Why not just use SCH40 PVC sticks? Everywhere stocks that in copious levels.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Martin" <lists.na...@monmotha.net> To: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2023 9:27:58 AM Subject: Re: Outside plant - prewire customer demarc preference On 11/27/23 18:52, owen--- via NANOG wrote: > Why would 1” be significantly harder to get than 3/4”? Both in EMT and PVC, > it’s readily available to the best of my knowledge. Most residential electrical contractors are going to use rated ENT since it's what they can easily get at a normal supply house or even home center. This is the stuff made popular by Carlon in their trademark blue that makes people call it "smurf tube". It's readily available in 1/2" and 3/4" everywhere from home centers to basically any supply house. 1" is less common - most home centers don't have it, and since it isn't normally needed in residential nor is ENT basically ever used in commercial, neither do a lot of strictly electrical supply houses. You can of course get corrugated communication duct in that size, often with mule tape pre-installed as a bonus, but a lot of electrical supply houses that deal only in "electrical" and not "communications" don't have that and will send folks to a "low voltage communication supplier" or have to special order it. A lot of electrical contractors, especially residential, would rather not bother with a separate supply run, and having to wait is a pain if it wasn't planned early on and also often means you're paying freight separately. Even then, most of the folks going to a communications supplier are going to reach straight for 1.25" or larger in commercial since you don't have to worry about drilling studs. As I recall, my local communication cable house didn't even have 1" in stock, but they did have 1.25" in stock, and their price was basically the same as the 1" as a result. So it's not that it doesn't exist or anything, it's just that, at least as far as I've seen, there's not a ton of demand for it, so local stock is thin. All that said, I just checked Home Depot, and they are showing some stock on 1" ENT at my local store, so maybe that's changing. Used to be they only stocked 3/4" and 1/2". They still only have 25ft hanks of the 1" stuff (you can get 1/2" and 3/4" in 25 or 100-200ft), but at least they have it now. It is still about 4x the price of 3/4" per unit length, though. -- Brandon Martin
