so this video is likely to have been released after i've left Tresham college and this is
some of the things i go through along with my notes in order to cover the subject of
plastic conduit at level 1 level 2 and in the early stages of your apprenticeship
so we're going to look at some of the things that will match my notes however you might be thinking
well i've got a set of Gary's notes where you can go into the eFIXX apprentice hub okay which is at
efixx.co.uk look for the apprentice hub tab and go right to the very bottom of the page on the efixx
apprentice hub and you will see a download box within there our five books as i shoot this video
there may be more by now one of them says city and guilds 5357 and within there is my notes that
i deliver for the installation theory part of the practical within the workshop it's about 100 pages
free to download and this will accompany that as well so the plastic conduit section within there
so we're going to try and pick up some of those questions that are asked normally under
multi-choice conditions at level two and at level one normally in a small written paper depending on
whether you're doing EAL or city and guilds so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna bring the camera
in i'm gonna put it over the top and i'm going to go through some but not all of the things that are
in my notes that cover plastic conduit and will come up potentially at your exams as you move
forward so let's bring the camera in let's have a look what we're going to see so i've done a very
similar video on steel conduit and we're going to run through some of the same sort of things
on that as well so if we talk about the sizes of plastic conduit remember in both cases it's the
diameter the diameter of the actual conduit itself so it's not millimetres squared it's not the area
it is actually the diameter of the conduit exactly the same as in steel the four common sizes are 16
20 25 and 32 so it's 20 mm 16 mm 32 mm and 25 mm being the diameter of the conduit itself often
used as an exam question they come in two standard colours which is pretty obvious from the table
standard white and standard black but there must be a reason why we have two different colours
so we've got to think about the actual locations of which they're going to be installed in
so black PVC conduit for exam purposes will be in things like industrial environments where there's
likely to be airborne dust or maybe people with filthy hands some parts of motor vehicle
workshops etc would be the type of question they would say so you'd use black conduit where it's
potentially a more dirty environment and white PVC conduit where we're talking about things like
offices so it's more aesthetically pleasing to see a white conduit maybe against a
cream wall so there's another couple for you PVC remind you from earlier videos we've done
PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride and exactly the same as any other PVC it's got to be installed at
a temperature above zero okay so the PVC conduits left on site maybe outside in the freezing cold
winter falls below zero you must leave it in an ambient temperature above zero for 24 hours
before you can install that conduit system again that used to be an old examination question so
that's worth bearing in mind it can be left in an ambient temperature below zero once installed
but it can't be installed at temperatures below zero okay so we've got those we've got the fixings
of it okay the standard spacer bar saddle we looked at this when we looked at steel conduit
is pretty much the only saddle you're really going to be working with with plastic conduit so
again the two little screws come out we fix and fasten the back plate to the surface and we put
the conduit in and we return the two very small screws at the front so that's our spacer bar
saddle it comes in types so it comes in its gauge so we're looking at the thickness of the walls and
that's difficult for you to see here so if you're looking at the thickness of those walls okay to
get two different gauges so we're talking about it being light gauge and heavy gauge the plastic
conduit i use in my workshop is heavy gauge high impact and we suggest being high impact it can
withstand the blow from a hammer they suggest that if you're using light gauge conduit that
means the walls are a lot thinner that it must be potentially reinforced by something else so if
you were installing a conduit system in the screed of a floor in other words in a concrete floor you
could get away with using light gauge PVC conduit because the concrete floor would be protecting
the conduit when installed but all the conditions we use are heavy gauge high impact they come in a
standard length this is not a standard length they come in a length of three meters long so
that's pretty traditional for all of the systems now really steel trunking cable tray ladder basket
plastic conduit mini trunking dado trunking skirting trunking all in a three metre length
we did suggest that steel conduit could still come in a 3.75 metre length but does also come in
three so that's in a different video so it's worth picking that up we're going to tend to fix it into
locations like boxes and i'm sure you're doing it in the workshop using these adapters so we've
got to work out the difference between the two adapters so this one here that has a bush that's
removable and goes inside like so that's our female adapter okay so we've got a female adapter
and then we've got one that has a ring okay so we put that then into a box or electrical enclosure
and then the ring on the inside and that one is a male adapter remembering they're doing 16
