New Coax Run...Why Do I Have to Bury it Myself?

[msa6]

I have been a Dish customer since the company had only one satellite in orbit (and am a long time investor). I just had a problem resolved at my home...and now have a new 250' coax run from the dish to the side of the house sitting on top of my lawn, waiting for the dog to chew through it (we live in a heavily wooded area, and the dish is in the only spot that works). The contractor would only bury 25', and I'm responsible for the rest. What's up with that? I have neither the time nor the tools to bury the coax, nor do I think it should be my responsibility. It's not wiring in the house, it's wiring associated with getting the signal all the way to the house. It would be like Comcast (which took over the Adelphia system in my town about a year ago) telling me that I'm responsible for burying the drop from the street to the house.

Even if I want to pay someone to do the work (and I'm guessing it would cost me $150 or more around here), I don't even know where to begin finding someone to do this kind of work (the contractor does 25' or less, nothing more).

Any thoughts on what to do? Adelphia was terrible, but Comcast is much better. I'm thinking that a threat of moving to cable is in order here...get out to my house and bury that cable or I'm goine.

Anyone care to chime in?

Thanks.

 

[webbydude]

Actually, I think the footage is 50' for free. But then again, if it was the local retailer, he's free to tell how much he buries for free.

As to the cable/satellite comparison, that in itself gets shot down when you factor in service/repair calls are FREE with the cable companies. Hence one of the reasons why it's more expensive per month.

Just out of curiousity, how much did your technician tell you it would be if he was to bury it?

 

[nsafreak]

I have been a Dish customer since the company had only one satellite in orbit (and am a long time investor). I just had a problem resolved at my home...and now have a new 250' coax run from the dish to the side of the house sitting on top of my lawn, waiting for the dog to chew through it (we live in a heavily wooded area, and the dish is in the only spot that works). The contractor would only bury 25', and I'm responsible for the rest. What's up with that? I have neither the time nor the tools to bury the coax, nor do I think it should be my responsibility. It's not wiring in the house, it's wiring associated with getting the signal all the way to the house. It would be like Comcast (which took over the Adelphia system in my town about a year ago) telling me that I'm responsible for burying the drop from the street to the house.

Even if I want to pay someone to do the work (and I'm guessing it would cost me $150 or more around here), I don't even know where to begin finding someone to do this kind of work (the contractor does 25' or less, nothing more).

Any thoughts on what to do? Adelphia was terrible, but Comcast is much better. I'm thinking that a threat of moving to cable is in order here...get out to my house and bury that cable or I'm goine.

Anyone care to chime in?

Thanks.

That's pretty much the common rule, 25-50' they will bury at no charge and they may not even attempt to do the rest. Mainly because of the time involved, digging the trench to bury 250' of cable is time consuming to say the least. Will threatening to go with cable get a tech out at no charge to bury the rest get it done? That's doubtful. You can give it a try but after that your options are:

1) Hire somebody to do it for you
2) Get out the shovel and do it yourself
3) Switch to another service

 

[Van]

Through dish inhouse its 50ft free and the rest is a dollar per foot, however as you detailed the line is running through a heavily wooded lot and that lends to a majour headache of roots wich will most likely require the use of a line trencher. When ever I had a line that ran through the woods I never buried it as getting through roots with a shovel is like trying to cut through concrete with a butter knife. Once to the lawn I'd bury it to the house short of any obstacles.

Its christmas break from school so find a teenager that needs some extra cash and pay him a buck a foot, he only has to go 2 inches down and a flat tip shovel is all he will need and maybe an axe to get through roots.

 

[webbydude]

and now have a new 250' coax run from the dish to the side of the house sitting on top of my lawn, waiting for the dog to chew through it (we live in a heavily wooded area, and the dish is in the only spot that works).

At the risk of kicking you when you're down, but that must be one heck of a dog you have. I have yet to see a dog chew on any coax...or anything else carrying a current. I don't think you're giving your dog enough credit. Most seem to have the ability to sense electrical current, and as such, won't mess with it.

 

[OoTLink]

Because you presented an unusual situation, and DN won't pay for it. You could've tried and argued the case on the phone to see if they'd pay the installer for it, but when Dish has to keep paying for all these things it eats into their profits and then they raise the rates. :|

A cable company may run 250' of wire to your house, but that depends on the situation. I can almost guarantee you they wouldn't run 250' of wire say, from your house to your garage. LOL.

 

[webbydude]

Because you presented an unusual situation, and DN won't pay for it. You could've tried and argued the case on the phone to see if they'd pay the installer for it, but when Dish has to keep paying for all these things it eats into their profits and then they raise the rates. :|

A cable company may run 250' of wire to your house, but that depends on the situation. I can almost guarantee you they wouldn't run 250' of wire say, from your house to your garage. LOL.

Good point...and catch.

Most often they'll not install a drop that far. At that distance, you're pushing theoretical limits for RG-11. If memory serves...300' is MAX for RG-11

Out of curiousity to the OP...what type of cable did your installer use? I'm going to guess it wasn't RG-6 (gawd, I hope it wasn't!!)

