New BT cable to be run but house renovations completed?
Discussion
Parents are towards the end of their house renovations. During it they dug the foundations for their garage, which ended up trashing the BT cable & ducting it was in. They figured not an issue, new BT cable, in new trench with new ducting towards end of project & job done.
Fast forward to today, garage isn't due to be built till the spring due to the weather. Ducting (with draw string) has been installed/buried from house to garage, and then ducting from opposite corner of garage to the street where the old ducting disappears under the road.
Under the driveway, where it meets the street, the new ducting has been tucked into the old ducting which then disappears under the road. The original BT cable in the ducting has had a draw string tied to it. This is so the the BT Openreach engineer can simply tie new BT cable to end of draw string near the garage & pull it under the driveway & under the road to the cabinet opposite side of lane. Plug into cabinet & job done. The cable is then routed round the garage foundations & into the second ducting which takes it into the house.
Idea being once garage is built the BT cable will enter their land from under the road into the newly joined up ducting to garage, round the inside of the garage, into ducting into house. Until then the cable will go round the edge of the garage foundations in an above ground ducting-type, then will be moved to inside gaarge when it is being built.
We figured once BT have connected the cable & provided there is a dial tone we are responsible for it working undamaged. We damage it, we foot the bill for BT to correct it & if needs be pull a new cable through the ductings.
BT Openreach have cried foul, they say it needs to be their trench, their ducting and their installation. They say they should have been brought in at stage 1 of their renovations to have a site survey etc nd need a week to go away and consider what to do about things. Builder has shrugged it off as never having come across this before, yet wont comment on how they have done this sort of thing in the past.
Anyone have any advice on BT & their landline installations on big renovation projects?
edit: TL;DR - we installed ducting in our own trenches for BT cable to be ran through from the cabinet to the house. BT refuse to run their cable in it as they say they must must use their own ducting in their own trenches before they will install the cable. They have gone away to see what they can do.
Fast forward to today, garage isn't due to be built till the spring due to the weather. Ducting (with draw string) has been installed/buried from house to garage, and then ducting from opposite corner of garage to the street where the old ducting disappears under the road.
Under the driveway, where it meets the street, the new ducting has been tucked into the old ducting which then disappears under the road. The original BT cable in the ducting has had a draw string tied to it. This is so the the BT Openreach engineer can simply tie new BT cable to end of draw string near the garage & pull it under the driveway & under the road to the cabinet opposite side of lane. Plug into cabinet & job done. The cable is then routed round the garage foundations & into the second ducting which takes it into the house.
Idea being once garage is built the BT cable will enter their land from under the road into the newly joined up ducting to garage, round the inside of the garage, into ducting into house. Until then the cable will go round the edge of the garage foundations in an above ground ducting-type, then will be moved to inside gaarge when it is being built.
We figured once BT have connected the cable & provided there is a dial tone we are responsible for it working undamaged. We damage it, we foot the bill for BT to correct it & if needs be pull a new cable through the ductings.
BT Openreach have cried foul, they say it needs to be their trench, their ducting and their installation. They say they should have been brought in at stage 1 of their renovations to have a site survey etc nd need a week to go away and consider what to do about things. Builder has shrugged it off as never having come across this before, yet wont comment on how they have done this sort of thing in the past.
Anyone have any advice on BT & their landline installations on big renovation projects?
edit: TL;DR - we installed ducting in our own trenches for BT cable to be ran through from the cabinet to the house. BT refuse to run their cable in it as they say they must must use their own ducting in their own trenches before they will install the cable. They have gone away to see what they can do.
Edited by Andehh on Tuesday 6th December 19:19
Edited by Andehh on Tuesday 6th December 20:10
If you were a contractor installing the ducting for a fee for a new development of houses they'd have a point, I've never heard of this issue for a single house.
Admittedly unlike most other services they are deemed to own up to the Master socket in your house - rather than to the start of your property.
I've always just sorted out such problems with the lads on site - they are usually very reasonable - at worst getting them to sit in their van whilst we pull the cable through etc.
Admittedly unlike most other services they are deemed to own up to the Master socket in your house - rather than to the start of your property.
I've always just sorted out such problems with the lads on site - they are usually very reasonable - at worst getting them to sit in their van whilst we pull the cable through etc.
surveyor said:
My suspicion is that this was one of BT's contractors, who I suspect get paid whether they do the job or not. I've seen them find every excuse under the sun to walk away from a job. The in-house engineers are more usually go with the flow....
Two "BT engineers" have visited the site so far. One a few weeks ago prior to us doing the ducting/trenching, one today who thought he was just replacing a master socket. Both times BT were described the situation,no one ever warned us of this.
Edited by Andehh on Tuesday 6th December 20:50
robwilk said:
Is it the colour of the ducting I know there is set colours for different services.
The ducting we are using is far & above better quality then the BT grade that was there originally.Anyone have any idea what a ''BT Cable is'' is it just a cat5e cable in principle? Armoured?
Wonder as a worse case scenario we run a new (quality) cable all the way under the road into the BT manhole & see if we can get BT out to simply swap the old cable over with the new cable.
Had a cheeky peek in there to confirm our drawstring works etc & now the temptation is to run the entire cable ourselves and ask BT to make the simple connection, confirm it works & leave us be.
I ran my own cable to the BT Master Socket, slightly different situation as it was from the overhead point where it enters the building to the master.
I did this in CAT6 cable, BT turned up and terminated the cable outside on the overhead and terminated the other end of my cable at the master. No issues or qualms from BT, the engineer was only there 30 minutes and that included enabling Fibre at the cabinet.