20 25 and 32 mm adapters so that's a male adapter this one's a female adapter boxes are very similar
to those in steel conduit we looked at before and they're in my notes as well so it's just
an example of three so we've got a in this case 20 mm black PVC t-box we've got a through box and one
that we often called an end box but it's usually called termination or a terminal box so that's our
conduit end box so how do we secure our conduit into here we cut clean square our ends etcetera
at the right length and they're pushed into place into here but actually in the real world and not
in the workshop where we're just obviously just pushing them in and leaving it okay so that one's
a little bit broken then so yeah just pushing it and leaving it obviously because we'd like to use
the boxes again in the real world that's not the case when we're going into the box themselves or
into our adapters we're gonna need to secure them into position and we secure them into the
position using a PVC solvent weld in other words an adhesive okay and the exam questions will say
when working with PVC solvent world what must you ensure you must ensure that you're wearing the
appropriate PPE so appropriate gloves maybe a mask because it's got quite a vapor with it and goggles
the last thing you want to do is obviously put some of this into one of your eyes
okay so that would be and along with things like making sure you're in a well ventilated
area when using it so if i slip my gloves on just so somebody didn't pull me apart on social media
they'll tell me they're the wrong kind of gloves i'm sure they are but they're the only ones i've
got for the video demonstration purposes and if i was to open this up another exam question used to
be when applying the adhesive where do you apply it to do you apply it to the inside of the box
or do you apply it to the conduit itself well we actually apply it to the conduit so we would apply
it to the actual conduit itself around like so and then we would insert it into the actual box itself
into position the reason we don't insert it into the actual into here just putting the glue on
the inside here it can fall between the gaps so it could come make a barrier making it very difficult
to poke the wires in where the glue is falling between them so we're actually going to put the
adhesive the PVC solvent weld onto the actual conduit itself when it goes into these styles
of fixings what else have we got in front of us we've got this this used to come up as an
assignment question and it's called an expansion coupler what's the thinking behind an expansion
coupler the thinking being that it will allow for changes in ambient temperature and what
would happen to the conduit as it gets hotter or colder it grows or shrinks so in warm environments
it again tends to get a little bit longer and in cold environments it tends to get a lot smaller
i'm sure there's something else you can think about that works in the same way that you own
that in warm weather is a lot longer than it is in very cold weather so very similar process here
and what happens is one of them is pushed into place as far as it goes in it only goes in
that far and that would be glued and held into position there within the expansion coupler itself
the second one goes in but doesn't go all the way down to here so it can go all the way
down to there so it would therefore go in that far you don't put it in that far you put it in
approximately halfway but what you do is you apply on the outside here some sort of petroleum jelly
so in other words some sort of a mild lubricant in order that it will allow it to slide
in and out with changes in ambient temperature so what the exam question used to say is
long straight runs of six meters so in other words two lengths in order to stop it buckling in other
words losing its shape what do we need to insert we need to insert an expansion coupler expansion
couplers are secured at one end and be glued in here and the other end is allowed to freely move
in and out from its position so if i just put my finger there so we're going out and in from that
position okay in order to allow for changes in ambient temperature we've got an inspection box
here we'll talk more about inspection boxes both in steel conduit and plastic conduit
and the thinking behind those there's a chamber here that we can remove our cable system can be
pulled out of here and pulled back in in order that we can wire in uh semi-straight runs okay so
we've got expansion oh sorry we've got inspection boxes we also have inspection elbows etcetera
and we'll show those in the workshop and in the classroom and they're also within my notes itself
so as i said in a previous presentation about four times that's a little bit of a a whistle-stop
tour of some of the accessories that you'll see within my notes and within the electrical workshop
and within your practice on site and get familiar with them but get familiar with the sort of things
they're going to ask you under examination conditions sizes of conduit 16 20 25 and 32
millimetres we're talking about the expansion coupler can you describe how it works
with it being fixed at one end free to move in and out the other end the fact that we apply the
adhesive to the conduit itself and not within the actual box it comes in two standard colours
black and white it needs to be installed in ambient temperature above zero
all those type of things and plenty more will be discussed within my notes and within the workshop
and classroom sessions to prepare you for your installation theory and therefore onto the working
life itself so that quick look at PVC conduit i just hope these videos have been some help