Talk:Electrical conduit

Subheads for types of conduit; types of conduit should remain within this article for now—content forking can come later

Not long ago someone took away the subheads for types of conduit, saying they were unnecessary. Meanwhile, recently someone else started a separate article, currently a stub, just for EMT conduit.

Both of these were good-faith edits, but neither of them is the best way to build toward further development of Wikipedia's content covering electrical conduit. The first is too restrictive (not "allowed" to have subheads), and the second is too scattered (would lead to needless content forking).

The thing to do is, whenever someone has good info to add about any individual type of conduit, it should be added under the appropriate subhead in this article. We have plenty more to do; we haven't even really begun to describe each type yet. Then, if eventually this article grows too long (which, at the current pace of development, is years away), we can then decide to do some appropriate spin-off articles.

I'm going to go start developing some of the sections a bit. There will be lots more to do; feel free to jump in and contribute!

— Lumbercutter 19:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

A cable is not a conduit

Please don't confuse "cables" and "conduits". If it comes on a roll with the wires already in, it's a cable. Conduit has the conductors installed as a separate operation. No-one in the indusctry confuses the two, anymore than you would confuse "pipe" with "hose" or "dog" with "horse". --Wtshymanski 18:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Right—conduit does not equal cable. However, sometimes flexible conduit is a constituent part of cable. To put it another way, sometimes flexible conduit and individual conductors are prefabricated into cable. For example, the cladding of metal-clad cable is equivalent to flexible metal conduit (FMC). Just because they're combined in the factory instead of at the job site doesn't make the cladding not equal to conduit. You can buy a pie crust, and you can buy pie filling, and you can buy them already preassembled into a pie. The fact that in the latter case the crust was filled at the bakery instead of in your kitchen doesn't make the crust not equal to crust.

If I run one circuit by pulling FMC and then pulling wires through it, and run the next circuit by pulling a piece of MC, does one circuit have conduit and the other doesn't?

Agreed that the discussion of armored cable and metal-clad cable do belong in a cable entry rather than here. However, (1) this article's lead should include a sentence saying "sometimes flexible conduit and conductors are prefabricated into cable"; and (2) the FMC subhead here should have a sentence pointing out that FMC = the cladding of MC.

— Lumbercutter 20:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit more complicated...frequently, if you are concerned with the specific type of conduit, it is for reasons of Code. The code rules don't always make sense, and the rules for what you can do with FMC differ from what you can do with AC/MC, even though it may appear that the two are identical. jhawkinson 11:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Pipe & Tubing

It seems that the rigid counduit subsections incorrectly describe the rigid conduit as tubing rather than pipe. This is the case with both metallic and non-metallic types. I belive the difference between the two should be noted.K2500 00:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Installation

The article can use a brief description of some of the tools and methods used to run cable into conduit. Not a "how-to", but a more general overview, including the use of lubricants, blowers, etc... I came to the article hoping to find this information because I can't recall all of the tools involved but came up empty. Neil916 (Talk) 23:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Alternative Terminology

A quick Google search for "Trunking" comes up with several matches for electrical conduit (which is normally called "Trunking" in the UK), but this is not referred to in this article, nor on the Trunking page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.230.24 (talk) 11:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Trunking and Ducting is as a rule the same thing, but it is square or rectangular in shape, even though it is still a "conduit" which through wires may be run, compare Wiremold in the US, I'm not from the US, I'm from New Zealand and trunking refers to the PVC square stuff. Trumpy (talk) 14:34, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Merge

Someone suggested merging "bonding jumper" with this article.

In favour of the proposed merger

• 1. Current Canadian Electrical Code allows the use of rigid metallic conduit or E.M.T. to be used as the bonding conductor in certain installations see CEC 10-804 (c) and (d)Athabaska-Clearwater (talk) 16:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
• 2.
• 3.

Oppose

1. Someone suggested merging "bonding jumper" with this article. Oppose - a jumper is not a conduit and has uses other than a conduit system. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
2. Oppose—I have worked in this business for a couple of decades now. I have never heard of anyone calling conduit a bonding jumper. Also, the article bonding jumper is not exactly a stellar quality article. There are no pictures. There are all sorts of justified tags, which the author has not addressed. The whole notion is without basis in fact, evidence of which is also that the author of the suggestion to merge has put nothing in support of the idea. --Achim 03:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose—I don't think they were saying that a bonding jumper is equal to conduit; I think they just meant that it should be discussed in the conduit article. However, I too oppose the merge because bonding jumpers have uses other than with conduit. — ¾-10 05:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Images?

Why is it that only the first pictures of EMT show nice straight installs, yet the pictures of PVC conduit or FMC, show what looks like a hack job install? I can get some pics of my work, with PVC conduit, but are these here for some reason, like shaming those that don't use EMT? Trumpy (talk) 14:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I would guess that the pictures are just what happened to be available. Some other articles on electrical wiring suffered with pictures of poor workmanship, even code violations and unsafe conditions, until contributors uploaded better images. Clear, illustrative pictures of competent installations are most welcome. Reify-tech (talk) 05:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Conduit bending tools

Under the heading "Comparison with other wiring methods:"

"Both metal and plastic conduit can be bent at the job site... Special equipment is used to bend the conduit without kinking or denting it."

But "Special equipment" links to the article "Tube bending," which describes manufacturing techniques, not job-site bending of electrical conduit. Or water and gas pipes, for that matter. A search for "Conduit bender" was redirected to the same article. A search for "Electrical conduit bender" found nothing.

Bending rigid conduit and EMT at the job-site is a highly skilled art. Bending PVC is a different art, perhaps less skilled and using different tools, but still difficult for a beginner. Planning and executing a single conduit route is challenging. Doing the same for several conduits in parallel is worthy of admiration. The tube bending article does not touch on any of this.

VastError (talk) 03:15, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Order of the various metallic types

Hi; the four metallic types are listed RMC, GRC, IMC and EMT. IMC is claimed to be heavier than EMT and lighter than GRC. Is RMC heavier than GRC? If so, the types are listed in order of decreasing weight. Otherwise I'd suggest swapping RMC and GRC in the list. Thanks, ... Peter E. PeterEasthope (talk) 03:17, 22 November 2023 (UTC)