When it comes to providing power to a building, there are only two ways to get the conductors into place to disperse moving electrons as needed: overhead or underground, which requires wire to be pulled into a conduit. Most of us have had the pleasure of being part of a feeder pulling crew. It is arguably one of the most labor-intensive portions of our job (not to mention hot and difficult!). But just like any other facet of the trade, this process has evolved since the dawn of electricity. New technologies arrive on job sites almost daily, improving efficiency and safety. Before exploring some of these new advances, let’s take a nostalgic spin through the old ways.

Where we’ve been

In its infancy, installing wire into conduit was done manually. It required creativity, ingenuity and whatever materials the installing electricians had available. Once the conduit was installed, the conductors were stripped of the insulation on the end, attached to the end of the rope and pulled in, usually by hand. The manpower required was fully dependent on the size and quantity of wire and the length and complexity of conduit, not to mention the conditions in which you had to pull the wire. Several electricians on one side of the rope provided the necessary pulling power, while electricians on the other side helped by feeding the cable off the spools and into the conduit.

Strenuous, exhausting, hot and dangerous are all words to describe pulling wire in this fashion. The conductors are shipped from a vendor on large wooden spools to be moved from one area to another. These spools were generally placed on wire-pulling axles through a large stout metal rod or a large piece of rigid conduit so the spools could spin freely during the pull. This became dangerous if you put your hands in the wrong spot or were not paying attention when one of those spools came off or the axles tipped over. 

In addition, many electricians suffer from back pain in one way or another due to having to manhandle those spools, which can weigh several hundred pounds. Many times, the actual conditions would not allow setting spools up, forcing the crew to unspool the wire and lay it on the ground. This resulted in the entire weight of the wire no longer being supported by the reels, so that even more manpower was needed to feed and pull.

Current Tools’ 100 two-speed cable puller with carriage	Current Tools’ 8890A Mantis cable puller

Pulling the conductors into the conduit presented other issues. It is a very choreographed action between those pulling and those feeding. The proper amount of wire (not too much and not too little) must be fed for what the opposite side can pull. 

If a crafty electrician was in an outdoor environment, a piece of equipment could be used to do the actual pulling, saving manpower and the wear and tear on the workers. Backhoes and work trucks, among others, could be hooked up to the rope, providing the brute force necessary to pull the cables through the conduit. However, this type of wire pulling method was generally relegated to outdoor installations.

Where we are now

With advances in construction technologies, many products offer a more efficient and safe installation. While hand-pulling conductors is still used for certain applications, this method has been largely replaced by powered/mechanical equipment. Rockford, Ill.-based Greenlee’s 6906 UT10 puller with mobile versi-boom and Current Tools’, Greenville, S.C., 100 two-speed cable puller with carriage are examples of these “tuggers.”

To use the Greenlee or Current Tools wire puller, an electrician sets the wire puller up, wraps the rope around the capstan, and the pulling aspect of the task is complete. Both pullers are rated to pull 10,000 pounds and have a fully adjustable neck and head. These machines have two speeds, which allows for a balance between the brute pulling force of a vehicle doing the work and the precision required for some intricate pulls.

The pulling aspect is not the only area where advances have been made. Greenlee’s 6810 ultra cable feeder can replace almost all the manpower required on the feeding end of large wire pulls. The cables are fed between two tires that grip and pull those cables off the reels. It has several adjustments, allowing for cables up to 3½ inches. With a maximum tractive force of 200 pounds for a single cable and 800 pounds for multiple cables, this machine has the capability of feeding up to five 750 kcmil conductors. It has variable speed ranging from 4 to 36 feet per minute, allowing it to match the speed of the cable puller. 

Coupling this wire feeder with a tugger greatly improves the efficiency of a wire pull by replacing the need to have several electricians with only two, allowing those other electricians to work on other tasks needed for the building’s completion.

For jobs needing less pulling strength, the Southwire, Carrollton, Ga., Maxis cable puller can pull up to 3,000 pounds. It can adapt from underground to overhead pulls.

Wire pullers and feeders can be used in typical fashion of “pulling” the cables into a conduit, and crafty electricians can also use them in reverse to slow down the wire installation process or lower the wire into long vertical conduit runs. 

An example of this would be a vertical conduit run in a multistory building or high rise. Several large copper conductors can weigh thousands of pounds. If not slowed down and restrained during the pulling process, a fall of several stories could result in a demolished electrical room, not to mention the potential for severe bodily damage to anyone in its path.

Other advances in wire-pulling equipment include clevises, swivels and various apparatus to attach the wire quickly and efficiently to a pulling rope. A clevis is a quick attachment point placed through the rope onto whatever pulling head the electrician is using, eliminating the need to lace several pieces of wire through the eye of the pulling rope. A wire-pulling swivel allows the wire to spin freely as it is being pulled through a conduit run with several bends in it, resulting in a smoother pull. 

Wire pulling socks/grips are also available to assist in the wire pulling process. A wire pulling sock is a compressible metal basket with a premade eye that is slid over multiple conductors, which drastically cuts down on prep time by eliminating the need to strip the wires themselves and manually thread them through the eye of the pulling rope. A wire-pulling grip is closely related but uses opposing Allen head-cap screws to provide the holding power on individual cables.

Pulling large wires into big conduits is not the only wire pulling that electricians do, and many other products have been developed that assist in different areas of cable installation. Fish tapes are retractable steel or fiberglass tapes that can be spooled out and fed into a conduit where wire is attached to it, and then pulled back. While fish tapes work well when installed in a conduit, due to their design they tend to bind up when attempting to install them in a vertical wall. Milwaukee Tool, Brookfield, Wis., manufacturers a polyester fish tape with a triple-strand design so it won’t kink after repeated use.

Fish rods are 4- to 5-foot-long straight fiberglass rods that can be linked together to get the desired length. They can be fed through a hole in an existing wall and pushed toward the new opening, where the cable can be attached to a pulling eye and then pulled back. Furthering the versatility of these sticks, they can be used in an open-type ceiling space, or even along a cable tray, to pull smaller cables horizontally. 

Where we’re heading

Moving past the physical tools, equipment and techniques, modern electronic technology is also dramatically changing the way electricians perform their work. Klein Tools, Lincolnshire, Ill., offers borescopes that exemplify this shift. Several models have been developed over recent years that use a long illuminated endoscope with a camera on one end and a visual screen on the other. This allows the electrician to see accurately what is inside the wall without having to guess or remove the wall covering itself. 

Versions are also available that will sync the image to a user’s cellphone with Bluetooth. Mobile applications such as Walabot allow their device to be linked to the user’s phone and can detect obstacles in walls without having to insert anything into the wall itself. These types of technology greatly improve installation accuracy while significantly reducing the risk of damage to existing items within the walls.

While the advances of construction technology have vastly improved the efficiency and safety aspects of pulling wire, we have yet to hit a plateau, and are far from finished. The electrician’s task of only using brute force to pull wire is no longer the only option.

New technologies are becoming available almost daily—apps are being produced, new tools developed and new processes initiated, all designed to help the current era of electricians become as successful as possible. It’s exciting to ponder what new tools and processes will become available to assist us next. Limited to someone’s imagination only, the possibilities are almost endless. 

greenlee / current tools / milwaukee tool