Getting the Little Wires Run

Whew! Well, we're done with day one of the wiring run project, which is to get wiring run from the big house down to the guest house.

Thanks to very detailed (and accurate) instructions from Larry, we were able to get a bunch of wiring run through 1½" PVC tubing with minimal struggle. Basically, Larry said to get a hunk of foam rubber, tie a length of fishing line to it, stick it in one end of the pipe, stick the ShopVac nozzle in the other end (mine won't blow, it only sucks - otherwise, you could stick the ShopVac nozzle in the same end) and presto, you fishing line is almost instantaneously at the other end.

Before you do that, tie the other end of your fishing line to a heavier line that you'll use to actually pull the wires through. Otherwise, you'll have to feed the foam through again. That's the voice of experience speaking. It fed through so fast the first time, we didn't even have time to grab the end to keep all the fishing line from going through the tubing. It was quite entertaining.

Wire Loom

Cody even built a 'wire loom' for us to use while pulling the wires through the tubing. It was a great idea that would have worked even better if we'd had all the wire on spools. Having just a coil of wire meant that we developed an immediate tangle, which we spent significant time de-tangling.

For us, it ended up being a three-person operation. Cody pulling cable on the far end of the tube, Dianna feeding it all into the tube at the near end, and me trying to manage the loom/tangles.

The Trench for the Tubing Run

We didn't run the wire through that whole length. Following Larry's instructions, we ran it through 40- and 60-foot lengths of tubing and as we made it through each length, then we glued them together to the next length.

The Run The Other Way

It would have been a spectacularly successful day but for one thing. My spool of Romex (3-conductor wire) turned out not to be quite long enough. Naturally. So, yesterday evening, I had to run back to Lano's Supply and get a 250-foot length of the stuff. I also had to do it then since the GST (Good and Services Tax - basically a sales tax) increased this morning by 2½ % - from 10% to 12½ %.

The Pulled Wires

The shot above shows the 'pulled' wires and the pulling string after a successful pull through the tubing. We staggered each wire by a couple of inches, attaching each with electrical tape to the Romex (our heaviest wire), so it didn't have all the wires bunched up at the end. I kind of made a spear point so pulling it through the tubing and past joints quite a bit easier.

Repeating from yesterday's post, the wiring run consists of:

• Romex
• TV Cable
• Cat-5 Cable
• Door Bell Wire (speaker wire)
• Poly Line to be left in case of a future need for more wire through the tubing.

Thanks again to Larry for the detailed instructions. It made the task a lot easier.

Oh, about the short wire. We have to pull that out of the tube this morning and put it back on its spool, to be used somewhere else in the future. We'll be using the line we left in the tubing to pull the new 250' run of wire through the tube this morning. And, we're going to attach another length of line to that so that we'll still have some line left in the tubing in case, later on, we want to run more wire.

I'll finish up this project today (with more photos, of course) and will be calling the electrician to come hook it up and give us two or three live outlets in the guesthouse during the rest of construction.