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Fibre installation bodged job?

WheelieNana — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 18:39:58 GMT

Can anyone tell me if the following is accurate please?

The sub contractor installing our fibre said he wasn’t allowed to walk on our flat roof (garage attached to house), and wasn’t able to drill through pvc weatherboard or wall hung tiles on the side of the house?

Instead he’s installed the cables on the ground floor and externally run the cable from the telegraph pole to the corner of the roof, then put a huge ugly bracket around ground floor guttering, and then run it down the external wall.

It looks a complete mess, ugly and really obvious when you look at the house! Before I complain I want to understand what they’re actually able to do ( I wanted it installed into upstairs room literally just where the fibre enters the house but was told not possible because he couldn’t drill through weatherboard or wall tiles.)

Any advice welcome thanks 😃

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WSH — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 21:00:10 GMT

As nobody else has picked this up, I’ll see if I can answer some of your questions. I’m a retired IT tech myself and there are guys on here that have done this for a living, so you may well get a better answer if any of them see this.

From what I have picked up over the years:

Most of them can’t do flat roofs because they are easily damaged and so require specialist training.
They are supposed to drill from inside out as it is easier to detect and miss pipes and cables etc that way. Unfortunately, that would make it difficult to deal with exterior wall tiles without knocking one off and breaking it.
I’m told drilling PVC always looks like ….well, let’s just say, untidy. They guy that told me that put it somewhat more colourfully.

Hope that helps a bit.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

36ULW — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 06:15:43 GMT

No they’re not allowed to drill through UPV and or Wall Hung Tiles.

Ref to the Flat Roof.

I don’t know about Contractors but some Openreach Engineers are trained to do flat roof, they carry crawler boards, a flat roof ladder stability kit designed for flat roofs and a secondary tetra kit. Although that doesn’t necessarily mean they can climb on the flat roof, depends on what it’s made of.

So, in conclusion I would say the Contractor has done absolutely nothing wrong and done everything by the ‘safety book’ rule. Probably wants to keep his job, probs has a mortgage, kids to feed. You know, all that normal stuff.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

naylor2006 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 09:53:35 GMT

They've done what they needed to do to provision fibre, this stuff isnt specific to Openreach, Sky who come to install dishes have their own policy to protect themselves also. Virgin when they installed my cable to a 1st floor had to drill an anchor hole through my exterior wall to attach their ladder to, I believe sky do also, brand new house with a hole in the brick.

We just have to accept this type of thing nowadays, too many injuries, too much damage and too many folks suing.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

36ULW — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 11:02:25 GMT

It’s called Tetra, the system of anchoring a ladder to the wall.

Openreach has been doing it for a while now. I believe Contractors working on their behalf are also required to now do it as well.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

naylor2006 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 11:06:31 GMT

Yeah, I dont have an issue with it, its not their fault.

MJ Quinn installed my FTTP and I was surprised that they didnt do this. They got right up to the facia to attach the fibre to the bracket 22 and the tack it down the corner of the wall all without securing their ladder. Its quite a way up, I pre warned my wife that there might be a hole left we need to fill but I want 900Mbps so tough..... 🙂 Virgin Media is all underground here but it was time to say goodbye.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WSH — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:13:07 GMT

Again, out of curiosity, I’d be interested to know where this hole is? Is it up high up or down near the ground?

While I would view an anchor hole as a necessary evil, I would be a bit Tee’d off if they cleared off and left it unfilled, especially if it was too high for me to do it.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

naylor2006 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:24:50 GMT

@WSH if you are asking me, it was about 4ft off the ground/pavement level, right bang through brand new red brick, but that was virgin. I never filled it because over time I forgot exactly where it was, or at least stop noticing it. Its hard to explain but the house had an alcove brick structure where the ground floor was set back into, so when Virgin drilled the hole it wasnt through into a typical external wall, so it didnt 'need' filling. In any case, he didnt fill it.

At my mum and dads house Sky filled their hole with black silicone (against red brick), nice 🙂

I was expecting the same when the MJ Quinn folks came out to my house to install FTTP considering the height they had to get to, Mr Virgin Man only had to drill through at 1st floor skirting height which is barely higher than a step ladder, MJ Quinn had to get way up the top of my house to the facia and they didnt bother. Actually in the house where I had FTTP installed its easier to fill, the walls are rendered in white, white filler fine, getting the texture right on a red brick probably would have been harder.

In both cases, my mum and dads and my house, Sky and Virgin respectively, the hole was drilled about 4ft off the ground, so certainly easy to fill if you chose to.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WSH — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:39:14 GMT

@naylor2006

It was addressed to either of you but thanks for the reply.

Bit out of order if they don't fill it even if you can reach it. And black silicone? You can get red dye to colour up filler. Stroke it through with a matchstick and you can do a reasonable match for the texture. Done it myself 30 years ago.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

naylor2006 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:33:14 GMT

You sound wiser than me!

I dont live there anymore and the only hole in this house are the ones I've made for ethernet :)...apart from the Fibre coming in of course.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WSH — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:42:11 GMT

Yeah, cement dye.

Just checked on Amazon and it's still available, in various colours. Takes a little bit of blending to get a good colour match but it can be done. Would post a link but the last time I posted a commercially specific link the mods slapped my legs.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WheelieNana — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:42:26 GMT

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Im trying to upload a photo but the file is too big 🤷‍♀️

There’s some confusion on here … there’s no anchor hole left so that isn’t an issue.

The issue is that the new cable is attached to top corner of upstairs dormer then slopes at an angle out down to the ground floor roofline and there’s a huge ugly metal bracket attached to the fascia around the guttering.

It’s hard to explain and I’ll keep trying to add a photo.

The big metal bracket looks really ugly.

Thanks 😃

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

naylor2006 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:45:37 GMT

Yeah the anchor hole stuff was just an additional note I put on here to illustrate that contractors have to follow policy, IE all the things they wouldnt do at your property to facilitate a more aesthetic installation. I was also pointing out that its an industry thing and not limited to Openreach, this is why I talked about the anchor holes as Virgin and Sky have both used them for installs. Its just an example of necessary evil to get the job done whilst protecting ones self.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WSH — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:46:50 GMT

Try a lower resolution/quality on the picture. Alternatively, if you have a Windows computer, drop it into Paint. Crop it down to the minimum size and resave it as a jpeg.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

naylor2006 — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:48:29 GMT

One hack I find that works is on windows to just open the image, then use the Snippet tool to screenshot it, the screenshot taken is usually small enough to just right click and copy then you can paste it right into the chat box without even saving...

Like that......

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

36ULW — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:31:24 GMT

When I did my Tetra Training years ago we were told to put the Anchor Hole in the mortar, unless it was to soft, in which case into brick.

Ref to where the anchor point should be, there’s no specific set height but most will usually put it where the CSP is going to go, providing the Fibre Drop Cable hits the ground parallel to where it attaches at the eves.

Either way we filled the hole with silicone that way if it required climbing again in the future you could just pull out the silicone and put the bolt back in and not need to drill a fresh hole.

Re: Fibre installation bodged job?

WSH — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 15:04:50 GMT

@36ULW Now that makes sense. Thanks for that.

@WheelieNana Sorry, I seem to have hijacked your thread a little. I do apologise.