Determining where the cable is layed?

[flowrebmit]

How do I find out where the cable is buried in my front garden? i.e. what is the likely route that it would take from the pavement to the brown box on the front on my house?

I'm guessing that as the housing estate is 10 years old, that the cable may have been installed at the beginning of the development. There are lots of covers along the pavement with the letters CATV and I've even found one with Nyrex (weren't they Cable co.?), though I haven't noticed any green cabinets near where I live.

The reason that I'd like to know where why cable is buried, is because the front garden has two overgrown hedges, and sort of palm tree, and I am vaguely thinking about having them removed - but I'd hate to lose my BB in the process.

[Horizon]

Just look where the cable comes out of the brown box on your home and follow it from there. The most likely route the cable would take is the shortest, which is normally in a straight line from the pavement to your home.

[Halcyon]

The installers often go for the simplest route so if there is a flower bed that is easy to dig, then probably through that or some grass instead of digging up concrete.
They may have put it under slabs, especially if the development company contacted the cable company to do the work as the buildings were being put up.

If you still can't find out from the housing developpers or virginmedia, there are devices you can buy that will beep when it finds a cable under the ground.

[flowrebmit]

The wire from the brown box goes vertically down into a green plastic pipe, maybe 3/4-1" wide, filled at the top with tiny stones.

By follow, do you mean dig the soil away from around the green pipe to see where it goes? There isn't anything obvious to see at ground level that would indicate the direction.

Unfortunately, no flower beds - unless you count the weeds along the front wall of the house, there is a tiny lawn at the front and in front of that the tall hedge, and in front of that the CATV cover in the pavement. I've also got a small black plastic cover on the edge of the lawn, roughly in line with where the BT phone line comes out of the house, with Hepworth stamped in raised letters, the small black cover is held down with two screws that I can see and I imagine another two screws at the corners where the lawn has encroached.

[Digi Tel]

Imagine a line between the catv pavement cover and the brown box on the front of your house. The cable will be in the green plastic pipe along this line.

The danger point is where the tall hedge meets the pavement near the catv cover. Between your land and the catv cover will be an edging kerb. It is likely that the green ducting will not be flush with this concrete edging and the cable may be exposed. If you are going to dig down at this point, I would carefully dig down, your side of the edging kerb, between six and eight inches to find the cable and identify where the green ducting starts. You could then continue to expose the ducting in the "danger area" and safely remove your hedge, shrubs, trees etc.

[injuneer]

You're lucky it's even buried! They don't normally bury them that deep and in some cases I've seen properties with the green tubing clearly visible beneath hedges etc. When my was done it was in the days before they used tubing and the cable was ony about 2 or 3 inches under the soil.

[bw41101]

Another way of determining whether cable is in your street is to look at the (front) boundary of your property. If you see a small black plastic disk (around) 60mm (2 inches) in diameter (mounted in the pavement) between yours and you neighbors property then there's every chance the capability (for cable instalation) is there.

All you need to do then is check on the VM website (post code) to confirm.

Cheers and Si thee

[ian@huth]

Another way of determining whether cable is in your street is to look at the (front) boundary of your property. If you see a small black plastic disk (around) 60mm (2 inches) in diameter (mounted in the pavement) between yours and you neighbors property then there's every chance the capability (for cable instalation) is there.

All you need to do then is check on the VM website (post code) to confirm.

Cheers and Si theeThey also use square black covers as well as the round ones. The OP has Virgin Media services already according to his post.

[themelon]

Nynex used to use triangular shaped covers with CATV on the top round here too. I think 2 properties are covered by one.

[bw41101]

Methinks Sigmund Freud would have had a field day analysing this, what with a Circle, a Triangle and a square do you reckon there might be one (somewhere) with wavy lines too? :doh:

Sorry couldn't resist it. :D

Si thee