[joe cool]

170 feet into a 175 foot pull and we started breaking 2500 pound mule tape. Look what we found.

Underground conduit was run when the building was built but conductors were never installed. I guess when they pinned the driveway to the slab they drilled through the conduit and hammered in a rebar. If live conductors were present they would have realized their mistake in an exciting way.
Opened up the wall, cut the conduit just short of the slab, cut the rebar with a hole saw, finished the pull. Not ideal but at this point I had spent $2500 on wire with no contract (good repeat customer) and not getting it done would have been a big hit.

 

[SWDweller]

great way to fix the problem.
Never seen anything like that

 

[Southeast Power]

170 feet into a 175 foot pull and we started breaking 2500 pound mule tape. Look what we found.
View attachment 155295 View attachment 155296 View attachment 155297
Underground conduit was run when the building was built but conductors were never installed. I guess when they pinned the driveway to the slab they drilled through the conduit and hammered in a rebar. If live conductors were present they would have realized their mistake in an exciting way.
Opened up the wall, cut the conduit just short of the slab, cut the rebar with a hole saw, finished the pull. Not ideal but at this point I had spent $2500 on wire with no contract (good repeat customer) and not getting it done would have been a big hit.

Have you considered switching to XHHW-s Aluminum wire?

 

[micromind]

Sounds like it was fairly easy to get to, most are far more difficult.

I like the holesaw idea, better than using explosives...........lol.

 

[Easy]

It's hard to believe that the concrete guys would drive rebar that deep into the ground and get so lucky to hit dead center on the PVC.
I don't have a camera for looking inside conduit but I can see how useful one would be in this situation.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Hey Joe you need to clean your fingernails. LOL

Looks like you didn't even have to re-pull the wires or did you?

 

[five.five-six]

Looks like that was almost as hard to pull through as yellow 77 .....

170 feet into a 175 foot pull and we started breaking 2500 pound mule tape. Look what we found.
View attachment 155295 View attachment 155296 View attachment 155297
Underground conduit was run when the building was built but conductors were never installed. I guess when they pinned the driveway to the slab they drilled through the conduit and hammered in a rebar. If live conductors were present they would have realized their mistake in an exciting way.
Opened up the wall, cut the conduit just short of the slab, cut the rebar with a hole saw, finished the pull. Not ideal but at this point I had spent $2500 on wire with no contract (good repeat customer) and not getting it done would have been a big hit.

 

[Kawicrash]

Nice shot, dead centre!

 

[SteveBayshore]

One of our new 3/4" ground rods driven through one of our new parallel runs of a 1600 amp service, after conductors were pulled. Didn't find it until the power company plugged in the cutouts for their new pad mounted transformer. BOOM.

Quite embarrassing, 600mcm notches in the ground rod.

 

[joe cool]

Did not have to re-pull because the conductors wouldn’t go past the rebar. Tied pull string to the broken mule tape and shoved it all back into the conduit. Cut the rebar with a hole saw on a long extension, sucked up the pull string with a vacuum, pulled up the mule tape with the string and continued the pull.
Here is my ghetto pull rig for your entertainment. This was while we were pulling other conductors down into the j-box.

 

[mofos be cray]

I would worry about the sharp edges of the rebar nicking the insulation.

 

[oldsparky52]

I would worry about the sharp edges of the rebar nicking the insulation.

Good point

 

[splatz]

Here is my ghetto pull rig for your entertainment. This was while we were pulling other conductors down into the j-box.

I like it! If it was breaking 2500# mule tape it had to be rigged pretty well. Do you know what that chain hoist is rated for?

 

[GatorIE]

I like it! If it was breaking 2500# mule tape it had to be rigged pretty well. Do you know what that chain hoist is rated for?

I'm sure that Joe knows the technical answer, but I'd say that if it was breaking 2500# mule tape, the answer is probably "enough"

 

[oldsparky52]

I like it! If it was breaking 2500# mule tape it had to be rigged pretty well. Do you know what that chain hoist is rated for?

I wonder what that chain was connected to?

 

[LGLS]

I wonder what that chain was connected to?

Another cable pull from overhead! Two birds one stone.

 

[joe cool]

Before I became a sparky I used to work backstage in theater. Lots of rigging.
The chain hoist was 2 ton Harbor Freight $79. Very strong but very slow, only used it once we couldn’t push and pull by hand any further. It only lifts 10’ then you have to lower it back down and start again.
That was all that we needed to pull underground from switch gear into pull box inside suite. From there we had overhead from panel to pull box so I used a 4000 pound pulley (Harbor Freight $12) bolted to the slab to reverse the pull direction. Bolts were theoretically the weak point, 850 pound pull on each of 2. We stood out of the way when there was any tension on the rig. But in the end it proved 2500 pound mule tape was the weakest link.
The rebar I never expected and never gave any thought to.
I don’t like we had to cut the rebar in the pipe but the right size hole saw was a pretty clean cut. The jacket of the wire was carefully examined, no damage. This was right in the foundation so any concrete cutting would have really had to involve an engineer and no one wants to go there.

It was a rollercoaster but a fun job in the end. I am an idiot and I fronted the $2700 in wire and Polaris with no contract, for a minute I was afraid I was going to fail and then where would I be? Now I have to figure out what to bill. The pictures and the chunk of rebar I can hand to the property manager give me a nice poker card.

 

[oldsparky52]

I guess this could be a good argument for pulling a mandrel through before each wire pull?

 

[MHElectric]

Before I became a sparky I used to work backstage in theater. Lots of rigging.
The chain hoist was 2 ton Harbor Freight $79. Very strong but very slow, only used it once we couldn’t push and pull by hand any further. It only lifts 10’ then you have to lower it back down and start again.
That was all that we needed to pull underground from switch gear into pull box inside suite. From there we had overhead from panel to pull box so I used a 4000 pound pulley (Harbor Freight $12) bolted to the slab to reverse the pull direction. Bolts were theoretically the weak point, 850 pound pull on each of 2. We stood out of the way when there was any tension on the rig. But in the end it proved 2500 pound mule tape was the weakest link.
The rebar I never expected and never gave any thought to.
I don’t like we had to cut the rebar in the pipe but the right size hole saw was a pretty clean cut. The jacket of the wire was carefully examined, no damage. This was right in the foundation so any concrete cutting would have really had to involve an engineer and no one wants to go there.

It was a rollercoaster but a fun job in the end. I am an idiot and I fronted the $2700 in wire and Polaris with no contract, for a minute I was afraid I was going to fail and then where would I be? Now I have to figure out what to bill. The pictures and the chunk of rebar I can hand to the property manager give me a nice poker card.

Nice save Joe.

The first electrical company I worked for had us move some new switch gear into a basement with nothing more than a couple of chain hosts, some cut peices of emt and 4 guys. I was thinking the whole time how “this is NOT going to work!”, but it did and I was very impressed. Amazing what you can do with those things, however you need to have at least one guy who’s used them a few times before or you might have a problem on your hands. Lol!