Bending Conduit

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Alwayslearningelec

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Estimator
I know I spoke on bending before but I have a question regarding labor. NECA has the following labor units:

2" EMT bend= 1 hour
2 1/2" - 1.2
3"= 1.4

Can a good electrcian/bender beat these numbers with a hydraulic bender setup? THanks.
 
Yeah, it only takes about 30 seconds to put a 90 into a stick of 2" EMT.

What appears to be missing from that equation is setting up the bender (hauling it to the job, finding a spot you can use it, plugging it in....), measuring & marking the pipe, properly fitting it into the bender, then taking the bender back to the shop when you're done with it.
 
480sparky said:
Yeah, it only takes about 30 seconds to put a 90 into a stick of 2" EMT.

What appears to be missing from that equation is setting up the bender (hauling it to the job, finding a spot you can use it, plugging it in....), measuring & marking the pipe, properly fitting it into the bender, then taking the bender back to the shop when you're done with it.
Click to expand...

Below is from NECA for the conduit and related items section(where bends was)

SCOPE OF THESE LABOR UNITS -
? Material unloading, job site storage, and delivery to the installation area
? Drawing and specification study
? Layout, measuring, and marking the installation location
? Tool acquisition and return to storage
? Measuring, cutting, threading, and handling conduit
? Material assembly and installation
? Conduit offset bending
? Normal non-productive labor
 
horsegoer said:
I know I spoke on bending before but I have a question regarding labor. NECA has the following labor units:

2" EMT bend= 1 hour
2 1/2" - 1.2
3"= 1.4

Can a good electrcian/bender beat these numbers with a hydraulic bender setup? THanks.
Click to expand...

A bender for that size conduit is one you set up and take the conduit to the bender, not the other way around. Granted a lot of that time is in bender set up etc, but some of it is in measuring for the bend, marking it on the conduit and actually bending it.

Last large project I was on we had a single 882 and a single cam tack set up in a central location. Since I and my 2 men were doing the core equipment room, our time per bend was well below the guys doing the satellite rooms.

I say stick with the book numbers.
 
Thanks..so factory bends compared to field bends seems to be about the same in the end $$! If you take into account labor for field bend and labor and $$ and labor for factory bend EMT.
 
horsegoer said:
Thanks..so factory bends compared to field bends seems to be about the same in the end $$! If you take into account labor for field bend and labor and $$ and labor for factory bend EMT.
Click to expand...

not if you have to make something fit. everyone uses factory 90's, cause they are fast.

and 'cause people who can bend large pipe and make it look good aren't as plentiful as
they once were.

'cause people use factory 90's.... we have a chicken and egg thing. i've ran across people
half my age who can't bend, 'cause they haven't had experience with it, let alone segment
bending on GRC...

and then you look at someone who has cut and pieced together a run out of segments
of factory bends, and it looks uglier than a mud fence.

if you have one or two bends you need, pre bent is quick and easy. if you have a ton of
stuff to run, bending is the way to go.
 
Factory bends are also limited to 45? and 90?, and maybe 30? or 60?.

If you need anything else, or kicks or offsets the bender is what you need.

Small sizes (primarily 1/2 and 3/4) are relatively easy to bend, even with hand benders and may not be worth the use of factory bends.
 
horsegoer said:
Thanks..so factory bends compared to field bends seems to be about the same in the end $$! If you take into account labor for field bend and labor and $$ and labor for factory bend EMT.
Click to expand...

Depends on what type of fittings were speced. Die cast set screw would balance out where steel compression wouldn't. Especially on the 2.5" and bigger.
 
kwired said:
Factory bends are also limited to 45? and 90?, and maybe 30? or 60?.

If you need anything else, or kicks or offsets the bender is what you need.

Small sizes (primarily 1/2 and 3/4) are relatively easy to bend, even with hand benders and may not be worth the use of factory bends.
Click to expand...

What happens when the factory 90 is a couple degrees off? No biggie on the small stuff, but what about 2 inch RMC? I have seen more than my share of factory bends not being what they should be.
 
Fulthrotl said:
and then you look at someone who has cut and pieced together a run out of segments
of factory bends, and it looks uglier than a mud fence.

if you have one or two bends you need, pre bent is quick and easy. if you have a ton of
stuff to run, bending is the way to go.
Click to expand...

I got to play gas pipe installer at my house. Your choices for bends are pretty limited to 90 and 45. Besides being not so versatile, every bend has to have a place for a potential leak. When I got done I looked at the run and thought how much easier it would have been if I could have just bent the pipe. I have a Chicago bender that would have made it possible to do the entire run in one or two pieces of pipe.

A good pipe runner won't gain a thing by using factory bends.

I had to run a rack of 2" EMT behind all the other trades. I think there were six 2 inch and 4 3/4 inch that had to offset perfectly to get through all the other stuff hanging from the ceiling and hit the wall where it had to. The offsets had to have 40 degree bends. Not much room for error, either, and being 18 feet off the ground didn't help much.....

