Uncooperative Builder...

A helpful hint. If you have no pull string in your smurf tubbing, you should use a fiberglass snake. That is what we used to use to snake the metal BX tubing. The fiberglass snake is more flexabile that a conventional snake.
 
Congrats! I'm glad to hear that you worked it out with your builder.

Well, actually, taking a Queue from the other posts...I worked it out with the guys doing the work.

The builder doesn't want to hear anything from me.

The guys pulling the wire, etc...they are the guys helping me out. For instance, in the kitchen I was trying to get his opinion on HOW to stagger the wiring in the kitchen after he finishes. He said he'll just do it as it will take him and extra 5 min., but will take me 5 hours. Really GREAT!

In fact, the guy I spoke to yesterday was the "boss". The guy I spoke to today was the guy running the site. He and his crew listened to my concerns, and actually went above and beyond. They are going to pull the wire and hook the rooms together in such a way that not only will all my "connection" points be on inside walls, BUT he's going to mark them for me (not that I couldn't figure it out, but he's doing the extra step so I know exactly where to do my work).

He also suggested drilling my own holes NOW, which I should fill up with great stuff (spray foam), so I don't have to FIND the stud in the attic / basement and drill them later on. The other thing was, he suggested that his boss was wrong...but to feed the fish tape through from the hole to the box, not the other way around (for NEW boxes). For existing boxes, feed from the box to the hole (as his boss stated).

So, since my house really is not complicated (nothing like how the wires needed to route in the picture that I think Electron provided)...I have straight drops, I really have no need for strings, smurf tubes, etc.. Just a few tubes in the chase. I can access EVERY 1st floor room from the basement, and every second floor room from the attic.

Looks like this group of electricians are fantastic!

The only issue I have so far with any of the guys doing the work, is the plumber told me he was going to MOVE a T into the chase for me. So, later on, I could split the bathroom and washer (second floor washer/dryer) lines to be separate lines for each room with only needing to get into the chase. The guy DOING the plumbing work forgot what I had said, asked the Project Manager how connect the washer, and the PM told him connect it all together in a straight line...grr...

So, now instead of doing work in the chase (where I was going to add an access door anyhow), I need to cut out a 4' section of drywall to run the second line.

Oh well, I'm will to be happy about it as the electrician is running all my lines to help me out!

--Dan
 
A lot of the time it is quicker and easier to suck in a pull string rather than fish it.

Tie a string to the handles of a grocery store bag - stick the bad and string into the tubing at the outlet end - and hook your shop vac or house vac to the other end of the conduit. Turn on the vac and listen for a slight thump !

You will know the bag hit the vacuum when the tone of the suction changes.
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I still laugh when I think about this !

One of my buddy's tried this with an in-floor conduit and it worked very well - it sucked up the water in the conduit (which he didn't know about ) - then the bag and string followed in about 20 seconds - then the vacuum went to vacuum cleaner heaven with a big poof from the water !

It was his wife's good vacuum that he used !!
 
Here's the update guys:

I paid to have 4 drops put in the house. This gave my PM enough "say" for his boss that I "purchased" my ethernet from them.

Then, after that, the PM told me that I should note that the dry-wallers were coming today, and that they would be DONE hanging drywall TODAY...

.....

...

..

.

So, I got my buddies together, and the 4 of us, installed a second future tube (actually better then the one they installed...which was real POO PVC), as well as pulled the rest of my ethernet (19 drops on the top floor). My chase was relatively straight. I only needed to put two 45's in there to make it work right. I suppose I should have grabbed a photo of it...but oh well...I have pictures of everything else (all my wires).

Instead of pulling to boxes, I just left a service loop and used a wire nail to attach to the studs. Then I measured off where I cut the holes later on.

Then, finally, I drilled out all my holes for the ground floor (I'll fish those later on through the basement).

Wow, what an ordeal. At least this way, he won't complain, and his boss won't complain (as the drywall will be up today, so he won't see anything but my loops in the basement...which he can always explain away that I DID in fact order Ethernet from them.

Thanks for all the tips and help!

--Dan
 
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