View Full Version : Bad Cable Laying, Phone Sockets?
Hi there, Newbie to the forum and heres my overview of our installation today...
Team were booked for 8-1pm and turned up at just after 11. Seemed like nice guys but didn't seem very approachable and quite intimidating especially since there were 3 of them. They came in and I showed them were I wanted everything.
This didn't work out, the TV was fine but the BB and Phone was not. I wanted the phone connected where the main socket was already. I also wanted the BB upstairs in the study. To drill into the study room you would need to go up onto the neighbours garage roof - I had previously arranged this with them and they were fine with it however the installers were simply not going up there. As for the phone they just kept suggesting different places in the living room near the tv point - making it seem as if they could not be bothered to have to drill again.
Then we move onto the cable laying. My drive is a concrete drive then pebbeled over. On the Virgin Media website it says a pencil thin cable would be layed underground. This was not the case, this larger than pencil cable was then placed in a 1.5 inch diameter green tube which was left laying down my drive which looked terrible. I wasn't one to argue with these guys...
As soon as they left I phoned up VM install team and hopefully a install manager should be turning up later on. I'll update ASAP.
Sounds like quite the opposite experience of installation from mine of last week, which I posted in here.
When you say you'd previously arranged it with them, do you mean with your neighbour or with Virgin? If it was with Virgin, then they guys didn't have a leg to stand on, did they?
I note you say you were intimidated by the guys, I can understand if you are a lady, but basically they do what you say, so long as it's not outrageous, as you're paying, is my take on it.
I told the guys installing mine EXACTLY where I wanted the holes drilled, at what heights, the precise entry points, and then looked at them with a " And That's Exactly where it's going, isn't it Boys?" look on my face, and that's where it went.
It helps if you look like I do, though, admittedly. And follow them round with your camera nonchalantly dangling from your wrist, like I did.
Leaving a big length of conduit on top of someone's drive & then buggering off just isn't right though, & if they'd done that with me, well, let's just say they wouldn't.... I'd have had their guts for garters & phoned Virgin while they were still there if they wouldn't re-route it or tidily bury it. Obviously, if there's going to be vehicular traffic over the cable it's got to be protected by conduit, & even if it's under a lawn so it doesn't get accidentally forked, but leaving it visible is just not on.
Seems so, we got a reply from the same engineer earlier on saying that they could not bury it in the ground because we had a concrete drive. I wasn't having any of this... so hopefully the area installs supervisor is coming around tomorrow. I will take a picture and upload it tomorrow also to show the sort of work that has been left. I couldn't care if they need a digger up my drive. I do not want to see the conduit.
Digital Fanatic
21-04-2010, 23:27
Seems so, we got a reply from the same engineer earlier on saying that they could not bury it in the ground because we had a concrete drive. I wasn't having any of this... so hopefully the area installs supervisor is coming around tomorrow. I will take a picture and upload it tomorrow also to show the sort of work that has been left. I couldn't care if they need a digger up my drive. I do not want to see the conduit.
If they had to dig up your drive, then it may of held up your install. You may need constuction to come back and bury the cable... most customers wouldn't want their drive dug up.
Let us know how you get on... and :welcome:
hi going back to your first post about getting on neighbours garage roof to install the broadband in your study.
as a former virgin media installer i know that the team of installers are not aloud on any flat/pitch roofs due to health and safety. also if you was unhappy with the way they laid your cable in the garden why did you let the install go ahead, because you must have agreed the route with them
SUCESS!
VM are coming round on wednesday to convert all the BT sockets to VM sockets and moving the broadband kit to where i want it on wednesday! (The man on the phone kept saying this was good will and would not normally happen). And on friday construction team booked to come and bury the cable!
HORRAH, and to add I managed to get a free months credit. So I guess all is well - but, obviously we will not know this till the end of the week.
And Virgin Media WILL be going up on the neighbours roof - providing a letter of confirmation from my neighbour.
Dont mean to burst your bubble but if its a H+S risk... you will be lucky to get us climbing on roofs!
Fantastic visit today - the guy was really helpful. He went up onto the roof had the cable put in a great place. Construction in just 2 days!
Dont mean to burst your bubble but if its a H+S risk... you will be lucky to get us climbing on roofs!
"Health & Safety "
The first recourse of the scoundrel & lazy incompetant, to bowdlerise Johnson.
If VM installers are too scared of climbing up a ladder & walking across a roof without being frightened of falling off/through it, the world's gone mad.
Common sense/sensible precautions? Ever heard of that?
Good job you didn't have to build the Eiffel Tower or run some electric cables up it, isn't it?
And I'm glad your problem has ultimately been solved, alexxzz.
speedfreak
29-04-2010, 00:16
"Health & Safety "
The first recourse of the scoundrel & lazy incompetant, to bowdlerise Johnson.
If VM installers are too scared of climbing up a ladder & walking across a roof without being frightened of falling off/through it, the world's gone mad.
Common sense/sensible precautions? Ever heard of that?
Good job you didn't have to build the Eiffel Tower or run some electric cables up it, isn't it?
And I'm glad your problem has ultimately been solved, alexxzz.
Its not about being scared or lazy, its about being covered if you fall IMO. Break a leg falling if the company dont approve of you doing it and you're off work, no pay and potentially out of a job, it isn't the techs that make the rules
calmpitbull
11-05-2010, 20:28
"Health & Safety "
The first recourse of the scoundrel & lazy incompetant, to bowdlerise Johnson.
If VM installers are too scared of climbing up a ladder & walking across a roof without being frightened of falling off/through it, the world's gone mad.
Common sense/sensible precautions? Ever heard of that?
Good job you didn't have to build the Eiffel Tower or run some electric cables up it, isn't it?
And I'm glad your problem has ultimately been solved, alexxzz.
I agree about H&S, its a nightmare. However if we get caught on a roof we risk the sack, so we don't do it.
Its not because we lack common sense or are lazy wimps, I just don't want the sack!
If someone said to you "If you do this you will get sacked" you wouldn't do it would you, even if you didn't agree with it.
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