How to Bend and Mount EMT Conduit
Making bends with a manual EMT bender requires a little math and measuring for consistent results.
Electrical Metallic Tubing—a type of conduit—bends very easily. But it’s also easy to mess it up if you don’t know what you’re doing.
California electrician CJ Nielsen likes to do things by the book. Making stub-ups and offset bends is easy if you just follow the manual.
After bending for a stub, cut the other end of the conduit to length. Before making any offset bends, dry-fit the conduit to the boxes to make sure the lengths are right. You want everything to go square into the boxes, so if something is short, start over. You can cut any excess off if necessary, though.
Here, CJ shows how to do an offset bend with a standard EMT bender, but he usually uses a special bender that only does box offsets. It’s a great tool to have if you work with EMT a lot.
Like plumbing, EMT conduit connects via fittings. Before you can mount the conduit to the boxes, install box connectors. Then bottom out the conduit in the connectors, and tighten the screws.
Conduit requires strapping; here, he uses hollow-wall anchors to mount the straps that help hold the conduit in place.
For even more information, check out this feature article, Crash Course in Conduit, in FHB #273.
