tx2step
Senior Member
- Location
- North Texas, DFW area
Did the conduit contractor know he wouldn't be installing the wire & that it might be a while before any did? If so, he may have been pretty sloppy with the install.
I've seen as many as 8 ea 90's plus some offsets without a pull box. Kinked pipe. Loose fittings that kept you from being able to blow string. Unreamed cuts with burrs that would peel insulation.
Do the project specs give you a recourse if you find problems with the conduits? Or is it your problem how to make it work?
Do the drawings give you the run length of the pipes? If not, you may find that the contractor went way around some obstructions that you can't see now & the pipe runs look more like spaghetti. Are you having to guess on the lengths? As-builts are rarely ever accurate or complete, because no one ever checks them.
I've seen underfloor conduits with pull lines in them (required by spec)...when we tried to use the pull line, it was tied to a wad of paper stuffed into the pipe a few feet. Never could get anything through them. Had to run new pipe overhead.
If the conduits are very large, and the wire is pretty large, I'd pull a mandrel through each pipe before pulling wire. A mandrel is a capsule shaped gizmo that's sized for the conduit (Greenlee makes them) -- you tie a rope to each end and pull it through the conduit - one rope to pull it in, and the other to pull it back out if it won't go around a bad 90 or a kinked pipe. But it probably won't catch a poorly reamed cut.
This type of job can have a lot of risk -- how much of that risk is the owner putting on the contractor bidding on pulling the wire? Price the job according to the risks involved.
I've seen as many as 8 ea 90's plus some offsets without a pull box. Kinked pipe. Loose fittings that kept you from being able to blow string. Unreamed cuts with burrs that would peel insulation.
Do the project specs give you a recourse if you find problems with the conduits? Or is it your problem how to make it work?
Do the drawings give you the run length of the pipes? If not, you may find that the contractor went way around some obstructions that you can't see now & the pipe runs look more like spaghetti. Are you having to guess on the lengths? As-builts are rarely ever accurate or complete, because no one ever checks them.
I've seen underfloor conduits with pull lines in them (required by spec)...when we tried to use the pull line, it was tied to a wad of paper stuffed into the pipe a few feet. Never could get anything through them. Had to run new pipe overhead.
If the conduits are very large, and the wire is pretty large, I'd pull a mandrel through each pipe before pulling wire. A mandrel is a capsule shaped gizmo that's sized for the conduit (Greenlee makes them) -- you tie a rope to each end and pull it through the conduit - one rope to pull it in, and the other to pull it back out if it won't go around a bad 90 or a kinked pipe. But it probably won't catch a poorly reamed cut.
This type of job can have a lot of risk -- how much of that risk is the owner putting on the contractor bidding on pulling the wire? Price the job according to the risks involved.