Installer charging for in ground installation.
- Thread starter lefatman
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I know in my area we either do Pole Mounts or Roof Mounts through the shingles only, we do not use any other mounting issue, also if that one customer wanted nothing visible outside, and the dish 80' out from the house we would have told her it couldn't be done, our warehouse policy is no trench over 50' anything more than that is not only a waste of the techs time in trenching, but it ends up being a service call waiting to happen when the customer digs right through the cable, also, we do not mount our ground block inside of those nice little or big cable boxes, we will instantly fail a QC if we use them, or the QC person can't see our ground block and service loops.
As far as dish mounting though, about 98% of my installs are pole mounts, and since I don't work for contractor or sub-contracter I don't get the dealings of the customer when they find out they are being charged more because I had to use a pole.
As far as the sales rep lying, they are commenting on the non-contracted installers doing the work for free. I go to the customers house and do the install how the customers wants it no matter how hard of a job or how much time it takes, and it is all included in the install, with no extra charge, with a few exceptions like I mentioned above.
As far as dish mounting though, about 98% of my installs are pole mounts, and since I don't work for contractor or sub-contracter I don't get the dealings of the customer when they find out they are being charged more because I had to use a pole.
As far as the sales rep lying, they are commenting on the non-contracted installers doing the work for free. I go to the customers house and do the install how the customers wants it no matter how hard of a job or how much time it takes, and it is all included in the install, with no extra charge, with a few exceptions like I mentioned above.
At our house no matter where you put the dish it has a clear line of sight, so when the installer came out he went over a few options with us on what we could do and where to put the dish. He stated that he'll charge a fee for a pole mount, but was soon obvious as soon as we went to the back of the house (south/ southwest prt of house) and he looked up and saw how high he had to go to do a roof mount he looked at me and ask if a pole mount was ok and he will waive all installation charges. Guess He's AFFAIRD Of Heights!!! So we didnt have to pay a dime.
no one ever considers the labor of actually digging the hole, leveling the pole while cement drys, then actually having to wait (time is money) for everything to set to align the damn dish. If its a line of sight issue, then the pole is free yes, and SOME hsps will give the tech the pole for free (were still out cement and labor) and most techs hate that if not all of us. What I usually do is tell the customer Ill do the pole for 75, and if they object then say well I guess i could do it for 60 (to try to still make something off of it) and if they still wont pay, tough sht, then i say ok, well you can either buy the pole off me for 15 or 20 bucks (std or hd pending) or go to lowes/home depot/wherever and buy either a 1 5/8 or 2" OD (stressing OUTER DIAMETER) pole yourself, mount it yourself, and dig the trench up to the house yourself, and reschedule for after all that is done. I dont work for free and yes when you do a pole mount it should take you over an hour.
EDIT* Oh and good luck finding a 2" OD Pole.
EDIT* Oh and good luck finding a 2" OD Pole.
I currently have Dish and am thinking about switching to D*.
My current dish is mounted on a pole because Dish could not be a los from the roof of the house.
Would this be a "standard" installation or would I be charged extra because it is a pole mount. Also, can D* use my current cabling or would new cable have to be run?
I understand, and agree, that installers are not paid a lot and need to make a living. I just want to know what my sititation would be.
All you installers out there keep up the good work!
Thanks for your help. Oh yes, I am a novice
My current dish is mounted on a pole because Dish could not be a los from the roof of the house.
Would this be a "standard" installation or would I be charged extra because it is a pole mount. Also, can D* use my current cabling or would new cable have to be run?
I understand, and agree, that installers are not paid a lot and need to make a living. I just want to know what my sititation would be.
All you installers out there keep up the good work!
Thanks for your help. Oh yes, I am a novice
depends if you are getting hd or standard, depends if our dish will fit your pole, and yes we will use every existing wire we can (of good quality) to avoid running our own. Time and money again. If you have a dish 500 then our standard will fit on the pole just fine, if your getting hd, and have a 500, then we will need to redo the pole or cap the existing. Capping is actually against code, but again, time and availability of 2" poles compared to you the customer not wanting another pole. Note that if you want your existing pole removed before having the new one mounted, thats an additional 65$ on top of the 75$. If you have a superdish or a 1000 series, our hd dish will fit on it, but our standard will not, and you will NEED a new pole. Give us some more info please? What dish net dish do you have and what type of d* install are you looking for?
Thanks for your reply.
I am looking to having HD.
The original installation was a Superdish and was replaced with a Dish 500.
Hope this info helps.
when they changed you to dish 500 did they put a little adapter on the pole that looks like it kinda screws into the middle of the opening on it to accommodate the smaller diameter of the dish500?
