Showerthought: I used to yank coax through drop ceilings like I was starting a lawnmower

Watched an old foreman named Pete spend 20 minutes dressing a single cable run behind a conference room last Tuesday and realized my pull string method was the reason I was spending 45 minutes fixing kinks on every job, has anyone else slowed down their pulling technique and seen less damage?

3 comments

3 Comments

verawhite13d ago

My buddy Mike spent three years doing data cabling for a school district and he used to yank everything like he was in a race. He bragged about pulling 500 feet in under 10 minutes until he had to reterminate 60 runs because the copper kept snapping inside the jacks from stress fractures. One day his foreman made him sit and watch a slow pull from start to finish, and he said it felt like watching paint dry for the first 15 minutes. But after that job he told me he basically cut his rework time in half just by taking it easy on the pulls. Dude still pulls fast but now he stops every few feet to let the cable settle instead of sheer force all the way.

sean_torres7112d ago

80 runs having to be reterminated? That's brutal. I can't believe it took 60 crushed jacks for him to figure out he was yanking too hard. The foreman just making him sit there and watch a slow pull is some kind of zen master move, but I bet that felt like forever. Still, cutting his rework time in half is a huge deal, that's a whole day of work saved. Sometimes you just gotta see the damage with your own eyes to believe it, I guess.

skylerrobinson13d ago

That thing about stopping every few feet to let the cable settle applies to a lot more than cabling. I notice it when I'm doing yard work or even cooking a big meal, where rushing through something just makes you mess it up and have to start over. Taking those little breaks actually makes the whole job faster in the end.