Talk:Conduit
This is just my take from my bit of experience (which isn't a TON, i'm no grey haired journeyman and whatnot!), but if you plan on doing proper conduit work, getting the spools and a Wire Spool Cart type thing is definitely worth it (Granted the semi-janky but still safe and fine solution of a Conduit Bender (or 1 inch emt, a broom handle, etc the type of things that won't bend) going through the spools, then rest that between two ladders also works, and the spool cart we had was pretty crappy too, would get all birnesty and tangled if you didn't have a person watching all the spools while the other person was on the other end pulling, if not a third person at the spool holder end of the pipe)
Granted again it depends on the length of a pull (The width of a SEH Pannel maybe?) or the stuff i was usually doing (from a panel to across a room or the building for some of the largest ones), but often you could burn through a full spool of that thhn or whatever the individual 12 or 10 awg or so wire doing that run so you don't have too much material lying about.
ALSO at FSCJ we mainly used Romex for those residential practice panels, and would use the remainders that couldn't be directly reused for the "pigtails" for the screw down connectors on outlets/switches/lights and all that. It worked for that, but stripping down Romex is some serious work/time wastage. At the end of the year we spent a few days doing just that.
If you have one of those machines scrap yards / people who do a bunch of scrapping it may be a bit faster, but idk if those are rated for reuse as they may "nick" the wire, and anytime you do that it's basically a fail (in theory could bodge that spot with electrical tape or something, but then that can mess with the other wires sliding past it, and just in general electrical isn't something you want to skimp on, you don't want to be the cause for someone's electrical fire (if not for morals, just business too!, easily diagnosable from an insurance perspective and it messes you up legally future construction wise and all sorts of bad stuff)
Also you will be getting a bunch of (at least if the Romex i have seen is a decent representation of the whole) that uncoated ground wire. This can work fine for pigtails and whatnot, but for conduit we tend to use the Green Coated Wire. I'd have to dig to see if you can get away with uncoated, or if that isn't up to code, but again that's a potential issue.
This last issue depends on who you ask, but that plastic sheathing will pile up, and need to be thrown out. That and if recycled (if it can be, would have to look up the plastic type, if it shreds well, etc) you have to rip that paper that in there out (again at least if the romex i dealt with is a good sample of it all) so that waste + also the time of digging that out (although when the sheathing is sliced it can sometimes be slid out/peeled out easily)
Rambling a bit, but at the end of the day i'd say wire is a Consumable, for the most part if you get it it will be used (outside of odd stuff like thicker gauges, MC (especially multi-circuit mc (Essentially non 12awg-2, i forget if we went up to 12-4 or whatever it was odd). Despite easily getting surprisingly heavy, the spools don't take up too much space so that isn't too much of a limitation.
TLDR: While i HEAVILY agree with the need for Part Degeneracy especially for Type of Screws and stuff like that, for this i think that is a bad idea.
It would be similar to using piles of 2x4s instead of Plywood Sheets since plywood is another thing to get.
That is my non-elder expert, but also someone who has done a pile of wire pulls / dragging wire from the trailer to inside / stripping romex and wire opinion at least, do with that what you will.
Also feel free to ask any questions, i'll answer best i can.
--Eric (talk) 02:31, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
On the note of conduit itself, i really like it. Bending can be a bit of a pain, especially with 3/4in EMT and up. If you are skilled at it 1/2 isn't a big deal. Granted "in the real world" we used a PILE more fittings and whatnot, compared to the crazy "Box Offset - 4 Point Saddle - 90 Degree Bend - Box Offset" type craziness our instructor had us doing. Granted one of those "learn the hard stuff in case you need it" but yeah. Also code limits on some connectors/bends and all that so do need to be careful.
What i like though is that your wire is all contained and neat. If it is easier to maintain than Romex and all that is debatable. An Ideal empty wall, with the romex barely stapled down, with really nice Stud Notching and whatntot pulling that romex out may be easier than pulling old af wire that also got cut somewhere in the middle, out of 1/2in EMT stuffed way past code by whatever jerk was working on the site you have to fix, HOWEVER doing conduit with a large amount of space left, well labeled conductors, and good fittings and all that you can easily see where stuff goes, it is somewhat protected from other work on the wall, and can be swapped simply with Pull String and/or directly taping the new conductor on the old one. Granted i'm not saying using some giant rigid conduit for a lamp cord makes sense, or that romex doesn't work, but especially with the right tools conduit is really nice.
Other bit, if we could make an Open Source Automatic Conduit Bender and do a CNC Lathe type thing for RMC threading, also maybe some sort of cut to length machine (although tape measure+pencil+Cordless Bandsaw can be plenty fast with the right jigs and once you get in the rhythm) you could make the production automated or get that "prefabricated kit" type system going. Never did this on a jobsite, and especially in renovation plans may not match real life, but with the Seed Eco-Home you could go from CAD to pile of cut conduit good to go in a trailer, no time spent doing all that on the jobsite.
