Pulling Cat6 Cable Through Conduit

[Scabutz]

I have just had mega faster fibre installed. The fitters could only run the fibre to the front of the house. The old fibre installed by BT was run the the back of the house where the lounge and my office is.

My house has a metal panel at the front and behind it there is two lots of conduit, I believe it was to run cable TV years ago. Anyway BT got their cable through this.

My question is how? I want to run some Cat6e cable back there and thought I could do the same. I assume if I try and push it through it will get snagged. Could I disconnect the BT fibre and tape my cable to that and gently pull it back out?

[Mattt]

Yes, use the existing cable as the draw wire.

If it’s big enough, pull another draw wire or second Cat6 cable at the same time for future use.

Remember to watch any bend radius’s

[Mr Pointy]

They probably used a draw tape or a set of rods:
https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/electrical-tools/...
https://www.screwfix.com/search?search=cable+draw

The fibregalss tape they use is a bit chunkier than those domestic ones though. What diameter is the hole & how long is the run?

[h0b0]

The last thing you want is to try and pull to fat cables and have them separate half way through the conduit.

If space is limited, use the existing cable to pull through a narrow, but strong, draw wire through and then use that to pull the new wire, and another narrow cable through for future work.

[Scabutz]

The conduit is quite large, must be 2 inches diameter. Tt only has the BT fibre cable and some old co-ax cable.

Assuming its straight, the run must be 5-6m I guess

[Mattt]

Use the old coax rather than fibre.

Could you use the fibre that’s there though, if you got switches that support it (depending on the connection)?

[scottyp123]

Alternatively if there is nothing in the ducting or it snaps etc then get a vacuum at one end and suck a piece of string down it from the other end. You usually have to untangle a bit out of the vacuum tube when its done but its very effective at getting a draw string through.

[Mr Pointy]

Scabutz said:

The conduit is quite large, must be 2 inches diameter. Tt only has the BT fibre cable and some old co-ax cable.

Assuming its straight, the run must be 5-6m I guess

Dead easy then. A rod set would do it but you could probably use the coax as a pull cord. Securely tape some thin 4mm nylon rope to it & gently pull it through. Don't forget if you want to leave the nylon in as a pull wire you need twice the length of the conduit.

[Scabutz]

Mr Pointy said:

Scabutz said:

The conduit is quite large, must be 2 inches diameter. Tt only has the BT fibre cable and some old co-ax cable.

Assuming its straight, the run must be 5-6m I guess

Dead easy then. A rod set would do it but you could probably use the coax as a pull cord. Securely tape some thin 4mm nylon rope to it & gently pull it through. Don't forget if you want to leave the nylon in as a pull wire you need twice the length of the conduit.

Cool, Amazon have a got a 10m rod set for 15 notes. Will try that, thanks.

[Mr Pointy]

Scabutz said:

Cool, Amazon have a got a 10m rod set for 15 notes. Will try that, thanks.

Put a wrap of insulating tape or similar round each joint & always twist the rod so as to tighten the joints, not undo them. There's plenty of people have left half their set down a hole. It's worse with a set of drain rods though.

[SiH]

The method you describe is how I put Cat6 cable throughout my house but instead of using the existing fibre cables I used the old TV co-axial ones instead. I taped the end of the Cat6 cable to the end of the co-axial and then gently pulled it through. If you've going to use tape then one suggestion is to make sure that the tape overlaps in the direction that you're pulling. In other words if the end of the tape catches on the wall of the conduit you don't want it to start unwrapping itself.

[biggiles]

scottyp123 said:

Alternatively if there is nothing in the ducting or it snaps etc then get a vacuum at one end and suck a piece of string down it from the other end. You usually have to untangle a bit out of the vacuum tube when its done but its very effective at getting a draw string through.

This really is the easiest method. You only have 6M to suck through. Scrunch a plastic bag on the end of the string and hoover it through. I've done this with up to 200m of conduit successfully.

[dhutch]

Mattt said:

Use the old coax rather than fibre.

This. I wouldnt disconnect the new FTTP cable or use it as a draw wire!

[Scabutz]

Mr Pointy said:

Scabutz said:

Cool, Amazon have a got a 10m rod set for 15 notes. Will try that, thanks.

Put a wrap of insulating tape or similar round each joint & always twist the rod so as to tighten the joints, not undo them. There's plenty of people have left half their set down a hole. It's worse with a set of drain rods though.

I learnt that the hard way when sweeping my chimney once. Luckily I have long arms and managed to reach it

[Scabutz]

dhutch said:

Mattt said:

Use the old coax rather than fibre.

This. I wouldnt disconnect the new FTTP cable or use it as a draw wire!

To be clear I was talking about the old FTTP cable from the soon to be disconnected service. But I am going to use the rods anyway.

[LocoBlade]

If you're pulling through using an existing cable and you've only got one or two old ones to use, pull some strong string or wire through first that's more than double the length of the conduit then tie that off at either end so it can't be pulled back through, then you can pull the string back and forth dragging as many cables as you need through without the risk of losing the draw string if the cable becomes detached half way.

[Scabutz]

Thanks all. I got it done today. Bit of a fiddle. When I said the conduit was a couple of inches, that is the one bringing the cable TV and phone line from the street. The one in the house was a lot smaller and had the fibre and telephone line in. I tried to get the rods down but they just would go. So I pulled one of the cables out then taped the Cat6 to the other one and slowly pulled it through.

Took a bit of push and pull and wiggling but got it done in the end.

Tomorrows job is to run the cable from the lounge to my office up stairs.

[dhutch]

Good work