Vent: That time a senior installer told me to never pre-terminate coax

Buddy of mine named Dave from a job in Tempe, Arizona swore up and down that pre-terminating coax before pulling through walls would save me hours. Tried it on a 12-unit apartment build last month and spent 45 minutes re-crimping ends that got chewed up by the insulation. Has anyone else had a veteran give them advice that just didn't work out in the field?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_white25d ago

Your buddy Dave from Tempe might have meant well, but he forgot to mention one thing - what kind of walls you're pulling through." Pre-terminating coax works fine if you're going through open ceiling trusses or dropped ceilings with plenty of room. But in a 12-unit apartment build, those walls are full of fiberglass insulation that acts like sandpaper on those connectors. I've been doing this work for going on 20 years and I learned the hard way that every job is different. That advice works great for a commercial office shell but can cost you a whole day on a residential build with tight wall cavities.

rose_cooper25d ago

Right but did Dave even ask about the insulation type before giving that advice? I've hit fiberglass so bad it stripped the connector threads clean off and I had to start over on a six drop run. That's the part that gets me, people hand out this one size fits all solution without thinking about the actual environment. We had a job last year where the GC packed the walls with closed cell spray foam, not even fiberglass, and we had to snake everything with conduit because pre-terminated would have been a disaster. So yeah, what was your fix for that apartment build after you figured out the insulation problem? Did you end up pulling bare ends and terminating at the wall plates or did you find a sleeve trick that worked?

danielr9413d ago

Oh man, see I gotta push back a little here. I get what you're saying about fiberglass and spray foam being nightmares, but I don't think Dave's advice was about pretending every wall is the same. More like he was just giving a general starting point for people who haven't learned yet that you gotta scope the job first. That apartment build you mentioned, yeah closed cell foam is its own beast, but pre-terminated still works in some spots if you run conduit where you know the foam is, then use bare end pulls for the rest. It's not one or the other, you know?