Commercial job last week made me ditch zip ties for good

Got called back to a strip mall in Phoenix because a bundle of zip ties snapped and dropped a whole row of emergency lights. Took 3 hours to re-run it all with Velcro straps. Has anyone else had zip ties fail on a hot roof?

3 comments

3 Comments

lucasschmidt10h ago

Did you use the black ones or the UV rated ones? I had a similar thing happen a few years back on a job in Tucson, not with zip ties though. It was with those plastic clips for low voltage landscape lights, the sun just turned them to dust after a season. Ended up just screwing everything down with little metal brackets, never looked back.

the_tessa4h ago

Oh yeah, the UV rated ones. I swear some of those are just a different shade of black plastic with a price markup, not actual protection. "Never looked back" is right, I'm pretty sure my zip ties are holding on purely out of spite at this point. Sun's probably laughing at us for thinking a $2 bag of them was gonna outsmart the Arizona desert.

faith_king8h ago

UV stuff is expensive but I swear even those fail here in Arizona after two summers.