How many bends am I allowed between pull points?

There is a limit and it is in your code book, expressed as a total number of degrees of bend between pull points, with the offsets and the factory bends at the boxes all counting toward it. I am deliberately not printing the figure here, because it is a Code number and your local amendments can change it. Look it up once, write it on the inside of your book cover, and count the degrees on the run before you pull anything.

How tight can I bend it?

There is a minimum radius for each trade size and it is in the book. In practice the shoe on a proper bender for that size is already at or above it, which is why a hand-bent 90 in the right shoe does not get written up and a 90 pulled in the wrong shoe does. The fault an inspector actually writes is the visible result of going tighter than the pipe likes: a flattened or kinked bend.

Does an inspector really care what a rack looks like?

Yes, and the rule they are leaning on is the workmanlike-installation clause, which is real and enforceable and deliberately not numeric. A rack with the runs fanning apart through a jog is the one thing on a job that an inspector can see from the doorway. It also reads, correctly, as a signal about the work they cannot see.

What gets written up most often on bending?

The bending faults that get found are the ones visible from across the room, because that is how an inspector walks a job: a connector not seated because nobody put a box offset in, a flattened bend where a stick was bent over a knee or in the wrong shoe, and a run of parallel offsets that fans. What is actually called on your job is your inspector’s call, not a statistic — the point is that these three cannot be hidden.

The inspector disagreed with me. Now what?

The authority having jurisdiction has the final word on an interpretation, full stop — that is what the phrase means. Ask which rule and which edition, write it down, look it up, and fix it. If you still think it is wrong, that conversation goes through whoever holds the permit, not through an argument on a ladder.

Qué revisa el inspector

An inspector looking at your bends is looking for flattened or kinked bends, dog legs, connectors not seated in the knockout, and racks that fan through a jog. They are not marking your trigonometry — they are asking two questions of a finished run: does it meet the rules, and does it look like somebody who knew what they were doing put it there. Almost everything they write up on the bending side is visible from across the room, which is the useful thing about this list — you can stand where they will stand and see it first.

Two lists, and only one of them is mine

There are two separate lists at work on any inspection, and it is worth being blunt about which one this site belongs to.

The Code's list — the book, not me

How many degrees of bend you may put between pull points. The minimum radius for the trade size. How the run is supported and how far apart. How full a conduit may be. What is permitted in that location at all. Every one of those is a figure with an edition number on it and a local amendment that may have moved it.

You will not find any of those numbers on bentright, and that is on purpose. Look them up in your own book and confirm them with the authority having jurisdiction, because on an interpretation their answer is the answer.

The workmanship list — where this site helps

Is the bend the shape it should be. Is the run flat against the surface or is there a dog leg in it. Does the connector seat all the way into the knockout. Is the rack still parallel after the jog. Did the run land where it was supposed to land, or did somebody forget shrink and end up 1" (25 mm) short of the box.

That list is geometry and tool-reading, which is exactly what the calculators here do — so this page is the inspection version of the common mistakes page: same faults, seen from the other side of the tape.

How a run gets looked at

Roughly in this order, and it takes less time than you would like.

From the door. The whole run at once. Anything that is not straight, not level, not parallel or not evenly spaced shows up here before any detail does — a fanning rack, a run that sags between supports, a 90 that leans.
Along the run. Walking it, looking at the bends one at a time: the shape of each bend, whether the pipe lies flat to the surface through every offset, whether two bends that should be in one plane are.
At the boxes. The terminations. Is the connector seated, is the locknut on and tight, is the bushing where it needs to be, is the pipe reamed. This is where most of the writing happens.
Counting. The degrees of bend between pull points, against the limit in the book — the factory bends into the boxes count too, which is the part people forget.
The awkward question. Whatever the run made them wonder about: why the jog is there, what is behind the wall, whether the support at the far end is actually fixed to anything.

The bending faults that get written up

These are the ones that are about the bend itself rather than about the rest of the install. Each is what you can see, why it happened, and the thing on this site that stops it.

A flattened or kinked bend

What they see: the pipe is not round through the bend — it has gone oval, or there is a crease on the inside of the curve. It catches the light from a distance.

Why: the pipe was bent tighter than it wanted to go. Wrong shoe for the size, a bender not seated on the pipe, the foot pressure all in one place, or a bend pulled over a knee because the bender was three floors down.

Fix: the right shoe for the trade size, the pipe seated to the back of it, steady pressure and your weight over the foot pedal. A flattened bend does not get straightened out — cut it off.

A dog leg — two bends not in one plane

What they see: the run does not lie flat to the wall after the offset. Sight down it and the far leg wanders off to one side.

Why: the pipe was rotated between the first bend and the second. A degree or two of roll is enough over a long tail.

Fix: a pencil line down the length of the stick before the first bend, and both bends pulled with that line true. Sight down the pipe after the first one. The offset calculator's procedure has the check in it.

The connector is not seated in the knockout

What they see: a gap at the box, the connector cocked in the hole, the locknut biting on one side only, or the run bowed on its way in to make up the difference.

