Will a Sky engineer do this for me?

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We are (hopefully!) moving house soon and I've booked the Sky transfer complete with an engineer to come round the day after we move in. I know the previous tenants had Sky, they confirmed for us and we saw the dish, remote etc

Couple of things that bug me;
1 - The dish is on the rear wall at the back of the house, not very high at all. Feels like I could jump up and touch it if I remember correct. It looks terrible as you look back from the garden.
2 - The cables look like they were literally chucked over the roof from the dish (rear) to the front of the house and they are dangling down in a very ugly way. Not pinned or tidied to the wall or anything.

So, would the engineer move the dish up a bit for me or will he just say "no need, it works". And (I'm hoping he would), would he pin and tidy the cables for us?

We're also looking to convert the loft and replace the roof asap. I'm guessing it's in my best interest not to tell him/her this (so he thinks what he's doing is final). So, I'm assuming at some point the cables will get cut away etc. Can I get Sky back to sort it out afterwards?

 

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Thanks guys.

I'd do as above and take the current one off, you'll get a brand new one then.

But will he not be tempted to fit it in the same spot?

Sky won't go into loft spaces, but I have pre-drilled the soffits in a house before where the dish was going on the opposite side of the house to the TV, and they had no issues passing me the cable through a hole and a box of clips to run it through the loft and poke down the other side. Then they clipped to the wall neatly as you'd expect.

So would it go through the loft and out the front externally? Or down into the lounge internally?

 

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Don't they need to carry out a risk assessment and call out the special heights team for jobs that involve going more than a few foot up a ladder?

In our current flat (first and second floor) we were lucky because we have no access to the garden/rear where the dish needed to go. However the engineer was nice, and I showed him that he could go out the back second floor/bedroom window and scoot around on a perfectly big bit of roof, to fit it on the side facing over the roof. I was very thankful he didn't do a "computer says no" on me.

Looking at pictures of the rear of our new house, the dish is actually right underneath one of the rear bedroom windows. I now remember that's what annoyed me more than seeing it from the garden It almost pokes over the window sill!

Perhaps my best bet is to leave it until we've done the loft extension.. ask the builders to remove it then I've got a good excuse to have it re-fitted? I also remembered that there seems to be two cables strung over the roof and into the front. The first I mentioned goes into the lounge, the second into the front bedroom. Would the Sky guy get rid of that? No need for the second cable no with SkyQ right? (Not that we'd ever use the second box)

 

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We were back at the house today. Not sure the dish can go anywhere else at the back to be honest. There's two first floor windows - it currently sits right under one. I think I can put up with that although you can just see the top of it from inside which is annoying. The only other space is in between the two windows but that's above the rear 'extension' roof which is practically falling apart*. I don't think he/she could lean across to put it there

(*This will be resolved when we have work done on the kitchen/rear of the house).

The cables annoy me though. They go up and over the roof, not even straight. There's one cables that goes immediately down and into the lounge which isn't too bad. But then another which goes across under the front bedroom windows and into that room. Which we don't need.

• Will the engineer get rid of the second cable going into the front bedroom?
• Will he seal the holes it leaves if he does?

Sky won't go into loft spaces, but I have pre-drilled the soffits in a house before where the dish was going on the opposite side of the house to the TV, and they had no issues passing me the cable through a hole and a box of clips to run it through the loft and poke down the other side. Then they clipped to the wall neatly as you'd expect.

Do you think the Sky engineer would drill those holes for me and I could go into the loft and pass it through? Not sure if this may cause me more issues seen as we're going to convert the loft shortly (best not mention that to him)? The roof will be replaced anyway, so the way I see it the cable is going to get cut at some point..

 

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You've not mentioned the house being taller than two stories so I would imagine you'd be fine getting them to drill holes and you grab the cable. They are usually pretty accommodating but - like most 'installers' as opposed to a trade you've hired - they just won't go into lofts as the liability is too great and people love to pack them with junk.

Thanks I think I will go with this as the first option. See if I can persuade him to do that as an opening gambit. Helps I work for a sister company (staff account woop), the engineer that fitted it here in our current place was very accommodating and broke a few rules to get it done for us. Not sure how he could make sure to drill in the right place from outside though? Guess it doesn't matter as long as it comes in to the loft somewhere right?

There's always the option of asking a satellite and aerials company to do the installation for you, and then you can have the cables run how and where you want, in exchange for paying for their time. A Sky installer with a target to get x dishes up per day and installing yours for free isn't going to get the same level of job completed.

I think we might have to plump for this. The whole Sky/cable thing is my girlfriend's pet peeve (she would go back to four channels if she had her way) so any cable untidiness really riles her up I can't remember where I found them but a company like Caversham Cables (didn't want to link directly) seem like the type of thing. Assuming the Sky guy doesn't do it to standard we could get them in. We also want to run ethernet to parts of the house so that would work nicely to get them round for that too, seen as in my other thread people are recommending getting someone specifically for networking, and not just an electrician.

If you're not using that then you could just unscrew it from the LNB and remove the cable and fill the hole in the wall after? As mentioned above you could also get a local independent company to do this for you or help with parts that you don't/can't do.

Thanks. I might take a look at that today when we head round. Otherwise, as above!

 

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Sooo...installer may well go into attic, based on my personal experience

Good to know thanks. I will certainly offer to run the cables through the loft for him if he will remove the old ones hanging over the roof! I suspect he won't go that high on his own though...

Just a silly check here but like I mentioned there are two cables coming into the house - one lounge, one bedroom. With SkyQ you only need the one into the lounge right? Not that we have a second TV but if we did the Mini box runs wirelessly from the main one right? So, definitely no need for the second point coming in?

 

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The Q box has 2 dish inputs. Both of them need to be connected.

Yep. The Mini box isn't physically connected to the dish. It connects to the main box over wifi or ethernet.

Sorry yes we have the two cables into the lounge, and two cables into the bedroom. So, as per your second point I can safely get rid of the cables going into the bedroom because if we were to use the Mini it just connects to the main box via wifi

I'm now wondering if I do manage to get him to feed the cables through the loft, what will happen to them when we get our loft converted?