Fishing New Wire

[gbeichho]

I'm renovating my kitchen and will probably have to re-route or wire some new circuits from one side to the other. The kitchen is on the main floor and the breaker panel is in the basement. There is a large space between the floor and the ceiling (must be close to 18-24") but I only have access to that space from a point in the furnace room where I can see all the wires running all over the place in this floor space.

The point of access I have is at least 10 ft from where the kitchen wires will come down, and about 4 ft from the panel.

Any advice on how to wire the new circuits? I could easily use fish tape from both locations (from the panel and seperately from the kitchen) but I have no idea how to grab them to link them up.

Any ideas would be apprieciated. Also, do I need to fasten the wires in this space? It looks like there are already a lot of wires just running around unfastened.

Thanks.

[mdshunk]

In that situation, you'd be better off using a string and weight. Tie a hex nut on to a piece of mason's line and drop it down from the location in the kitchen where you need the wire. Shove a generous amount of extra string down too if you can. From your opening in the furnace room, you can bend a hook on a piece of stiff wire and hook the wad of string and drag it over to the furnace room. If you use some bright yellow or fluorescent pink mason's line (such as they seem to sell lately), that should give you a very visual landmark to fish for. A conventional electrician's fish tape will be of little value fishing over 10 feet. It will be like fishing with a limp noodle. I'd advise that you use a piece of #4 or #6 solid copper ground wire or a piece of long thin pipe with a hook of stiff wire duct taped onto the end (if you have room to manipulate that).