atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information *raceways*

First don't laugh at this.

Many times I have used regular gray pvc pipe, 1/2 or 3/4 with elecrical boxes, surface mounted, droped straight from the drop cieling and strapped to the wall. It's cheap, fast, easy and it actually looks pretty good. Many offices use a gray or some variation of gray for carpet, desk tops and wall base trim moulding.
Mark

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Reliable Telephone Service

i like marks idea , either that or just plain old wire mold. I have used gray pvc to but I like to clean the markings of the side or at least put them flat on the wall

or you could act like a network guy and just leave the wire hanging out of the ceiling tile

Yeah skip, I use the pipe cleaner to clean off the lettering but I usually don't glue the joints that makes it easier to relocate. The boxes are great cause you can get them with top and bottom and side pipe entries to run a circuit around a room if required. Around here there are business offices popping up in old warehouses and steel mill buildings where they keep the "warehouse" look by just spray painting everything in the ceiling and not putting a drop ceiling in. PVC Pipe is very effective and low cost in these kinds of space.
Mark


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Reliable Telephone Service

I agree with you guys about using PVC, just place the lettering against the wall and it actually looks pretty good. Everyone seems to be going for that "industrial" look anyway, so it probably fits well.

Only problem is that you can't extend the PVC into a plenum ceiling space even one inch. It will have to stop at the bottom edge of the dropped ceiling's "L" channel. We do it all the time with Panduit, etc. Just butt the "factory" end up tight against the "L" channel and secure the pipe/channel to the box, and clamp everything down. THEN, go back and using a Unibit, drill down through the L-channel into the pipe, Panduit or wiremold as far as it will go without showing from below.

We had an inspector question this because there was a sharp metal edge where the cable passed through the L-channel. We resolved that by using split metal stud bushings (the dark blue 1/2" ones made by Thomas & Betts). They are like sleeves that can be rolled as tightly as necessary around the cable and they spring back out to tighten up to the edges of the hole.

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Ed
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How come there's always enough time to go back and fix it a second time?

[This message has been edited by ev607797 (edited August 28, 2005).]