Pro Handyman Blog

Electrical jobs require some unique tools. Fish tape is one of those types of tools. Fish tape is a stiff wire that allow you to pull cable through openings that you might not be able to access. It’s also good for pulling wire through conduit. For example, if you wanted to pull a piece of romex cable through a wall, fish tape would help you to do that without cutting tons of holes in the wall.

Fish tape comes loosely coiled in a plastic circular holder. It is loosely coiled, but it is very stiff. You can use it to push through wall insulation, or pull cable.

To use fish tape, you can either push it from the existing opening to the new opening or vise-versa. The trickiest part is actually finding the opening you are looking for. Two people helps this go faster. You can slightly manipulate the direction of the tape with the holder, but this takes a certain amount of luck.

When you have the end of the fish tape at the opening, you can connect the cable or wire to it. Most tapes have a hook on the end, or you can straighten or hook the end if it doesn’t. If you create a hook in the fish tape, you can wrap the cable around the hook and then use electrical tape to wrap the connection together. The last thing you want to do is to have the connection come apart inside the wall. They also make a lubricant you can apply to help things pull along easier. Once the new cable is at the correct location, you can cut or disassemble the connection and make your electrical connections to whatever it is you are installing.