Electrician drilled through fibre optic cable

Yerman164

Yerman164

Yerman164

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I have quite a big problem - an electrician was doing some work at the front of my house to run an outdoor power cable to my fusebox.

It’s a new build house with FTTP. The place he drilled was nowhere near the grey BT box and yet the BT fibre optic cable was behind the mortar. He is saying, and I tend to agree, that where the fibre cable is located is against building regs.

Openreach coming out tomorrow to look.

I know this is bad, but can anyone put me out of my misery and advise just how bad. Both cables can be pulled out of the hole a reasonable distance. Is it possible for Openreach to do a fusion splice to repair them and then put them back in the hole and cement the hole?

Was the BT cable in the wrong place?

I’ve attached a photo. The hole is to the left of the virgin box. The small black power box is what the electrician has fitted after drilling another hole.

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I wouldn’t worry about it, Openreach will fix it. Worst case if it’s not repairable they’ll just have to run a new cable from the entry point into your home.

Is your Openreach ONT on the opposite side of the wall of that first hole? Seems bizarre for the cable to be running there and crossing over the Virgin entry point too.
 
When they built my house and pulled the fibre in they kinked it breaking it. Just needed them to pull in a new cable in, took them an hour to do it.
 
Sparx said:
I wouldn’t worry about it, Openreach will fix it. Worst case if it’s not repairable they’ll just have to run a new cable from the entry point into your home.

Is your Openreach ONT on the opposite side of the wall of that first hole? Seems bizarre for the cable to be running there and crossing over the Virgin entry point too.
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No the ONT is in a cupboard off the upstairs landing. I don’t think it would be easy for them to run a new cable there.

Really don’t understand why the BT cable was run off to the left of the virgin box.
 
Where else would they run the cable if it came from a duct underground? They probably saw you have other services in the same area of the house and placed it there.

Ideally you should have some ducting or conduit for cables to come into the house then they don't need to do any drilling, but that's rare for anyone to bother doing that.

I also don't think OpenReach would bother to cement any hole back up, they just drill and chuck the cable through. If you want a nicer job you probably have to end up doing it yourself.
 
moogle said:
Where else would they run the cable if it came from a duct underground? They probably saw you have other services in the same area of the house and placed it there.

Ideally you should have some ducting or conduit for cables to come into the house then they don't need to do any drilling, but that's rare for anyone to bother doing that.

I also don't think OpenReach would bother to cement any hole back up, they just drill and chuck the cable through. If you want a nicer job you probably have to end up doing it yourself.
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The duct where the cable comes from the ground is below the grey Openreach customer service point. It doesn’t make sense for the cable to then run from the customer service point, off to the left, lower down, hidden behind mortar to then run upstairs into a cupboard on the landing.

It was a new build house, the cable could have been run properly during build.
 
Ah gotcha, I thought there was an issue with the entry point. I thought OR would just get the cable into the property and not route it anywhere special.
 
It's tricky because technically fibre cabling didn't come under any sort of wiring regulations (it does now), though the spark is correct that burying it in the mortar is a really stupid way to go and there's no indication that there should be any problems putting a hole where one has been put - I can only assume the duct didn't line up with the place the fibre exited the house and the builder bodged it. FWIW the fibre cable in new builds is installed by the house builder and Openreach just splice it on the outside of the building.

Is there anything on the inside of the wall where the fibre cable goes through currently? What Openreach might do is splice the underground cable to another external rated (black) cable in the existing CSP on your wall and then run it inside and fit an internal splice to join it to the cable that is installed in the structure of your building (likely clipped to the blockwork behind plasterboard).
 
Caged said:
It's tricky because technically fibre cabling didn't come under any sort of wiring regulations (it does now), though the spark is correct that burying it in the mortar is a really stupid way to go and there's no indication that there should be any problems putting a hole where one has been put - I can only assume the duct didn't line up with the place the fibre exited the house and the builder bodged it. FWIW the fibre cable in new builds is installed by the house builder and Openreach just splice it on the outside of the building.

Is there anything on the inside of the wall where the fibre cable goes through currently? What Openreach might do is splice the underground cable to another external rated (black) cable in the existing CSP on your wall and then run it inside and fit an internal splice to join it to the cable that is installed in the structure of your building (likely clipped to the blockwork behind plasterboard).
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Thanks for the detailed reply. Do you know when fibre cables came under building regs? The house was built last June. Trying to work out who is responsible and will pay for the repair. Sounds like potentially the house builder shouldn’t have put the cable there.

I’m not entirely sure how far along the mortar the fibre cable runs before actually coming inside the property. Potentially there is a double power socket on the inside close to where it comes in, so not ideal.

Openreach coming shortly, will see what ideas they come up with.
 
18th edition amendment 2 was released in March this year, the extent that it covers data cabling is only where it's been put in ceilings along escape routes so wouldn't apply to your fibre installation, but it's just poor workmanship to have put it in that way. It's not reasonable to embed cables in mortar.

Openreach are unlikely to charge you for the repair, but they aren't going to redecorate if they have to cut into the internal walls either.

I think your best bet might be to chip the mortar out until you find where the fibre actually goes through the wall, cut open the plasterboard opposite this location, fit an internal CSP, and then run external cable from the internal CSP, through the wall, and clip it externally to the CSP that sits on top of the duct (or go down into the stones and back up).It looks like there's an old hole about 50mm to the left of the current hole so maybe have a scrape at that with something and see if you reveal anything.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions Caged. I’ve been quite fortunate that the BT engineer has managed to fix it with just a mortar repair now needed.

Luckily there was enough excess cable hidden in the wall inside the house that he could use to run to the CSP. He originally suggested running it across the wall externally but then agreed to remove the mortar and hide it where it was originally hidden.

The cable from inside the house was then fusion spliced to the cable from the duct.

He said that if there wasn’t as much excess cable from inside the house as there was it would have been a very difficult fix. Also agreed the cable shouldn’t have been there, the house builder brought it out externally in the wrong place originally and had to hide it behind the mortar to get it above the duct.

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Full marks to the engineer - I would suggest if you get a moment that you complete https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/thank-an-engineer-form because from what I hear it really makes a difference.

That's a terrible initial installation and I would suggest throwing it back to the builder to resolve, they can send a brickie out and have it pointed up again in an hour or so. At least you now have the photos of where the cable is. I wouldn't put mortar back where the Virgin Media coax cables go through the wall though - just leave that open and maybe put some clear silicone in so you can dig it out again without damaging the fibre.
 
I’ve contacted the builder to ask about doing the pointing. They’re still building houses onsite so shouldn’t be an issue.

I’ll get that form filled in for the engineer because he really was very helpful.
 
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