i've even heard of some folks using partially-inflated water balloons. i've never tried it, but sounds like it has great success.
That sounds like a haiku or something
maybe put a bit of clear caulk on the couplings as you are making up the run so you won't have to come back and remove anything?
I think they can fully inflate and have too much side wall pressure to pull in sometimes. I've taken these plastic shopping bags and wrapped rings of tape around them to keep full length of the bag from being able to fully inflate yet the un-taped portions will still inflate but have less total surface contact. They seem to vacuum through better than a non taped bag does. Most the pulls I done this with were underground PVC though. I also learned it generally works best to pull a string through ASAP after making up the conduit with underground runs. Get some moisture in the run because you didn't pull conductors until some time later and they don't tend to vacuum a bag through as easily as when totally dry. If you know there is moisture causing problems when you try to vacuum you may be able to just put the vacuum on the line and let it run for a while. But any significantly low spots may hold too much water and still give you troubles.
Clear silicone caulk is the most common practice in my area for long runs of large EMT. Important to note that the silicone goes on the EMT before it is inserted into the coupling. I once "fished" 200' of 2.5" EMT with about 210 degrees of bend in about 5 seconds with a home depot shop vac. Obviously there's material and labor costs for the silicon, but it's almost foolproof.
I was thinking more like busting a rhyme. Or is it throwing down some rhymes? I'll look it up when I have some time.
Does the silicone caulk compromise bonding of metal parts?
I would suspect that's not on the list of approved installation instructions. If there is such a thing.
Just buy a couple mice instead of the bag. Use a full on compressor if you need to. The one thing with a compressor, make sure you have some friction on the string so the mouse, pulls the string or the string will bunch up and that is a real bummer.
I would tape the couplings long before I would think of installing a conduit body.
When I do a pulling calculation, changing the radius has little effect on the required pulling tension, but provides a substantial decrease in the sidewall pressure.
Thats the trick folks... for a bunch of separate long s.s. runs, just get the cheap dottie stuff from the whlsale house and just vacuum it.
