Chat with a retired installer changed how I run wires in finished homes

Last month I was doing a retrofit in a house near Ann Arbor and met a guy who had been installing alarms since the 70s. He walked me through how he used to fish wires through old plaster walls without any of the fancy tools we have now. The trick was using a fireplace chain with a magnet tied to the end, not a glow rod or fish tape. He said he never used drywall saws because too many people get sloppy and cut into pipes. That conversation made me rethink my whole approach to running cables in finished spaces. Has anyone else picked up a weird old school method from an older installer?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_wells6614d agoProlific Poster

Hold on, I gotta push back a little. I met a guy like that too in Toledo a few years back, and he swore by lead fishing weights on a string for pulling wires. But honestly, half his "tricks" just created more work for me, like spending an hour trying to magnet-fish a chain past a steel stud. I'll take a nice $30 fiberglass glow rod any day, that old chain method is way too slow for how much we need to get done on a Tuesday. If you're still using fireplace chains in 2024, you're probably adding an extra day to every job for no good reason.

cooper.mark14d ago

Hold on, @finley_wells66 said he used lead fishing weights on a string? That's insane. I can't believe someone would actually do that and think it was a good idea. Lead weights get stuck on everything, and if that string breaks you're leaving a blob of lead in somebody's wall forever. The chain with a magnet at least has some weight to it and you can feel it clink against stuff. But yeah, I agree that spending an hour fighting with a chain past a steel stud sounds like pure misery. I'd take a glow rod too, but I still like the old chain trick for wood lath and plaster where a rod just bends and snaps.