How do you strap conduit or cable to a surface with no clip?
Cable clips come in four sizes and you need the fifth. A drill bit and a zip tie fit everything.
Applies to
- Process
- Cable, conduit and pipe mounting
- Materials
- Wood, ply, panel, sheet — anything you can drill through
- Setup
- Drill, bit sized to the strap, zip ties, flush cutters
- Holds
- Corrugated conduit, tubing, wire bundles, small pipe
Why it matters
Because the tie passes through the material rather than sitting on top of it, it resists pull-out in every direction. A surface-screwed clip only resists in one.
It costs nothing and works at any size. You size the loop to the run, not the run to the clip you happen to have.
What good looks like
- The run sits tight against the surface with no sag between mounts
- The tie passes cleanly through the hole with no chafe on a sharp edge
- Tails cut flush
How to apply it
- Drill a hole beside the run, sized to pass the tie. For a saddle mount, drill two — one either side.
- Thread the tie through and around the conduit or bundle.
- Cinch, keeping the head where you can reach it later.
- Trim the tail flush.
Exceptions & tradeoffs
Don't drill through anything structural, and check what's behind the surface before the bit goes in. Drilling into a wall to mount a cable and hitting a different cable is a bad afternoon.
Heavy bundles want two ties or a real strap. Nylon creeps under sustained load, especially warm.
Deburr the hole in sheet metal or the edge will saw through the tie over time.
Common mistakes
- Drilling the hole way oversize so the tie threads easilySnug hole — a sloppy one lets the run move and chafe
- One tie every metre on a heavy loomCloser spacing, or the run sags and pulls the mounts
Drilling a hole through a board and using a zip tie through it to clamp conduit — Ultimate Zip Tie Hack You Need to Know! ↗ at 0:00–0:15.
The same method used to strap pipe and conduit to a wall — Zip Tie Life Hacks ↗ at 1:50–2:20.
Two-hole saddle mounting of pipe and cable to a board, and pinning a cable flat to a wall — 60 Zip Tie Life Hacks ↗ at 0:45–0:55 · 1:00–1:15.
Summarized and independently edited by Start Here. Three separate creators demonstrate this same mount, so it lives on one page crediting all three rather than as three near-identical articles. The drilling, load and deburring cautions are ours.