If so then your pole was origionally used to hold the super dish which is about the size of our ka/ku (Hd dish) and *SHOULD* work fine. Noting I have never ran into this in the field and never done this, but the J-Pipes are nearly identical for the super and kaku. the line of sight for the superdish is very close to our kaku as well. you should be good to use the existing setup, how many wires are running off of the origional pole from your dish? and are theyre any diplexers? (looks like a 1x2 cable splitter) we may need to run additional wires depending on how many boxes of what type you want and have. How many e* physical boxes do you currently have, how many tvs do those boxes opperate, and how many tvs will be hooked up to d* ? also any dvrs? how many? sorry i was vague in my first post, just trying to help though.
If so then your pole was origionally used to hold the super dish which is about the size of our ka/ku (Hd dish) and *SHOULD* work fine. Noting I have never ran into this in the field and never done this, but the J-Pipes are nearly identical for the super and kaku. the line of sight for the superdish is very close to our kaku as well. you should be good to use the existing setup, how many wires are running off of the origional pole from your dish? and are theyre any diplexers? (looks like a 1x2 cable splitter) we may need to run additional wires depending on how many boxes of what type you want and have. How many e* physical boxes do you currently have, how many tvs do those boxes opperate, and how many tvs will be hooked up to d* ? also any dvrs? how many? sorry i was vague in my first post, just trying to help though.
If it's gonna take your tech a week to wire 57 lines as you discribed you need a new tech.
This is exactly what DTV wanted to avoid.
Each job IS different but if every installation were subject to bidding by three or more competent contractors the DTV numbers would be far below what they managed to misrepresent into being.
Any contractor who will just lower a price to get a job needs to expect a change will come. He will be out of business. The customer must adjust expectations to get any change from a competent bid. The FREE DTV installation is not everything.....it is just enough to get started.
Pricing unseen work.....without a written specification.......urf!
Joe
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D* now has a set price list for custom installations done by all techs, so call and find out....
I'm tired of bad grammer! The word "your" is improperly used!
I'm tired of bad grammar ! Grammar is mispelled.
I'm tired of bad grammar ! Grammar is mispelled.
Ok in regards to your speculation about why Dish and Directv stopped charging your completely wrong. Both companies stopped all the additional charges after commercials started running about all the additional cost's as compared to what cable does or rather doesn't charge for back in 2001 and the commercial was funded by the cable council. In 2002 Dish stopped some of the charges in February and the rest went a little later, Dish also reworked installers pay as they dropped incentives and bonuses and commissions from additional labor charges and up selling added equipment.
Some guys do use added work on a job to get out of it while others call NLOS or future NLOS and other reason's but I can tell you at least from my experience I rarely ever had a customer turn down a job because of added work and part's even when the bill would total $400 - $1,200, maybe in your experience it came down to how the sale was pitched and the personality of the salesman?
Pole mounts are a pain in some area's of Michigan to do and you should know that since you installed at one time in the past. Some area's are known for clay soil while others are known for rocky soil and others for sandy soil, remember trying to dig out a three footer with a post hole digger in solid farm field clay? I know I did enough of them west of Adrian and in the winter to boot when there was no non pens to be found. Trenching a line through tree roots and rocks is also a pain in the ass and having to do it through a forest 250ft to a house is labor intensive just as it is digging the damned hole in poor soil conditions by hand.
I respect that you have built a business and a successful one at that in an industry that has been struggling for a while now but maybe you should get out from behind the counter for a week and get back out in the field so your body and soul can remember what its like to install again.
After 55 posts Van finally mentioned the detail that cable companies do not normally charge for installation, unless you want something special. I've had satellite and I've had cable. The first dish we had was Primestar. Mounted on a pole so the installers could shoot between the trees. The installation was not free, and we paid extra, although after 15 years I don't remember how much. The installers also somehow managed to knock almost every panel out of a dropped ceiling in our basement, breaking a number of them. I still don't know how they did it, because I moved cables around a number of times as we would shift locations on the tvs. When we were switched to DirecTV the tech used the same pole and cables. We had cable in other locations prior to that, and in two other locations since. We are planning on going back to DirecTV after the last of the kids moves out the end of June, and we don't need so many tv's hooked up. Our cable installations have never cost us anything, and while the cable wasn't invisible, they were decent installations with good quality cable. So if a customer has had cable, which didn't cost him anything to have installed, and the advertising says the installation is free, why are you guys so surprised that the customer expects a free installation? Actually, around here most of the installations are neither roof or pole mounts. I'd say about 80% are mounted to the side of the house. Which is where I figure mine will go, since I don't think anyone is going to want to climb a ladder to get to the roof of my house, and drilling a few holes in the concrete foundation will be a lot easier than setting a pole. The cement foundation comes up about 6 foot high on the south side of the house, with a vacant lot on the other side of the alley.
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