Cost Difference Between Conduit & Romex

Silk

Instrument Techs, yeah right, we always called them "chart changers". Remember when all they did was run around and change all those round charts?

We has a guy one time who loved the call-in's, so he used to set up the AB 3-family PLC on a timer to shut the line down and call him in when he needed some extra money. He got so bold in the end that he would sit in the guard shack after work BSing with the guards until his pager went off so he could get his 4 hours call-in pay for 5 minutes work. It worked great for a few years until there was an EE who was an electrician before he got his engineering degree so he actually had a clue. He was still there when the line went down so he started snooping in the logic and found what the electrician was up to. The EE was a good guy and talked to the electrician personally and kept the company out of it so he never got fired -------- but the call-ins sure went down after that

Oh, and by the way, good catch on the E-stop. That's always the way isn't it, I always overlook the easiest things first. The worst mistake is to listen to the operators and try to troubleshoot from their scenario because usually it was something they did and they try to cover their a** by sending you in the wrong direction.

Silk

Forgive me for my ignorance but a few of the posters have said they would run EMT throughout their house. I hve seen lots of houses run in Greenfield but never EMT. How would that work? Does it all have to be run in 16 inch chunks so you can go horizontally through the studs, just kidding. But really, is it stubbed up from a basement/crawlspace at each receptacle?

BigJimmy

I've seen a lot of construction lately where the builders use engineered joists between 1st and second floors that consist of angled braces run between top/bottom chords with nailing plates at the connections. These are nice because they allow free routing of mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems, both parallel and perpendicular to the joists w/o needing to cut through them.

I've installed some thinwall horizontally through 16"o.c. stud walls. When you're using 1/2" EMT, it's pretty forgiving and you can bend it/horse it through the holes. Inside corners are another story. I've seen people use Greenfield to make this transition or in other cases, rise vertically from the last device box on the wall up through the top plate and then run over to the perpendicular wall and down. Again, this was in instances where dimensional lumber was not being used.

In my house, when I gutted my living room, I wanted to fur the walls out to achieve a 2x6 cavity for insulation purposes. I simply ran my EMT flush to the existing stud faces and then notched the furring (2x3's) to allow the conduit to run beneath it. The tricky part was the inside corners. You have to extend the 90d bend into the adjacent wall's stud space and then offset back to the stud plane so that the bend does not interfere with the drywall. I've got some pictures I can post if you like (now that I think of it, I did post them about 6-8 months ago on a thread that was asking what to do with pipe at an inside corner).

__________________
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves,"You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." - George Carlin

nap

If you are there at the right time, you can run the emt from the end of the wall. Once they put the sheathing up, it's too late to do it that way on the outside walls.

Termite

Very true. Framing practices vary regionally though, so it isn't always possible. In this area the walls are sheathed while laying down instead of hanging the sheathing once the frame is built, and sparky is never on site while framing is going on.

J. V.

Maybe for you. I would rather stay out of the attic if possible. Beside's, I never mentioned a three way. I commented on changing a cable from 12/2 to 12/3. Cable replacement is not needed with conduit. Thats all I meant to say.
It's a personal preference issue. Thats it.

220/221

Plastic boxes ROCK. They are INSULATED with ZERO chance of a short circuit.


I would charge a HELL of a lot more than $1600 more to pipe a 4K house.

I have built several houses and never even considered conduit. I do however run quite a bit of extra 3 wire cable, especially for switch legs.

petey_c

220/221, The EC that Shawns4 is taking about said he'd save $1600 by using NM instead of conduit, not that he'd do the job for that much... pete

J. V.

Horizontal runs of EMT are the hardest part. In single level dwellings I always go up, over and down, never horizontally for boxes. More pipe and more wire, but fast as heck.
Notching is the way to go with horizontal runs and there is no need for nail guards. I use regular 1900 boxes and support them with a 16" piece of 2x4.

220/221

Not very well written but yeah, I know.

I should have said .............I don't know......something different than more.....more. Extra perhaps?

I would charge a HELL of a lot more than $1600 extra to pipe a 4K house.