Building new, want to have sparkie put telephone and CATV cable in adjacent the underground electric, all same trench.
My excavator is slated to do the dig, but it is my job to get the CATV cable (no problem from Adelphia) and the phone cable from Verizon, all ready in advance.
So I call Verizon, tell them I need 175 feet of underground phone line to place new service, and some dope there tells me they won’t drop off the cable until the trench is dug and open. I say that’s preposterous, we’re not going to open the whole length of the trench, then sit and wait a couple days while the Verizon beaurocracy deems to whack off some wire and deliver us the coil. Dopey on other end of the phone says no, no trenchy, no wire-y. It’s policy.
It is like catch-22.
I’ll try this, tomorrow. Get dopey on the line again at the Verizon offices, tell them I want my wire, and right now. Dopey will refuse. I’ll ask to speak to Dopey’s boss. Then I think I’ll tell boss that they really ought to see it my way. We need the wire because we feed it as we dig, backfilling right behind, a backhoe reach at a time. If we don’t get the wire from Verizon, we’ll forego any wire at all, and the house will get its phone service from a combination of cable (like Vonage) and wireless cellular.
Who’s the winner? The clients for whom the house is being built. The loser? Verizon, of course.
End of rant.
Gene Davis, Davis Housewrights, Inc., Lake Placid, NY
Replies
BTW, around here I see more and more times that they are running "conduit" for both cable and Telco. It is orange. I think that it is polyelethalene.
Actually your the loser.
Just another bellyaching would-be builder: 'Waaa. The inspector won't cooperate. Waaa. The telephone company won't play by my rules. They won't treat me with the forbearance and consideration I deserve.' Get over it. Get over yourself. Adapt and overcome or walk away.
I run into this situation, of how to run power and communications, all the time. Who in his right mind runs cables for communications direct burial when running conduit is so much easier and better? The telephone and cable can be pulled in together. Most time a single run of 3/4"PVC will do it. If there is later a fault or the technology changes pulling in more or better is simple, quick and doesn't tear up the lawn. Presented with the choice most HOs see the benefit of running conduit even if it costs a little more.
When the customer finds out you saddled them with a requirement to bend to the tender mercies of the cable company your name will be mud. Communications is about options. You have unilaterally and without consulting the buyer closed the window on several options. Conduit maintains options and allows for any options that may appear at any later time.
Breaks my heart that Verison won't bend to your will and play by your rules. Don't worry they aren't loosing any sleep about it. It isn't them that look foolish in this situation. You can bad mouth them all you want but it is you who are in direct contact with the buyer and it is you who bear the responsibility to make the job come together no matter what the difficulties are. If you can't handle it your in the wrong job.
Over a whole 175' of direct burial telephone line or conduit you throw a fit and sulk. You could buy this run yourself for less than $0.50 a foot. Nothing special about the lines Verison uses. Most electrical supply houses carry the stuff. So maybe $85 of cable. Conduit would be around $60. So your raising a stink over less than $100. LOL.
i'm with the others about the conduit. The company here buries a poly pipe with their new service drops. I would use 1" and sweep elbows, cause trying to pull wire through plumbing 90's buried underground is almost impossible, and the phone guy placing the cable hates using a shovel.
Edited 5/18/2005 10:39 pm ET by billsumpter
I'd go with 2"You just never know....And...Leave a 16th" vinyl coated cable in there to make fishing easier. Hook it to something at both ends. And always drag a string in with the new wiring, to pull the fish cable back through with.Never leave a nylone line in there to fish with. Don't ask.; )
A person with no sense of humor about themselves, has no sense at all.
Never leave a nylone line in there to fish with.
Don't ask.
Well I"m asking. Why not? I seriously don't know.
Meeses think it makes dandy nest building material.Then, when you need it, it is all cut up and lining some nest full of mouse pizz somewhere...
A person with no sense of humor about themselves, has no sense at all.
Luka,I'm really glad Pyrotechie asked, because I was baffled, too. Your answer makes sense. Will rodents do that with polypropylene line? Dacron? Rope dipped in foul-tasting wax? Surely someone solved this problen a hundred years ago. How? Lead was probably involved, LOL.Billedited for spelling
Edited 5/20/2005 2:12 am ET by Bill
Short and sweet, Warfarin Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
this is small, so you feel compelled to look at it
And.........................I ................................think..................it .............................works...................wait, I have a plan...ok?...............let's ...oh neve mind, just email me and forgo the stuff,,is that whole life? or just the recyclababbels?
