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Walked into a new subdivision near Austin and saw every house had coax ran through the attic without a single staple
How do these builders get away with loose cable flopping around up there when we have to follow code to the letter on every single job?
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mason.mary2mo ago
Oh man, I gotta push back a little here. I've seen plenty of production home builders nail down their coax with staples every few feet, and honestly that loose flopping cable might be the better job in the long run. A staple that's too tight can crush the cable and kill your signal down the road, plus the attic heat makes the jacket brittle and cracked right where it's pinched. Those guys are rolling the dice on inspection too because a loose cable is gonna get caught up in the insulation guys or the AC installers and get yanked around. So yeah, code says staple it, but code also says don't damage the cable, and a loose run that breathes and moves might actually last longer than one that's hugged tight to a truss. It's not lazy work, it's just a different kind of priority.
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harperb462mo ago
You ever had to go back and fix a service call where the coax got mangled by an attic ladder or a mouse nest though? lol. I get what you're saying about code being strict, but in my experience the real trick is finding that middle ground where the cable is secure but not crushed. A little slack and some velcro straps every 4 feet does the job better than staples most of the time, and it won't crack the jacket when the attic hits 140 degrees. Builders get away with it because the inspectors are usually worried about the big stuff like electrical and HVAC, not the coax in the attic unless someone calls it out.
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