Tried a fish tape vs a glow rod for a tough attic run

Last week I had to run a coax line through a nightmare attic in Austin, tight crawl space with blown insulation everywhere. I always used a steel fish tape but it kept snagging on the trusses and I was sweating bullets for an hour. Grabbed a fiberglass glow rod from my van on a whim and got it through in like 15 minutes with zero snags. Anyone else switched to glow rods for attics and never looked back?

2 comments

2 Comments

noranguyen1d ago

Skyler_adams you nailed it, I had the same hell in a San Antonio attic last summer with that blown insulation sticking to my steel tape like glue. Swapped to a glow rod and it slid through the trusses in ten minutes flat, just gotta baby the tip so it doesn't snap.

skyler_adams1d ago

Ran into the exact same issue in a Houston crawl space last month that was basically a furnace. My steel tape was just a mess, kept hanging up on that blown in stuff and I ended up pulling a muscle trying to force it. Pulled out my glow rod, the 25 footer, and it flexed right around the trusses like butter. Only thing I can say is watch the tip, those things can snap if you really torque them against a sharp edge. But for attics, yeah, I'm team glow rod now. Saved me a good 45 minutes of misery.