Structured cabling trays over zip ties any day for large jobs

I keep seeing guys on here raving about using zip ties for bundling cables. I tried that method for years. Did a 500 drop job at a hospital in Phoenix last year. Zip ties looked clean at first. Then we had to add a new run six months later. We had to cut every single zip tie to trace the bundle. It was a nightmare. Velcro wraps and cable trays cost more upfront but they save so much time on changes. Has anyone else switched to trays and never looked back?

2 comments

2 Comments

finleyw9925d ago

Zip ties are fine if you actually know how to route cables properly. Trays are just overkill for anything under a thousand drops. You can add runs with zip ties easy if you leave a service loop and cut the bundle in sections instead of tracing the whole thing. Plus trays look ugly as hell in a finished ceiling. You can hide zip tie bundles much cleaner in walls and above drop ceilings. That hospital job sounds like poor planning more than a zip tie problem.

olivia_harris1924d ago

Man, "trays look ugly as hell" feels like a stretch lol. Have you actually seen a properly installed tray ceiling lately? They can actually clean things up real nice with some paint and planning. It's just not that serious of a debate, both ways work fine if you know what you're doing.