Shoutout to the apprentice who showed me his trick for pulling wire through a crowded 3/4 inch EMT

He uses a shop vac to suck a pull string through first, which saved us about 45 minutes on a reno job yesterday. Anyone have a different method for tight conduit runs?

4 comments

4 Comments

brian_taylor152mo ago

Our old foreman swore by a steel fishing tape with a tiny bit of soap on it. The lube trick works great for those really packed 90 degree bends where a vacuum might not pull enough. It's a simple fix that doesn't need any extra tools.

casey8182mo ago

I always thought that was messy, but @brian_taylor15, you just changed my mind on that soap trick.

kimw572mo ago

Oh man, totally. I was the same way, always avoided it thinking it was just asking for a slippery mess. But @brian_taylor15 is right on the money. I had a line last month that was just impossible, and a little soap on the fish tape was the only thing that got it through. It sounds too simple, but it really does make a tough pull just slide right through. Sometimes the old school tricks are the best ones.

iris_schmidt19d ago

The soap trick is honestly one of those things where once you try it, you wonder why you ever doubted it. That fish tape is usually fighting against everything in the wall, and a little lubrication just takes the friction out of the equation. I've even had luck with a drop of dish soap on the edges of conduit fittings before a pull when things get really tight. It's not about making a mess, it's about using just enough to break the tension. For those long runs with multiple bends, it's the difference between fighting for twenty minutes and sliding it through in five. The guys who swear by it have definitely saved themselves some frustration on the job.