I want to invest in a high-quality fish tape and I’m doing some research on them. One of the biggest selling points of many fiberglass fish tapes is that they are non-conductive, for safety. But when would a fish tape bump into a bare live wire?
Electrical – In what situation could a fish tape potentially touch live wires
electricalsafetywiring
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Best Answer
When fishing into an electrical panel
In most cases, there will be live terminals (at a minimum, the service connections on the main breaker) in a panel you are fishing wires into. While new panels have what are known as IP20 terminal shields that make the service terminals finger-safe (i.e the live parts are no longer poke-able with a finger), these shields are not complete protection, and are only found on very recent panels anyway. In addition, many times when you are fishing into a panel, branch circuits not proximate to the rest of the work are left live, for obvious nuisance reasons.