electrician band and meter

electrician band (aka shtalband and fish tape) is a tool to pull electrical cables into pipes

using it is not complicated. you push it in untill it comes out the other end. then you connect the cables and pull . . . .

hey ! how we know how much cable we need ? the length of the pipe can be way more than the distance between the connection boxes we see !

Step 1 Tools

electrician band

permanent pen or better paint

1 m (or 1 ft) size sample

Comments

[Blofish]

thanks for ible, nice idea for pre-existing pipes

[Blofish]

I just count how many pipes I used. 1 'stick' equals 10ft.

[sdallesasse]

There is also a type of product on the market called true tape. It's not a fish tape however. It's more like a flat string with foot markers on it. We pull it into conduit to measure out wire that is cheaper to order in a more exact length. When it's pulled in we usually leave it until the wire arrives. Then we use the true tape to pull in a rope that is sized to handle the required pulling force. Also on another detail, couldn't you use some clear heatshrink to make those markings more permanent. It wouldn't require any damaging heat.

[11010010110]

sometimes builders connect together pipes right inside the concrete if the band is not smooth it will have more difficulty getting through those places

[NachoMahma]

. When I was working as an Electrician, instead of using a marker, we would just put a few wraps of electrical tape every six feet* and count 'em as we fed the fishtape in. But we didn't use a fishtape for measuring very often - most of the time the conduit was out in the open, so measuring was not a problem.
. You can also buy fishtapes with permanent markings, but that's not very DIY, is it? :)

*Why six feet? Why not five or ten? I dunno. That's just the way the guy that taught me did it.