Pulling Wire Through a Central Vacuum System?

call -151 asks: "A friend of mine has a nonworking central vacuum system in her house and I was offering to help her use the tubing as conduits and pull cable to distribute her network throughout the place. Has anyone done this and have any advice to offer? It should go smoothly but I'm sure there are some things I'm not thinking about." Of course, not everone can expect to have a CVS (pun intended) in their own home, but this was just odd enough where it deserved a post. Anyone have any URLs that describe exactly what a Central Vacuum System is, and how it worked?

Performance Issues?

[jeremyphillips]

I'd have serious concerns about using a central vacuum system as conduits for CAT5. Your network performance is going to suck...

Sorry, I could resist...

Re:String and a Light Sponge/Table top tennis ball

[Rude Turnip]

A smallish ping-pong ball can get sucked around easily, but there is no way the motor is strong enough to create enough suction to draw CAT5...especially when you consider that the tubes have to make turns at certain points. It would be easier to tie some CAT5 to a hamster, snake or gerbil and let it run around the tubes. There's probably quite a few guys in SF that could help you with this.