I would suggest running the cable yourself and asking them to terminate both ends.
I did this in CAT6 cable, BT turned up and terminated the cable outside on the overhead and terminated the other end of my cable at the master. No issues or qualms from BT, the engineer was only there 30 minutes and that included enabling Fibre at the cabinet.
I would suggest running the cable yourself and asking them to terminate both ends.
Cloudy22 said:
I ran my own cable to the BT Master Socket, slightly different situation as it was from the overhead point where it enters the building to the master.
I did this in CAT6 cable, BT turned up and terminated the cable outside on the overhead and terminated the other end of my cable at the master. No issues or qualms from BT, the engineer was only there 30 minutes and that included enabling Fibre at the cabinet.
I would suggest running the cable yourself and asking them to terminate both ends.
This is what we've had to do on a few projects, unfortunately whoever in the call centre you're talking to probably won't have dealt with the issue before but if you tell them this is what you want to do and they tell someone who has half a brain in their office, it will get sorted.I did this in CAT6 cable, BT turned up and terminated the cable outside on the overhead and terminated the other end of my cable at the master. No issues or qualms from BT, the engineer was only there 30 minutes and that included enabling Fibre at the cabinet.
I would suggest running the cable yourself and asking them to terminate both ends.
worsy said:
When we self built, BT dropped the ducting off and we dug the trenches and laid the ducting. Maybe the issue is the ducting rather than the self dug trench.
That's how we did it as well. In fact the nearest post was on the other side of a lane for power and BT so when the power guys came along to dig the road we gave them a drink to drop the BT ducting in alongside it.Andehh said:
The ducting we are using is far & above better quality then the BT grade that was there originally.
Anyone have any idea what a ''BT Cable is'' is it just a cat5e cable in principle? Armoured?
Wonder as a worse case scenario we run a new (quality) cable all the way under the road into the BT manhole & see if we can get BT out to simply swap the old cable over with the new cable.
Had a cheeky peek in there to confirm our drawstring works etc & now the temptation is to run the entire cable ourselves and ask BT to make the simple connection, confirm it works & leave us be.
Normally a grease filled 1, 2 or 5pr cable , not a cat5 armoured or otherwise ,Anyone have any idea what a ''BT Cable is'' is it just a cat5e cable in principle? Armoured?
Wonder as a worse case scenario we run a new (quality) cable all the way under the road into the BT manhole & see if we can get BT out to simply swap the old cable over with the new cable.
Had a cheeky peek in there to confirm our drawstring works etc & now the temptation is to run the entire cable ourselves and ask BT to make the simple connection, confirm it works & leave us be.
I work for a different company that puts cables under the ground but I understand we work in similar ways.
Generally pulling a new drop cable in isn't done by the same guys that install the services, it's usually done by a two man crew who run it from the cabinet to the property. This might be why you had issues as you haven't had the right crew out. I would expect once the right crew are out the response to your running the ducting would be what you expect, "You've done half the job for us already? Brilliant we'll do the rest milk and two sugars please."
Roping and running cable in thier own ducts might be met with some raised eyebrows... I would avoid that.
David.
Generally pulling a new drop cable in isn't done by the same guys that install the services, it's usually done by a two man crew who run it from the cabinet to the property. This might be why you had issues as you haven't had the right crew out. I would expect once the right crew are out the response to your running the ducting would be what you expect, "You've done half the job for us already? Brilliant we'll do the rest milk and two sugars please."
Roping and running cable in thier own ducts might be met with some raised eyebrows... I would avoid that.
David.
dmiller said:
I work for a different company that puts cables under the ground but I understand we work in similar ways.
Generally pulling a new drop cable in isn't done by the same guys that install the services, it's usually done by a two man crew who run it from the cabinet to the property. This might be why you had issues as you haven't had the right crew out. I would expect once the right crew are out the response to your running the ducting would be what you expect, "You've done half the job for us already? Brilliant we'll do the rest milk and two sugars please."
Roping and running cable in thier own ducts might be met with some raised eyebrows... I would avoid that.
David.
Not sure what you do but dropwire is not put undeground and the cable from the customer is not pulled in to the cabinet it will be run to the nearest distribution point or joint .Generally pulling a new drop cable in isn't done by the same guys that install the services, it's usually done by a two man crew who run it from the cabinet to the property. This might be why you had issues as you haven't had the right crew out. I would expect once the right crew are out the response to your running the ducting would be what you expect, "You've done half the job for us already? Brilliant we'll do the rest milk and two sugars please."
Roping and running cable in thier own ducts might be met with some raised eyebrows... I would avoid that.
David.
russ said:
still no answer to what colour duct you have dropped in the ground , if its grey it should not be a problem ,if its black your knackered as that's for electric cable and no bt engineer should put BT cable in a black duct.
Ahh but don't forget the op's duct is much better quality than a bt duct ! bimsb6 said:
russ said:
still no answer to what colour duct you have dropped in the ground , if its grey it should not be a problem ,if its black your knackered as that's for electric cable and no bt engineer should put BT cable in a black duct.
Ahh but don't forget the op's duct is much better quality than a bt duct ! 
ks! Yeah, it's thick black ducting. The original ducting was....grey! And yes, as for quality is was thin enough to have cracked and filled itself with water. Hence wanting something more durable this time round.BT are calling this morning with a verdict so will report back then.
Not a massive job to dig up the ducting, as we have a friendly farmer & digger, but it would make it a ballache.
Thanks for the heads up!
Edited by Andehh on Friday 9th December 07:32
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