Wire Pull

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horsegoer said:
So if you were to have 4 reels you'd have four people guiding feeding the wire in if you didn't have a power feeder?
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the ones pulling off the reels will not be the ones guiding the conductors into the raceway, and even if all of the conductors are all on the same reel, you will need more than one person to pull the conductors off of the reel.

This is a size job where the contractor needs to buy or rent the proper equipment to do the job, and if they don't want to do that they should nto be doing projects of this size.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
the ones pulling off the reels will not be the ones guiding the conductors into the raceway, and even if all of the conductors are all on the same reel, you will need more than one person to pull the conductors off of the reel.

This is a size job where the contractor needs to buy or rent the proper equipment to do the job, and if they don't want to do that they should nto be doing projects of this size.
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Thank you.

1. You can have a power feeder which would eliminate or reduce the number of men required to feed in the wire?
2. If you have either a power feeder or men feeding the cable in you STILL need someone to pull off the reels?
3. You may have someone else lubing the wire?
4. How many people would you need at the tugger location?
 
horsegoer said:
Thank you.

1. You can have a power feeder which would eliminate or reduce the number of men required to feed in the wire?
2. If you have either a power feeder or men feeding the cable in you STILL need someone to pull off the reels?
3. You may have someone else lubing the wire?
4. How many people would you need at the tugger location?
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1) with the power feeder, you only need the people to feed and lube the wire...maybe 2
2) no, the power feeder pulls it off the reels
3) Most of the time you have a person to lube, but there are bags of lube that can be attached to the conductors to eliminate that person. For long pulls, you need to stop to add additional bags. This can be eliminated using SIM pull or other similar types of conductors that do not need field applied lube.
4) If you have communications, you can get by with one at the tugger.
 
augie47 said:
If your company is big enough for you to estimate this job you surely should have personnel with some experience and some equipment to handle these large pulls. Can you not discuss the particulars with a company foreman or journeyman who has been there and done that to see what equipment they have available or are familiar with ?
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Would give you an idea of how they would likely want to perform the install instead of guessing how they may want to do it.
 
horsegoer said:
Thank you.

1. You can have a power feeder which would eliminate or reduce the number of men required to feed in the wire?
2. If you have either a power feeder or men feeding the cable in you STILL need someone to pull off the reels?
3. You may have someone else lubing the wire?
4. How many people would you need at the tugger location?
Click to expand...
if the tugger is at the pull box within the run you likely to need additional workers at the pull box location once the conductors make it there to handle them as you pull out enough to make it through the second part of the run. Until conductors make it to that point only one person running the tugger is all that should be needed.
 
Horsegoer, I hope by now you realize there isn’t a simple answer to your original question. As an estimator, use the labor rates that experts have developed over decades and move on. I can either spend money on manpower or equipment each step of the way and save or spend a little more, but it all averages out. Every wire pull is unique. In a similar vein to your question here are two examples I planned and executed.

500 foot pull of 500kcmil 100 feet inside building in EMT from wall mounted exterior box. From same box underground to a ground ha hole in the middle of mud then underground again to the bottom of gear in a new building. We set up a compartment reel (google wemco) plus ground at the exterior box, telescoping forklift with sheave at the ground box and tugger at the new gear. Tied off rope. Raised fork pulling in. Lower fork while using tugger and repeat until wire was in the gear. Then got a bunch of plywood to keep wire clean in mud. We pulled the last 100 feet off. Laid out in a figure eight and then set the tugger up at the door end of the EMT and pulled in from the exterior box. This required 5 guys when doing the last part of the pull.

See, quite complex but very unique.

Another time 15 runs of 350 KCMIL plus one pull of #1 RHW for a fire pump 240 feet from a utility transformer to new interior gear. I made sure we pulled before the transformer was set. I paid Southwire to set up all pulls parallel on reels with pulling heads crimped on the wires from the factory. Then set them up on a big rig ready to feed off from each side. That morning they pulled up one person hooked the first pull, one person ran the tugger, two people pulled in a second rope. Repeat it took 5 hours and 1 minute. I never forgot because I wanted to be done at noon and it was 12:01 I spent a lot of money on the truck the premade heads and a new rope, but it was impressive. With ground about 19000 feet of wire with 4 guys plus me equals 25 hours plus about 4 hours planning. I must mention, the owner and VP coming to watch and half the job standing around because it was so cool. So probably cost a little more LOL.
 
