Electrical Wire Pulling Tips

What are you trying to pull?

What comes first?

Hopefully you are reading this before you started the job, otherwise you will be reading this after a good degree of frustration! I say this because the difficulty of pulling electrical wires is directly correlative to the amount of planning you have done.

In advance

All too often do-it-yourselfers will pull out existing wires before they realize that these wires can be used to alleviate some of the difficulties of the job.

The right tools

With some jobs, having the right tool is just a matter of etiquette. Unscrewing a switch plate with a butter knife, hammering a tack with a pipe wrench or wrenching a bolt with pliers may look stupid but it will work. For other jobs, the right tool is essential, and no improvisation that stops short of McGyver-like genius will suffice.

Pulling wire is just such a job. Trying to pull electrical supply wire type z or electrical wire 12-2 nmb down the length of a soffit or a drop ceiling with just your good looks and a wire hanger is going to get you nowhere. One of the best arrows in your quiver is a slingshot electrical wire-pulling tool.

What on earth is that?

The slingshot electrical wire-pulling tool can be used for everything from fiber optic cable to common electrical wire. They look disturbingly like a Rube Goldberg contraption or something out of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As a tool, though, they are invaluable. This tool consists of a fishing real attached to a wooden slingshot like what you might have carried around as a child.

To use the tool you simply affix a fishing weight to the end of the reel's line. You take the weight into the leather pouch in the middle of the power bands and shoot it in the desired direction. Once you get the shot right, you tie the fishing line to the electrical wire to be pulled and off you go.

Other tools to keep handy are electrical wire pull tapes and extension pole wirepullers. Both will allow you to access difficult areas by using rigid and thin line leads. At the end, both have a hook that allows the user to thread the wire through a conduit or a series of drilled holes.

Safety

Your electrical wire distributor should be able to assist you with obtaining electrical wire charts. These are important because electrical wire sizes and types must be differentiated in order not to overwhelm your home's electrical capacity and cause a fire.

You will also want to know how to wire an electrical light that has a ground wire. You can do this by taking the unshielded cable and affixing it directly to the outside of your junction box.

More information on electrical wire