That one Tuesday where everything went sideways in the worst way

Last week I had a job in a new subdivision outside Austin where the builder buried the conduit under 3 feet of crushed limestone. My drill bit snapped on the first hole and I spent 2 hours just chipping through rock with a hammer and chisel. Then the customer's dog ran off with my fishtape while I was pulling coax through the attic. I finally got the drop done around 4 PM only to realize I ran the wrong cable type to the living room. Had to rerun 50 feet of RG6 through a 120 degree attic because the homeowner specifically wanted a different splitter setup. Has anyone else dealt with builders who bury conduit like they're hiding treasure?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamesf412d ago

Read something similar on a tech forum about builders hiding conduit under concrete slabs.

the_sam2d ago

Man, I gotta say I'm a bit skeptical about how big of a deal this really is. @jamesf41 I get that people get worked up about this stuff, but has anyone actually seen a real problem come from it? Like, my buddy's house was built in the 80s and the whole place is wired through the slab. It's still standing and his internet works fine. Unless you're planning to dig up your driveway every year for upgrades (which nobody does), hiding conduit under concrete seems like a non-issue to me.

nora1102d ago

Hold up, I gotta push back on this. I've done enough installs to know that yeah, builders burying conduit under deep rock is annoying, but it's not like it's the end of the world. You're not digging up the driveway every month, right? So who cares if it took an extra hour or two to get through limestone. That's just part of the job sometimes. And the dog running off with your fishtape? That's funny, not a crisis. I had a customer's cat knock over my whole tool bag once, and I just laughed it off. Plus, rerunning cable in a hot attic? Been there, done that, it's a pain but not some major disaster. If you're doing this work for a living, you know stuff goes wrong. This just sounds like a rough Tuesday, not the end of the world.