Is this a bodge?

[calum63]

Hi, we wanted virgin media upstairs in one of the bedrooms, basically we have an unused sky dish which has been there for 20 years as well as the cable which runs from the dish to the living room. The engineer has just cut this cable from the dish and decided to run it to the upstairs room in question,my worry is I know this cable is only single screened, I cut the connector off just to see and it only has the copper braiding (hardly any at all) semi air spaced and the center conductor which is copper. I thought virgin media used triple screened coax? or does it not matter as much?
He also burst the bit of the brick which suggests he drilled from the inside, the repair work looks crap but at least he has clipped the cable, but the virgin box is working.

What do you guys think? was he just a lazy installer or am I being overly critical? It just kind of ****es me off that virgin media don't want you to touch their equipment or move their cables, and yet this the standard some engineers work to, Maybe I am just being overly critical, let me know your thoughts on this.
thanks

 

[rsgaz]

The engineer has just cut this cable from the dish

Without asking you I assume? Yes, definitely a bodge, how dare he use a cable which is not his to re-purpose.

He also burst the bit of the brick which suggests he drilled from the inside

This is a can't win scenario though. If you drill in from outside, then a giant chunk of plaster can fall off inside instead and it's very difficult to measure exactly where to drill inward, especially if it needs to come out just above the skirting board or dead in the corner of the room for example.

 

[calum63]

Without asking you I assume? Yes, definitely a bodge, how dare he use a cable which is not his to re-purpose.



This is a can't win scenario though. If you drill in from outside, then a giant chunk of plaster can fall off inside instead and it's very difficult to measure exactly where to drill inward, especially if it needs to come out just above the skirting board or dead in the corner of the room for example.

Hi, No he didn't ask, he just asked where exactly do you want the box and when I showed him, he just said "right okay" and then I let him get on with it. I thought he knew best and who am i to question a "professional"

I guess it is easier to drill from the inside out, I may have been a bit critical there, I can imagine it is hard to judge when to ease off the pressure of the drill,and it avoid getting the hole in the wrong place, but the patch job he made looked crap. The box is working and there doesn't appear to be signal issues, just wanted your opinions, sounds like I've run into a bad engineer.
thanks

 

[Tigercubrider]

You could fit a cable entry cover to hide the burst through

 

[Lucid]

Yes, it was bodged.

To my mind, if you'd paid directly for this as a service then you'd have pulled him up immediately that you saw what he was doing. The fact that Virgin doesn't give you the opportunity to contract independently with an installer - a Hobson's Choice deal - doesn't change that.

Also, it may seem nitpicky, but he wasn't really an engineer.

Engineers design, develop and manufacture solutions to technical problems. Installers take existing bits of tech and fit them to (in this case) a building.

 

[winston1]

He had no right to steal your dish cable and he certainly should not have used it once he saw it was crap single screened cable (it shouldn't have been of course, so he was not the first bodger in your home).
Virgin cables should be well screened to stop ingress of local transmissions into their network, and to stop radiation of their signals.
Virgin are normally very fussy about this for good reasons.

 

[opps]

He had no right to steal your dish cable and he certainly should not have used it once he saw it was crap single screened cable (it shouldn't have been of course, so he was not the first bodger in your home).
Virgin cables should be well screened to stop ingress of local transmissions into their network, and to stop radiation of their signals.
Virgin are normally very fussy about this for good reasons.

Sorry, not intentionally peeing on the work that you (or rather the OP paid for) but VM have been known to come along and disconnect customers that have dodgy connections because it can potentially eff up everyone else on the same end of road green box.

 

[cwhaley]

Makes me wonder that one does. When I bought my house there was a horrible brown VM box at the bottom of the bay window, lots of cable clipped to the wall (which had blown the pointing in places) and a cable buried about 1/8" in plastic ducting in the soil.

I phoned them (anonymously of course) to have it removed as I'm not a customer but they told me to leave it. Within the week it was taken off the wall, pointing repaired and the cable taken right back to the junction box on the pavement. Not sure if that causes interference?