Keep seeing installers leave a service loop that's way too short on outdoor boxes

Been in Seattle for 8 years doing residential and commercial, and every time I replace a weatherhead or a bad connector, there's no slack to work with - makes a 15 minute fix into an hour of crawling in an attic to pull more cable. Has anyone else had to deal with a homeowner yelling at you because you're the third guy who has to replace the whole drop?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_rose1mo ago

Gotta agree with you here Olivia, it's not just about the installers being lazy. I've been in the same boat in Seattle too, cutting out bad connectors and finding the jacket peeled back like a banana inside those cheap boxes. @miles946 I get what you're saying about swapping the whole box, but sometimes you're stuck with what the customer already has, and they don't want to pay for a new one. It's the manufacturer's fault for not making the spec strict enough, like you said. I've had homeowners yell at me too, and it's always the same story - they think I'm the one who messed up the first install, even though I'm just cleaning up someone else's mess.

olivia_allen1mo ago

And honestly, the problem is usually cheaper materials more than installer laziness. I've noticed a lot of those newer boxes have connectors that are barely long enough to grab the cable, so even if you leave a loop, the connector itself strips the jacket and leaves you with half an inch of usable wire inside the box. You can't blame a guy for not leaving slack when the product itself is designed to fail if you try to work with any. The manufacturers should be forced to put a minimum two inch tail requirement on the spec sheet, not just a recommendation. Until that changes, we're all gonna keep crawling around in attics for that extra foot of cable.

miles9461mo ago

Man, that's a solid point @olivia_allen. But if these boxes are that bad, wouldn't it make more sense to just swap the whole box out for a better one instead of fighting with it every time? I'd rather spend five minutes swapping a connector than an hour crawling around an attic hunting down slack.