Comments on: Big Ben Conduit Hand Bender

By: Brau

Brau — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:57:31 +0000

For those of you who are prone to making bending mistakes, remember to buy yourself a handful of couplers and have a hacksaw handy. If worst comes to worst you can always bend yourself some 90 degree elbows and connect your pipe like you would if using PVC.

By: mike

mike — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:47:10 +0000

in residential there is often no need to use EMT… only for very specific applications, teck cable is more versatile. Id say in 4 years ive maybe put 20′ of EMT in a house before and over 10 000′ in commercial and industrial jobs i do. And you must remember to follow code and not overfill “Pipe Fill ” and “Derating (dont include the Neutral)”

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:14:29 +0000

Also I find romex to be easy to install if your framing members are still exposed. The only downfall is that it’s really ugly. Also conduit enables the addition, to a point, of extra circuits.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:12:23 +0000

Using a hand bender to bend 1/2″ or 3/4″ EMT is a breeze….if you have patience and can do a bit of simple math. Professional electricians however prefer to use Ideal or Greenlee benders over GB. Personnaly I have an antique one for use at home, it is a Bendix bender, the grandaddy of hand benders.

By: joelfinkle

joelfinkle — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:37:53 +0000

I’d initially scoffed at conduit and thought it difficult to use, but with a simpler bender than the one above (which was sitting in my father-in-law’s basement), we’ve had great results. Yeah, occasionally I over bend something and throw away a bit of tube, but frankly bending EMT and fishing wire is as easy as stripping that #@&! ROMEX, and certainly easier to fix when something needs replacing.

Unfortunately, the previous owners of my house didn’t think the same way: There was ROMEX buried in the back yard to feed a small above-ground pool pump… we didn’t know why the kitchen circuit kept blowing until we saw steam coming out of the ground by a rose bush; and the lights hanging on the front of the house have cable embedded in the mortar of the stonework! I ripped out the first (the pool had long been removed), but I’m not messing with the other until I have to.

By: fred

fred — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:21:21 +0000

The commercial spaces for my business (plumbing and metal fabrication shops, woodworking shop and garage) are all wired using EMT or heavy-walled (pipe) conduit. Hickey type benders work well for the EMT – but I recall that the big pipe was bent with hydraulic benders.

When I refurbished my home shop a few years back – I decided on a mixed approach.
Where I had EMT fed outlets for my machinery (which I was not moving) I left it in place.
For the new benches that I built and some of the new lighting, I decided to run surface-mounted metal raceway. I use the Wiremold brand – but there are probably other choices.

http://www.wiremold.com/

What I liked about this approach were various heavy-duty outlet strips that were available.