ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area wire removal old conduit

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone had a few tips on removing old wire from 150 feet of conduit, the wire lube has dried out. I thought of using steam or hot water?
Thanks BMack.

BMack,
Dump water in the pipe, and wait overnight if possible, it will usually come on out then. You can mix up some liquid dishwashing detergent with warm water and let it set a few hours with good results also. Does not mean that first tug ain't gonna be doozy.

We have had a HUGE amount of sucess with a product made by American Polywater. This link is to a product called Cable Free:
http://www.polywater.com/cablfree.html

This is a link to a .pdf on how it is to be used:
http://www.polywater.com/cablefree.pdf

We had a huge pullbox, and about 20 conduits in and 20 out, each with at least 1 network of #12 THW CU, +/- 120' each direction. You could see the dried wire lube. We tried pulling these dry, and just wore ourselves out. After applying the Cable Free, and letting it sit overnight, only minimal effort was needed to recover all the wire. We have an unwritten policy of sharing the proceeds of such rabbit among the crew, or at least to buy lunch depanding on the amount. On occassion, a deserving apprentice gets the proceeds. Anyway, it was a nice reward.

Thanks to George and USCoreman for the good advice, I tried soapy water and a shop vac to draw the water thru the pipe, it took about 2 hours and worked like a charm.
Thanks again guys.