I had a ratty old 555 for the big stuff and a hand bender for the small stuff. I used a magnetic inclinometer to get the angles perfect. The small stuff could be wrestled, but I still checked everything on the floor before it went up.

I was alone for that run, my partner was in Vegas, so making a boo-boo would have been even worse.

No way could the run have been done with factory bends unless the other trades moved their stuff, which wasn't going to happen. If I hadn't been taught to bend pipe, I would have been screwed. All the other stuff required 2 people.
 
K8MHZ said:
I got to play gas pipe installer at my house. Your choices for bends are pretty limited to 90 and 45. Besides being not so versatile, every bend has to have a place for a potential leak. When I got done I looked at the run and thought how much easier it would have been if I could have just bent the pipe. I have a Chicago bender that would have made it possible to do the entire run in one or two pieces of pipe.

A good pipe runner won't gain a thing by using factory bends.

I had to run a rack of 2" EMT behind all the other trades. I think there were six 2 inch and 4 3/4 inch that had to offset perfectly to get through all the other stuff hanging from the ceiling and hit the wall where it had to. The offsets had to have 40 degree bends. Not much room for error, either, and being 18 feet off the ground didn't help much.....

I had a ratty old 555 for the big stuff and a hand bender for the small stuff. I used a magnetic inclinometer to get the angles perfect. The small stuff could be wrestled, but I still checked everything on the floor before it went up.

I was alone for that run, my partner was in Vegas, so making a boo-boo would have been even worse.

No way could the run have been done with factory bends unless the other trades moved their stuff, which wasn't going to happen. If I hadn't been taught to bend pipe, I would have been screwed. All the other stuff required 2 people.
Click to expand...

NICE!!!! THANKS
 
If you're only doing one single bend, those numbers are about right. If you're looking at multiple bends (on the same run), I'd go 1st at full rate, second at 60%, third at 40, then all others at 30%

horsegoer said:
I know I spoke on bending before but I have a question regarding labor. NECA has the following labor units:

2" EMT bend= 1 hour
2 1/2" - 1.2
3"= 1.4

Can a good electrcian/bender beat these numbers with a hydraulic bender setup? THanks.
Click to expand...
 
Strife said:
If you're only doing one single bend, those numbers are about right. If you're looking at multiple bends (on the same run), I'd go 1st at full rate, second at 60%, third at 40, then all others at 30%
Click to expand...

When you start doing that on the larger jobs the losses become additive. There should be some adjustment factors in the book, but I doubt you can get a 3" bend down to a solid 25 minutes per bend. You normally have 2 journeymen and an apprentice on larger conduit runs. Doing this with the numbers would get you down to less than 10 minutes for the three to complete this one bend.
 
K8MHZ said:
I got to play gas pipe installer at my house. Your choices for bends are pretty limited to 90 and 45. Besides being not so versatile, every bend has to have a place for a potential leak. When I got done I looked at the run and thought how much easier it would have been if I could have just bent the pipe. I have a Chicago bender that would have made it possible to do the entire run in one or two pieces of pipe.

A good pipe runner won't gain a thing by using factory bends.

I had to run a rack of 2" EMT behind all the other trades. I think there were six 2 inch and 4 3/4 inch that had to offset perfectly to get through all the other stuff hanging from the ceiling and hit the wall where it had to. The offsets had to have 40 degree bends. Not much room for error, either, and being 18 feet off the ground didn't help much.....

I had a ratty old 555 for the big stuff and a hand bender for the small stuff. I used a magnetic inclinometer to get the angles perfect. The small stuff could be wrestled, but I still checked everything on the floor before it went up.

I was alone for that run, my partner was in Vegas, so making a boo-boo would have been even worse.

No way could the run have been done with factory bends unless the other trades moved their stuff, which wasn't going to happen. If I hadn't been taught to bend pipe, I would have been screwed. All the other stuff required 2 people.
Click to expand...

Not sure gas codes allow bending the pipe.

If you need to change direction say 15? they always do so with two 90? elbows and a short nipple. Of course this also changes the overall plane of the run.
 
masterinbama said:
When you start doing that on the larger jobs the losses become additive. There should be some adjustment factors in the book, but I doubt you can get a 3" bend down to a solid 25 minutes per bend. You normally have 2 journeymen and an apprentice on larger conduit runs. Doing this with the numbers would get you down to less than 10 minutes for the three to complete this one bend.
Click to expand...

What do you mean?it takes one guy to do a bend, right?
 
horsegoer said:
What do you mean?it takes one guy to do a bend, right?
Click to expand...

large pipe, especially GRC is a two man thing often..... so... when you need to bend an offset
in 3" grc, two guys are going to be involved.

once, just for grins, i picked up and walked about 40 yards with a 6" sweep with about a 7'
nipple on one end.... just to see if i could... the veins in your neck start throbbing pretty quick.

next time you are on a job that is running big pipe, go physically yourself, and get a 4" stick
of emt from the pile, get it into a bender by yourself, and bend a 90 on the end... now, pull
the pipe out 4', and put a 18" kick on the long side, keeping it square with the 90.

see how long it takes. the experience will be of far more value to you than anything we can say.
 
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