For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By kanga
#1856463
townleyc wrote:..there are huge restrictions on how OR deal with others. ..

Overall I think it works fairly well - certainly better than a government controlled organisation would

KE


hmm.. an apposite response would probably run foul of the 'no politics' rule :?
By Colonel Panic
#1856661
stevelup wrote:If your existing duct is smooth and undamaged, there's no reason it couldn't be used again. Did you leave a draw wire in there, or is the existing cable the only thing in there?

I realise hindsight is useless at the best of times and especially so 30 years later, but if you didn't, you probably should have ;)

You could put a new duct in, but all you need to have in there is a drawstring, no need to put any fibre in there - OR will do that.

The duct is smooth & (presumed to be) undamaged. What I don't want to happen is OR turn up & find they can't pull anything through & then go away never to be seen again. But perhaps I am worrying*** unnecessarily. Maybe the best thing to do would be to dig 2 or 3 "inspection" holes along the 60m length so that pulling will be easier on the day.

Sadly it never occurred to me to put a drawstring in at the time, so they / we will have to use the existing 10 line copper wire instead.

Thanks all!

*** Something that comes naturally to me :pale:
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1856682
Colonel Panic wrote:. Maybe the best thing to do would be to dig 2 or 3 "inspection" holes along the 60m length so that pulling will be easier on the day.

Personally I'd avoid that. Inspection holes in the duct are the sort of thing that cables will snag on.
If you can expose both ends of the duct, stick the leaf blower on one end and see if you're getting a good draught out of the other end - should give a good indication as to whether it is still intact and clear.
If it is 2.5" as you suspect, it should be a doddle to blow a new string through to pull a new draw cord in.
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1856822
Colonel Panic wrote:Sadly it never occurred to me to put a drawstring in at the time, so they / we will have to use the existing 10 line copper wire instead.


Is there any slack at either end - if there is you might be able to test if it's still 'mobile'.
By NigelC
#1857069
kanga wrote:
NigelC wrote:Openreach are like many government monopolies hopeless.
..


AIUI, not a 'government monopoly' but a 'government-authorised private monopoly', having being spawned by BT and so ultimately from privatisation of GPO Telecomms. It could be argued that the management of such 'enterprises' have little incentive not to be 'hopeless' from the customer POV, being now answerable neither to those clients nor to Parliament.. :?


1. I said like
2. They are a monopoly and appointed by the government.
3. For some reason they argued for 5 months that they had to install a second duct and charge £17,000 but eventually did what the original survey team advised.
Don't know if this is a typical attempted scam but seems highly suspicious to me.
4 The original duct was installed across the lawn by use of a mole in a day so the quote was utterly ridiculous in any case.

Don't worry if there is no drawstring in an existing duct OR are quite capable of inserting one as they did on my initial survey visit.
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1857083
NigelC wrote:
Don't know if this is a typical attempted scam but seems highly suspicious to me.

We had a bit of this when we were trying to get the connection to the church.
Openreach initially sent one of their contractors to look at the job (he appeared as if he was an Openreach employee, but actually worked for one of their subcontractors).
They tried to spec up something ridiculous (about 60m of ducting to get 20m from the pavement), and claimed that the ducting had to be done by Openreach. The cost was eyewatering. We knew from a property developer that you are allowed to provision your own ducts, contrary to what the contractor had said, and with a bit of pushing of BT Business (who we were placing the order with) got a site visit from an actual Openreach manager. He couldn't have been more helpful, and all then became straight forward.

I share a cynicism that the contractor initially sent has an incentive to find a high cost solution that he then gets paid to implement.
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