Makes a lot more sense the first time it happens to you, too.; )It's REAL fun figuring out a way to get a second cable through a conduit, when there is no pull string in place.Nylon, orlon, poly, cotton, hemp, sisal, doesn't matter. If they can chew it into something semi-soft, and make a nest of it, they will.They even cut the nylon wire ties off my cable... That stuff is as far from soft as it gets...Mice, rats, squirrels, even possums, and raccoons.And the birds will carry away any pieces they drop.Take my word for it. 16th inch steel cable. Vinyl coated. Leave about 3 feet at each end. Coil that up, and fasten it securely somehow, near the ends. If they can't use it, then just for spite, they'll pull it down out of your reach.You think I'm kidding...If I were to put in conduit now, 2 inch is the absolute minimum I would put in. If you may possibly end up running electricty through this as well, later, then make it the 4 inch that 4Lorn1 said was overkill.And I would find some way to anchor the ends of that vinyl coated steel cable to the conduit.
A person with no sense of humor about themselves, has no sense at all.
We're 1,000 ft. off the road, and we ran the phone and electric in conduit per utiility specs. I asked the cable co. what conduit they wanted, and they said none. They would only lay the cable themselves, no conduit, and the cost would be $1,100, even though the trench was open. No thanks. We got satellite. Which it turned out we didn't like because we couldn't get a local network (That's a story of lies and run arounds all on its own). A year after we moved in, the cable co. ran an ad for $99 installations! We called. They came. Spent a day and half with a small hoe and two guys. We got cable. Andy Engel
Senior editor, Fine Woodworking magazine
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I was baffled too - I have left a lot of 200 lb test mono in various boats for wire pulling purposes -- good thing there weren't any rats aboard I guess.
Jim
Mine didn't last a year.Of course, mine is outdoors, and is open on both ends. Only semi-sheltered. LOLStill, if varmints can get to it, no matter where it is, it IS a possibility. I don't think I'd want to assume it was ok, unless it was easy to fish a new line without it.
A person with no sense of humor about themselves, has no sense at all.
Ah sweet Verizon.....rules and rules for u but they make up their own.Since Im over 1000' from a state road and they wanted a mint to run a 1/2 m of wire here I became my own phone co. and ran my own.No problem with mine but thier wire they buried 6" deep across a state road drainage ditch where guess what every year the grader rips it up.So after about 4 splices laying in a wet ditch; modem speed down to about 14K my nieghbors and i went to public service commision and forced them to fix it.
3 weeks ago called verizon to come drop by 50 ' of wire to hook up new house.Came a week later when nonoe was there and hooked up 45 feet!Dug ditch and guess what?... too short t0o make to interface box. Disconnected thier end from the Verizon Sacred side of interface box since they wrapped it around heat pump..still too short.So i put in 1' conduit and moused in a pull string with the fein.Verizon came and bitched about unhooking thier wire!!!When verizons contractor came to wire they were estaic they didnt have to ditch witch and gave me all kinds of "free" stuff.!
On short runs like this 175' pull, I assume there are not a lot of bends, I have found that 3/4" is good. Longer runs, bends or something more than a run of coax and four-pair telephone cable would make 1" the better choice. 2" isn't out of the question as it isn't that much more expensive and it leaves plenty of room for multiple lines without any worry about binding.Some commercial sites, like cell sites, spec 4". Which is clearly overkill. Even a cell hub typically only has a single four to 12 pair cable. Most of those only have two lines active. Fiber only makes 4'conduit more absurd.Electrical conduit fittings and 90s, "sweep", elbows are the only way to go. Using plumbing fittings screams amateur, if the person is just ignorant, or 'hack' if it is done while knowing better.
4: Where I live (Hills of Nawth Jawja) the phone Co. had a near cow when I told them I put in a conduit. Well, at least their cable installers did. They showed up w/ a cable burying trencher & a spool of cable. No cable lube, nothing. They told me that I was the only place they'd ever pulled a cable through a conduit. A lot of grunting & bitching & it was in. The wisdom of a conduit paid off less than a year later when they had to come out & install a new drop. Pulled the old out & put the new in.Highly second Luka's suggestion - run something larger than 1". I have a 1" conduit & they struggled mightly to pull the cable. I even had an 8 ft radius in the one curve in the conduit & it was noticeable. The reason? Simple - they pulled the cable off a roll & it had a memory for its essentially helical shape since it had a fairly stiff copper shield around it. I stood at the entry point & straightened the cable as it went in. Really helped a lot. My Telco, TDS Telecom, was really helpful & cooperative. They didn't charge me for the new cable, even though it was my actions that required it. We coordinated the pulling day & the crew showed up as promised. They did the job w/ only three days notice. Turned out to be the same crew that did the original install.DonThe GlassMasterworks - If it scratches, I etch it!
