That job at the old Masonic lodge in Cleveland taught me to double check everything

Last month I had to run cable through this old Masonic lodge downtown Cleveland. Place hadn't been updated since the 70s. I figured I'd just fish the lines through the existing conduit like always. Big mistake. Halfway through pulling Cat6, I hit something solid and the whole pull stopped dead. Turns out someone had stuffed newspaper and old insulation in the conduit years ago. Had to rip out half the drop ceiling and run new surface mount boxes. Took me three extra days and the customer was not happy about the extra holes in their plaster walls. Now I always stick a camera down any conduit before I start pulling. Anyone else run into weird stuff in old building conduits?

1 comments

1 Comment

abby8363h ago

Respectfully, I think you're overcomplicating it. I've pulled cable in buildings way older than that and never needed a camera. Just give the conduit a good yank with a fish tape first to feel for blockages. You can usually tell by the resistance if something's in there. Newspaper and insulation? That's annoying for sure, but pulling out drop ceiling tiles to fix it sounds like you went straight to the nuclear option. A good vacuum hose or a set of conduit rods would've cleared that out in an afternoon without touching the plaster. Sometimes the old ways still work better than buying new gadgets.