Strathead said:
Horsegoer, I hope by now you realize there isn’t a simple answer to your original question. As an estimator, use the labor rates that experts have developed over decades and move on. I can either spend money on manpower or equipment each step of the way and save or spend a little more, but it all averages out. Every wire pull is unique. In a similar vein to your question here are two examples I planned and executed.

500 foot pull of 500kcmil 100 feet inside building in EMT from wall mounted exterior box. From same box underground to a ground ha hole in the middle of mud then underground again to the bottom of gear in a new building. We set up a compartment reel (google wemco) plus ground at the exterior box, telescoping forklift with sheave at the ground box and tugger at the new gear. Tied off rope. Raised fork pulling in. Lower fork while using tugger and repeat until wire was in the gear. Then got a bunch of plywood to keep wire clean in mud. We pulled the last 100 feet off. Laid out in a figure eight and then set the tugger up at the door end of the EMT and pulled in from the exterior box. This required 5 guys when doing the last part of the pull.

See, quite complex but very unique.

Another time 15 runs of 350 KCMIL plus one pull of #1 RHW for a fire pump 240 feet from a utility transformer to new interior gear. I made sure we pulled before the transformer was set. I paid Southwire to set up all pulls parallel on reels with pulling heads crimped on the wires from the factory. Then set them up on a big rig ready to feed off from each side. That morning they pulled up one person hooked the first pull, one person ran the tugger, two people pulled in a second rope. Repeat it took 5 hours and 1 minute. I never forgot because I wanted to be done at noon and it was 12:01 I spent a lot of money on the truck the premade heads and a new rope, but it was impressive. With ground about 19000 feet of wire with 4 guys plus me equals 25 hours plus about 4 hours planning. I must mention, the owner and VP coming to watch and half the job standing around because it was so cool. So probably cost a little more LOL.
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I understand. Thanks very much.

Question, when you setup reels outdoors I've heard of reel trucks being used. If you don't use reel truck what do you mount the reels on so cable can be pulled off?
 
Anyone? What would be the most common ways to setup 4 or 5 large wire reels? Do the sit on some sort of stand? Is it jack stand.
 
We use these:

southwire-MPJ-02-SW_2_2.jpg
 
horsegoer said:
Thanks s those are jack stands or reel stands....what more common name?
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Those are usually referred to as projaxs as per their name. Again, everything depends on everything else. I don't know what a "reel truck" is but I envision a truck like the utilities use that has permanent jack stands and often a motor to turn the reel. Never used one for construction. In almost all cases the wire is set up on some sort of jack stands and spindle or a set of rollers that sit under the reel and allow it to turn. https://tickets.thevillages.com/pac-18275
 
Strathead said:
Those are usually referred to as projaxs as per their name. Again, everything depends on everything else. I don't know what a "reel truck" is but I envision a truck like the utilities use that has permanent jack stands and often a motor to turn the reel. Never used one for construction. In almost all cases the wire is set up on some sort of jack stands and spindle or a set of rollers that sit under the reel and allow it to turn. https://tickets.thevillages.com/pac-18275
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Thank. Your one experienced dude. Did you work as an electrician? BTW going to that concert?? :ROFLMAO:
 
So if I understand it correctly. If you have large reels to move in a building those can be rolled around pretty easily without and equipment correct?

If outdoors and the reels need to be moved from your storage container say 1000' away you'd want equipment to handled that, correct?

As others said it could be a forklift(depending on terrain), telehandler etc.

My question/assumption is that most shops would need to rent this equipment I'd think unless they do a lot of outside work with big wire. Correct?
 
horsegoer said:
So if I understand it correctly. If you have large reels to move in a building those can be rolled around pretty easily without and equipment correct?

If outdoors and the reels need to be moved from your storage container say 1000' away you'd want equipment to handled that, correct?

As others said it could be a forklift(depending on terrain), telehandler etc.

My question/assumption is that most shops would need to rent this equipment I'd think unless they do a lot of outside work with big wire. Correct?
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The wheels on what is pictured there look to me to not be heavy duty enough to handle it loaded and are likely just there to facilitate transporting the unloaded "jack".
 
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