Fibre installation bodged job?

[WheelieNana]

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 😃

[WSH]

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.

[36ULW]

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.

[naylor2006]

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. 

[36ULW]

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.

[naylor2006]

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.

[WSH]

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.

[naylor2006]

@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.

[WSH]

@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.

[naylor2006]

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.