other high heat area, try to store the wire in there overnight before the pull. Warmer wire is much softer, easier in every way to pull.
Soap the conduit as much as possible before the pull. Soap the wires generously and keep them straight as possible going in. A twist or overlay can be a big problem, especially after a 90. If the building has a boiler room or other high heat area, try to store the wire in there overnight before the pull. Warmer wire is much softer, easier in every way to pull.
stevenje
Senior Member
- Location
- Yachats Oregon
If you are going to step up to this level of work you should seriously consider purchasing a tugger. If you don't, there will come a day where you will not be able to make a pull without the help of a tugger. Believe me it won't be pretty. Purchasing a tugger will save you tons of money in the long run and will allow you to be come competitve on bidding projects like this in the future.
IMHO a tugger like the Greenlee Ultra Tugger is a money maker. It allows for very quick setups for a wide range of pulling scenarios. The first time I used one was on a large multi-use multi-tenant trucking warehouse job. We had 16 panel pulls from 100' to 600'. I couldn't believe how quick and smooth it went with this tugger.
Like most everything in the trades you have to the right tool for the job.
kbsparky
Senior Member
- Location
- Delmarva, USA
Depending on where this pull is, you can use the work truck to pull the rope.
We did a similar pull using the scissors lift. I mounted a pulley just above the panel, and then tied the rope on the back of the lift. It had no trouble pulling that 450 foot run of feeder cable thru that conduit!
We did a similar pull using the scissors lift. I mounted a pulley just above the panel, and then tied the rope on the back of the lift. It had no trouble pulling that 450 foot run of feeder cable thru that conduit!
hardworkingstiff
Senior Member
- Location
- Wilmington, NC
The advantage to using a Greenlee Tugger is that work force gauge. It tells you how hard the tugger is working and you know if you are pulling too hard. Using a truck or lift or whatever you really take the chance that you damage the conductors.
That being said, I have used a Lull to make a pull.
That being said, I have used a Lull to make a pull.
growler
Senior Member
- Location
- Atlanta,GA
Depending on where this pull is, you can use the work truck to pull the rope.
We did a similar pull using the scissors lift. I mounted a pulley just above the panel, and then tied the rope on the back of the lift. It had no trouble pulling that 450 foot run of feeder cable thru that conduit!
I have even used the bucket on a backhoe to pull out old cables and pull in new ones.
Just thinking back I have used everything from a truck, farm tractor, backhoe, ditchwitch , boom truck and even a golf cart. Anything to save the back.
But a tugger is nice and most areas should have a place to rent one.
I would include the rental of a tugger in the price of a pull if I didn't have one unless I knew where to get my hands on other means ( other than labor ). I don't like pulling by hand there is to much chance for someone to suffer a back injury.
You got that right, the chance of damaged conductors with using a truck, I remember some pulls we had to do over, because we had a lead guy think it was a good idea, we learned a lot from those jobs after the conductors were removed, and the damage could be seen.
One person can do both. I've never had two people at the tugger end.
walkerj
Senior Member
- Location
- Baton Rouge
I agree one person can do both.
I like to have two guys there for better communication and if something goes south it can be put to a stop quicker.
Or sometimes there is nowhere to mount the beast and two guys have to stand on it(not safe)
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