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We're having a path made in our front garden which will go between the Virgin cable point in the road and the house. So a new cable install would have to go under it.
It's a pricey path, 200mm of pavers, mortar bed and hardcore. I wouldn't want it dug up.
The existing copper cable has been damaged in the past and the repair was spliced and taped so it would be impossible for the engineer to pull the old cable through the existing conduit.
They're preparing the 800 mm wide path bed today. I've got a broken carbon fibre windsurfing mast and I was thinking I could lay a 1.5m length of the intact bit under the path, with a length of nylon strap through it then sealed with gaffer tape.
Would this be a viable way to get a new cable through? I can lay it in a straight line from the corner of the house towards the road and document it.
Sounds perfect to me. I am not any sort of builder though
We had a new driveway put in and the people who did it put down a long blue flexible tube with some wire through it.
Worked very well once we had persuaded Virgini Media that no, they really did not need to dig up the driveway.
Fftp providers will go under ground if you live in an area with no poles for the existing copper. (If you have poles in the street it will go over the poles)
Bt
Plus net
Sky ect.....
Virgin will go underground and happily use the conduit.
Just remember fibre doesn't do sharp turns, so make sure the conduit isn't going to cause an abrupt turn before / after.
I think I'd just use a piece of Alkathene (water pipe) which you can add a bend to (i.e. up to the surface at each end) rather than a broken mast - which won't bend but will conduct electicity assuming carbon.
Thanks guys. I've put a bit of plastic pipe inside the mast, with a bit of spare cable inside that so an installer can choose what to use to feed the new cable through. I don't think the conductivity of the carbon mast is going to trouble the photons in the fibre optic cable though.
It’s a pricey path, 200mm of pavers, mortar bed and hardcore.
That's really short, can't imagine it would be that expensive tbh.
I'd use string not cable (in the sailing world it's called a mouse) - easier to tie something to.
just had openreach install FTTP - the lad fished the cable up the same conduit under the drive that the old copper BT ran in. Original conduit must date back to when the housing estate was built in the 80s
My experience is the opposite of @sharkbait's suggestion.
Mice will eat string that you leave to pull cables through, so it's useless when you need it.