[Cob] can bamboo be used as wiring conduit ?

[billc_lists at greenbuilder.com]

At 2:47 AM -0500 2/13/04, Mike Swink wrote:
>can bamboo be used as wiring conduit ?

Interesting idea.

For code reasons I don't think you could run loose wire through it - 
there'd be too much chance of nicking the insulation and compromising 
the integrity of the wire as it passed through the joints in the 
bamboo.  Unless of course you figured out some way to insure that the 
removal of those joints left a very smooth surface. Ramming a piece 
of rebar (a common way of turning bamboo into pipe) certainly 
wouldn't be smooth enough.

I don't know if it would be worth the trouble to use bamboo conduit 
to run underground cable through a cob wall...  If you anticipate 
replacing/upgrading/adding to the wiring at some later date, then it 
would likely be worth it, but for most applications you just run the 
wire once and leave it for decades.

It might also be a bit tricky to do tight bends and to terminate into 
a box. And it might also be tricky to join two or more pieces well 
enough to get a long enough run to do what you need without leaving a 
lip or notch to catch on when you try to pull the wire.  And that's 
one thing you definitely want to avoid (having pulled many miles of 
cable myself). Short straight runs sounds like the ticket if you're 
thinking about something like this.

-- 
Bill Christensen
http://greenbuilder.com/contact/

Green Building Professionals Directory: http://directory.greenbuilder.com
Sustainable Building Calendar: http://www.greenbuilder.com/calendar/
Green Real Estate: http://www.greenbuilder.com/realestate/
Straw Bale Registry: http://sbregistry.greenbuilder.com/
Books/videos/software: http://bookstore.greenbuilder.com/