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Yesterday I ran a new 100ft home-run of 12/3 Romex through the crawlspace of my house, and I noticed that my cable is not as neat as other runs that other electricians had installed.

In particular, the cable had lots of knots and kept twisting (vs other cables I saw which looked nice and flat). Many of the twists and knots appeared when I was pulling the new cable from the crawlspace (a friend was helping feed it from the wall in the house, straight from the roll of Romex from the store). I tried to straighten certain parts with my hands but it was hopeless.

enter image description here

(p.s. I didn't leave the cable dangling like this)

Why is this happening and how can I pull straighter cable in the future?

peter
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2 Answers2

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If you don't unreel the cable, it gets one twist for every loop on the roll. Which is what this looks like - just pulling it from the center of a roll, or off the end of a reel, without turning the roll or reel.

Putting spooled/reeled wire spools on an axle, or using a turntable/spinning jenny for coils of unspooled wire, or having an assistant at the feed end who bothers to turn the roll as the wire comes off would solve it.

Ecnerwal
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To answer the question about the cable you already have:

Buy new cable, then hang it over a stairway railing with a weight at the bottom for a day or two. Don't put a literal ton of strain on the cable, but sufficient to pull it straight.

Granted, 100 ft is longer than most people's stairways (are you by chance a lighthouse operator? No? Worth a shot) but then you can double it over and have just a few kinks in it rather than kinks all over.

isherwood
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noughtnaut
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