While you may be right about the cable being stiff I would think the greater cause for difficulty would be that it was direct burial cable they brought with them as opposed to a cable more adapted for going into a conduit. Some of the direct burial cables are both stiff and lack a 'pull jacket', typically nylon on power cables, or a slick outer covering. Some plastics can bind up terribly in PVC conduit.Of course, as you point out, they lacked any pull lubricant. So the problem kind of interlocks. Yellow77, Hydrogel, Polylube, talcum powder or even plain water from a garden hose would have helped. Any of these can make a tremendous difference in the pull. No worries with the water as all underground conduits are considered 'wet' locations and demand jackets and insulation that can stand immersion anyway.Avoid soaps as they can 'glue' the cables in place, damage the insulation and/or corrode metallic conduit. Used to be a lot of people in the 50s and 60s used Ivory flakes mixed up in a bucket and applied to the cables as they were pulled in. Ivory flakes was cheap, corrosive and sticky. Stuck in place by dried soap cables can be nearly impossible to remove which defeats one of the main benefits of using conduit. A trick that sometimes works if soap was used, but can get interesting around live panels, is to fill the conduit with water and let it set over night before trying to pull the conductors out.
Just lay conduit. They can pull the line anytime
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I don't do new construction but on the couple of additions we have done we had issues of this sort. We simply laid a 1" plastic conduit in the trench with a pull string in it. Cost about $40. Then after the trench is filled and graded any of the items you named can be pulled in. Happy customer, happy utility company, happy contractor. DanT
Place 2 conduits in the trench and let them pull in these. My cable tv and phone wires are direct bury from 17 years ago and they are breaking down. If they were in conduit it would take 10 mins to replace both. Cable co wants to dig and slice the garden. Phone co is still thinking about what to do!
When I saw phone company rant I knew it would be Verizon.
Verizon did give me a spool of wire to run almost 700 feet, that was no problem and my trench was not dug at the time. I ran the underground, backfilled and left them slack at the pole. I called them to run it up the pole, which they did. I thought we were ready for phone service. A few months later we requested the phone service to be activated. That line would have been an extra line an when we moved in we would transfer our existing line to the residence also. I waited for two days for the verizon technition to show up at our home. It was a no show both days the people in the office kept telling me they were on the way. I finally told them to forget the extra line and when we moved in we would transfer the old line and number to the new house.
We called Verizion when we ready to move and gave them three weeks lead time to activate the new service. They gave me the date they would come to the house. Guess what another no show. The problem is more in the business office than in the field.
We moved in with no phone service. After a few days of yelling at business office reps,a field worker came out at 9pm. He checked the box at the house and said there was no signal. He went down to the pole and found out the wire they ran up the pole was not connected to anything, an if it was connected there was no more available phone lines to connect to. He said he would be back the next day to run the line from our pole to the other side of the road, but it might take a couple weeks to build a new phone line.
Verizon had enough lead time to get this right, but the business office does not work well with the field people. The field reps do a good job but there is a major lack of communication between the office and the field.
Next time call the Public Service Comission.
I did once, after Verizon repaired an old overhead run of over a thousand feet for the umpteenth time. Next time it rained it shorted again.
Lets see; check fix splice AGAIN?? or replace it once and for all.
I told them I was gonna rip it out, but then called the PSC.
Next morning 5 trucks in the driveway at 7am.
EricI Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
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We have ongoing bad line connections in junction boxes up the road. Calling the PSC helped some. My wife now has some direct phone numbers to call at verizon, so we can skip the people who will tell you anything and do nothing.
When she calls they respond faster, but they keep patching the same problems. I see verizon is working on a major box up the road for a few months. They even made a semi permanent structure around it.
AMEN!
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Get a wad of phone cable and lay it yer self. Or lay a conduit. They don't give a rats patootie about you.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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