How to Pull Wire Through SIP Chases
This is post 2 of 3 in our series “Rising Barn Electrical Components,” where our electrical component is explained for installation. Click here for Part 1.
Our Rising Barn SIPs come with pre-drilled electrical chases (tunnels) to help make installing an electrical system a breeze for the DIYer. But how do you get the wiring set-up in those channels? Well, it’s an easier process than you think.
Before we begin, we at Rising Barn want to stress that you should take all the precautions you can to be safe when working with electrical equipment. Mistakes here could be DEADLY. You should NEVER attempt to do this with live wires, and make sure all connections to are solid. If you don’t feel safe setting this up, feel free to call an electrician, and we recommend getting your home inspected once you’ve finished to verify your work. Now that that’s said, let’s continue!
The materials that you will find in our kit are:
- A) Electrician’s Fishing Rods — These won’t be found in your typical sporting goods store. Actually, they can come in various lengths of flexible fiberglass rods with a hole or a hook on one end, and can be found in the electrical section of your neighborhood hardware store. They’re also called electrician’s fishing tape, which are long coils of flexible steel.
- B) Pulling String — Use ours, or any kind of nylon twine you can get your hands on. Electricians prefer orange- or neon-colored string because it’s easier to see.
- C) Electrical Tape — Your typical, black vinyl tape. Other tape can work, however it may be more convenient to use this.
- D) Indoor Residential Building Wire — Your typical wire in whatever amount you need based on your finish options. Whatever the gauge/length, in order to avoid future headache you should be looking for jacketed wire containing 3 strands- a positive, negative, and ground.
- E) Electrical Boxes — Used for your switches and outlets.
- F) Twist-on Wire Connectors — Your basic wire connectors. You will need to use these when connecting wires from outlet to outlet (covered in a later article), but for now they’ll be helpful to just keep everything in place.
Once you have identified all your materials, it’s time to begin. The technique of putting wires into chasers is typically called “fishing” by contractors, and its easy to see why. The general process involves using the electrician’s fishing rod to run the pulling string through the chasers, tying the wire to the pulling string, and then using the string to pull the wire through the chaser. Make sense? Don’t worry, we’re about to go through it step by step.
(1) It begins by locating where your fixtures are going to be. On the schematic of your unit we provide you, there is a diagram showing where the chasers have been cut.
(2) Once you have identified= where your fixtures are going to be, tie one end of your pulling string to the loop end of the fishing rod. MAKE SURE TO KEEP THE STRING ON THE ROLL — It will make your life easier down the line. Once you have tied it, wrap the knot a few times with the electrical tape just to be safe. Push the rod into one end of the chaser, allowing the string on the roll to unwind as you go along. Once you can see the rod on the other side of the chaser, grab the string and cut it from the fishing rod. Pull the string out about 12”-24” to make sure it won’t go anywhere and remove the fishing rod.
(3) Once you have the string all the way through, it’s now time to connect it to the wire. Cut the jacket off about 6” from the end of your wire. Then, cut two of the three wires and use it to make a small loop, twisting the rest of the material around the wire. Tie the end of your string to the loop, and again wrap both of them in electrical tape to make sure that the knot won’t come undone.
(4) From there, simply pull the string out from where you inserted the fishing rod. Like the string, keep the wire on the roll and allow it to unwind freely. Once you have pulled out all the string, the wire should be well placed in the chaser.
(5) Now you can cut the wire from the roll, keeping about 3–4” of wire sticking out on each side. It’s important to keep this spare wire from being too short, because having too little material can make it harder to create good connections. Poor connections can become a serious safety hazard, so it’s better to keep a little more wire than you think you need exposed.
(6) Finally, label your wire using a permanent marker to keep everything in order as you install.
Once you have fed all the wires through each of the chasers, you can now insert them into the fixture boxes. Remove the appropriate holes on the boxes and feed the wires through them. If you have multiple wires coming out of one box, use the twist connectors to join them until you actually install the fixtures themselves. For more information on how to install fixtures, stay tuned for our future blog posts.
Overall, fishing your wires through the chasers is a fairly simple process, however it’s not always easy. Sometimes, it’s nice to have a bit of stiff steel wire bent into a hook for tricky situations where you need to manipulate the wire. A great video on some of the more unique situations you may find yourself in can be seen below:
Until next time!