Why: the pipe runs on the surface and the knockout is a box wall's thickness off it. Without a small step at the end, something has to give.

Fix: a box offset at the end of the stick — a shallow two-bend jog, usually at a small angle, that brings the pipe centre onto the knockout centre so the connector goes in square.

A rack that fans through the jog

What they see: four runs evenly spaced on the wall, then uneven spacing on the other side of an offset. It is the most visible fault on this page.

Why: every run got the same marks. Runs on the outside of a jog have to start it further along to stay parallel, and the stagger depends on the angle.

Fix: the parallel offset calculator: one stagger figure, applied to each successive run, and the rack comes out the other side as it went in.

The run does not reach — and gets stretched to fit

What they see: a coupling that is barely engaged, a connector only started into a knockout, or a support left off because moving the pipe 1" (25 mm) was easier than cutting a new stick.

Why: an offset eats length, and the layout was measured as if it did not. The fault written up is whatever got bodged to cover it.

Fix: add the shrink to the overall length before you cut, every time — it comes off the far end, not off mark 1. The shrink calculator gives the figure, and it is on every offset result.

Stubs at three different heights

What they see: a row of stub-ups into a panel or a row of boxes, and the tops are not on one line.

Why: the take-up figure was somebody else's, or the bender changed hands partway through, or the marks were pulled from different ends.

Fix: derive the take-up for the bender and the pipe you are actually holding — one test bend — then use the stub-up calculator for every mark on that row.

"Neat and workmanlike" is a real rule

Most people find out the hard way that the tidiness clause is enforceable. It is deliberately not a number, which makes it feel unfair when it is used and obvious when you see the run it was used on. In bending terms it comes down to four things, and all four are geometry:

Parallel stays parallel. Runs that arrive at a jog evenly spaced leave it evenly spaced, and the same for a turn — that is what the parallel and concentric calculators are for.
One plane per bend pair. No twist between the two bends of an offset, and no roll between a 90 and the kick below it.
The same figure all the way along. One take-up, one angle, one stagger, used for the whole rack. Mixed figures on one wall read as improvisation even when every individual bend is right.
Full penetration at the terminations. The pipe home in the connector, the connector home in the box.

None of that is about being precious. A run that is parallel and flat is a run that was laid out before it was bent, and inspectors know it.

Inspect it yourself first

Do this before you leave the area and you will almost never have a bending item on a report. It takes about a minute per run.

Stand where they will stand. Back off to the door and look at the whole run. Anything that is not parallel, level or evenly spaced announces itself from there and nowhere else.
Sight down each stick. Eye at one end, looking along the pipe. A dog leg you cannot see from the side is obvious from the end.
Look at the shape of every bend. Round, no flat spot, no crease on the inside. Run a thumb along the outside of each 90 if you cannot see it.
Check both ends are home. Connector fully into the knockout and square to it, pipe fully into the connector, locknut tight, bushing on where it needs one.
Count the degrees. Add up the bend between pull points, factory bends at the boxes included, and hold it against the limit in your book. If it is close, put a pull point in rather than argue about it later.
Check it against the book, not against me. Radius, support, fill and bend count are Code questions with Code answers, and the authority having jurisdiction has the last word on all four.

The degrees of bend calculator adds up the count for you against the limit you type from your book, and fixing dog legs and kinks covers what can be saved if the walk turns something up.

Preguntas

How many bends am I allowed between pull points?: There is a limit and it is in your code book, expressed as a total number of degrees of bend between pull points, with the offsets and the factory bends at the boxes all counting toward it. I am deliberately not printing the figure here, because it is a Code number and your local amendments can change it. Look it up once, write it on the inside of your book cover, and count the degrees on the run before you pull anything.
How tight can I bend it?: There is a minimum radius for each trade size and it is in the book. In practice the shoe on a proper bender for that size is already at or above it, which is why a hand-bent 90 in the right shoe does not get written up and a 90 pulled in the wrong shoe does. The fault an inspector actually writes is the visible result of going tighter than the pipe likes: a flattened or kinked bend.
Does an inspector really care what a rack looks like?: Yes, and the rule they are leaning on is the workmanlike-installation clause, which is real and enforceable and deliberately not numeric. A rack with the runs fanning apart through a jog is the one thing on a job that an inspector can see from the doorway. It also reads, correctly, as a signal about the work they cannot see.
What gets written up most often on bending?: The bending faults that get found are the ones visible from across the room, because that is how an inspector walks a job: a connector not seated because nobody put a box offset in, a flattened bend where a stick was bent over a knee or in the wrong shoe, and a run of parallel offsets that fans. What is actually called on your job is your inspector’s call, not a statistic — the point is that these three cannot be hidden.
The inspector disagreed with me. Now what?: The authority having jurisdiction has the final word on an interpretation, full stop — that is what the phrase means. Ask which rule and which edition, write it down, look it up, and fix it. If you still think it is wrong, that conversation goes through whoever holds the permit, not through an argument on a ladder.