Having wires bundled when entering a raceway

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MichaelP1517

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Galloway, NJ, USA
I deal with#10 thhn, we use pvc conduit, my question is that when pull out our cat we tape the ends and stager the individual ckts as well as tape the individual ckts one to keep them identified and 2 to keep them from curling back up once cut off the spools, do we have a code violation of the stay taped within the pvc/Raceway? Please identify the code article if so, thank you
 
I cannot think of a violation but IMO it's a very poor practice to have individual conductors taped inside of the raceway.

Welcome to the Forum. :)
 
Welcome to the forum. I use crimp marks for identification vs taping wires together on thhn. For cat5e/6, I sometimes pull 20 at a time, and tape staggered wires, but never leaving tape in a conduit - I also consider it poor practice and a visit from Murphy should you need to pull more wire in or out of that conduit.

Not sure why you'd wind up with tape in the conduit anyway - if you tape the ends, they will not be in the conduit when done, but outside the box or panel. On a stagger pull, when you tape the stagger, that stagger eventually winds up at a place where the tape can be pulled off, no? I've rigged many a stagger for riser pulls in hotel and never wound up with tape on a point that is still in the conduit.

As far as a code violation goes, I can't think of any with thhn in a conduit, tho taping NM could be considered bundling and possibly bring on derating.
 
JFletcher said:
As far as a code violation goes, I can't think of any with thhn in a conduit, tho taping NM could be considered bundling and possibly bring on derating.
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I agree, with a raceway bundling/derating rules would apply taped or not. For cables a different issue.
 
If I am reading correctly he is saying they tape conductors of same circuit together throughout the run.

Makes it difficult to "pull one out and one (plus additionals) back in" later on, or even to pull individuals when trying to make things up at a pull box or conduit body.
 
kwired said:
If I am reading correctly he is saying they tape conductors of same circuit together throughout the run.

Makes it difficult to "pull one out and one (plus additionals) back in" later on, or even to pull individuals when trying to make things up at a pull box or conduit body.
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Dunno about taping throughout the run vs ends, but having effectively done that a few times pulling large amounts of staggered catx cable, if you dont pull all the cable taught and dead straight when taping, and tape the middle points, you're right, you wind up with a huge unpullable mess when navigating corners/sweeps/bends, like driving a vehicle in 4WD with differential locks engaged.

The way I'd do it:

Say I'm pulling 3 MWBC with EGC to 3 boxes, staggered ~ 10' apart. #14 in 1/2" EMT. First or lead head has 2 hots, neutral, and EGC. Mark wires with pliers. Tape together (Tape joint #1), rig onto string line.

Pull off 10', set head into something so it's tight (Or have helper hold it), grab 3 more wires (2 hots and neutral), mark wire with pliers, tape them together, then rig onto the string line (tape joint #2) Then, pull 10' more and repeat that last step (tape joint #3). 10 conductors.

Pull from panel to first box, then pull out 20', to get to shortest/last stagger (tape joint #3). All 10 wires out of the box. Remove last 3 wires at that point from string, pull extra 6' on EGC. feed remaining 7 back in to second box, pull out at 2nd box, undo 2nd stagger, pull extra 4' of EGC. Feed remaining 4 wires/initial lead head back into the conduit, pull to 1st box and out 2'.

At this point all the wire is basically taught, there is 2' working length at each box, no tape in the conduit. As far as the reels go, I rig the pulls so that the first box's wire would be on shaft #1, or the left side of a single shaft, the 2nd box in the middle/#2 shaft, 3rd box on the right/#3 shaft. Tape wires together, mark them, cut off wire from reels. This method works for me up to 25 wires/cables at a time; for catx, I've set up pull boxes 4 wide and 5 high, with all the rolls of coax on a piece of IMC rolling in a set of D-rings I've mounted to the studs in the hallway.

Didn't mean to turn this into a thread on wire pulling but in the end, I wind up with no tape in my conduits and correctly identified wire. Had I taped everything together along the run, getting slack on the EGC would be impossible. Aside from staggers, taping in the middle adds time and difficulty to the pull and absolutely nothing positive - it is utterly pointless.
 
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