 

[585960]

After 50' its on you. And like Van said, if its wooded, twice as hard. And even if the ground isn't frozen where you live, thats about 200 more feet of 'fun' for you in the spring. So, my advice is to wait for spring and a day where you have about 1 1/2 hours to feel like a tech, happy holidaze!!!

 

[KAB]

Pay the piper!

 

[msa6]

Okay...a few answers.

First, on the dog...he's about nine months old, and has chewed through four (yes, four) extension cords (none plugged in!) out to xmas lights. Don't know if he'll mess with the coax; I coated it, using a sponge, with bitter apple before it got dark. We'll see.

Don't know what coax he laid out. Guess I should check. Someone want to tell me again what it should be, what it shouldn't be?

The run is pretty much all over grass/dirt, so roots won't be a huge problem. But you know what is a problem? The fact that I now have three coax cables running from the dish to the house. Two are buried, one good and one bad. The third is on top, and needs to be buried. How are we going to bury the third ourselves without risking that we cut the one good one that's buried? And why did the tech leave all three running into the feed horn? If I want to pull out the bad one (presumably this will show me the path to avoid when burying the new one), I'll have to take the feed horn apart. I know, not a big deal...but I'm just a customer here, and I don't want to monkey with that...I want to enjoy my holiday.

Is there any "consumer" friendly way to identify where the existing coax is buried? I don't think I'll get the electric company out here to mark the coax run in my back yard.

Finally, in terms of what the company should or should not do, I don't think there's any comparison between thinking Dish should bury the coax run from the dish to the house and asking them to run cable between the garage and the house. This is about finishing their network so that it reaches my house. My house is newly built (tore down the old one) and when it was finished, the cable company came out (as did the phone company) and ran brand new drops from the street right to the side of the house (and that was hard work...trees, rocks, hills, etc.). I want Dish to do the same...get the signal to the house, where I then "own it". Dish's network is a heck of a lot simpler, but I view it as their responsibility to get the signal to the coax in my house.

Don't get me wrong here...I've been involved with this company for many, many years...profesionally, as an investor, and as a company. I'm a big fan in every respect. I just don't think I should have to bother with burying the coax in my yard. That's their responsibility.

 

[KAB]

Okay...a few answers.

First, on the dog...he's about nine months old, and has chewed through four (yes, four) extension cords (none plugged in!) out to xmas lights. Don't know if he'll mess with the coax; I coated it, using a sponge, with bitter apple before it got dark. We'll see.

Don't know what coax he laid out. Guess I should check. Someone want to tell me again what it should be, what it shouldn't be?

The run is pretty much all over grass/dirt, so roots won't be a huge problem. But you know what is a problem? The fact that I now have three coax cables running from the dish to the house. Two are buried, one good and one bad. The third is on top, and needs to be buried. How are we going to bury the third ourselves without risking that we cut the one good one that's buried? And why did the tech leave all three running into the feed horn? If I want to pull out the bad one (presumably this will show me the path to avoid when burying the new one), I'll have to take the feed horn apart. I know, not a big deal...but I'm just a customer here, and I don't want to monkey with that...I want to enjoy my holiday.

Is there any "consumer" friendly way to identify where the existing coax is buried? I don't think I'll get the electric company out here to mark the coax run in my back yard.

Finally, in terms of what the company should or should not do, I don't think there's any comparison between thinking Dish should bury the coax run from the dish to the house and asking them to run cable between the garage and the house. This is about finishing their network so that it reaches my house. My house is newly built (tore down the old one) and when it was finished, the cable company came out (as did the phone company) and ran brand new drops from the street right to the side of the house (and that was hard work...trees, rocks, hills, etc.). I want Dish to do the same...get the signal to the house, where I then "own it". Dish's network is a heck of a lot simpler, but I view it as their responsibility to get the signal to the coax in my house.

Don't get me wrong here...I've been involved with this company for many, many years...profesionally, as an investor, and as a company. I'm a big fan in every respect. I just don't think I should have to bother with burying the coax in my yard. That's their responsibility.

As everyone here has said, there is a limit to what you should expect. If I were an installer, I would charge you big time!!

 

[iafirebuff]

The rabbits around here will chew through coax if it is left on the ground now that it is winter out - I ran a temp cable to a dish for a short itme and within a few days about 2 feet long of the outer cable plastic had been eaten away

At the risk of kicking you when you're down, but that must be one heck of a dog you have. I have yet to see a dog chew on any coax...or anything else carrying a current. I don't think you're giving your dog enough credit. Most seem to have the ability to sense electrical current, and as such, won't mess with it.

 

[iafirebuff]

I might ad that I have buried 100's of feet of cable around my yard, and I wait until the ground is wet and have at it - much easier then. I can usually bury 50-75' in about 15-20 minutes.

 

[webbydude]

The rabbits around here will chew through coax if it is left on the ground now that it is winter out - I ran a temp cable to a dish for a short itme and within a few days about 2 feet long of the outer cable plastic had been eaten away

LOL! Now rabbits. That's different. Those things will gnaw on just about anything. Not terribly bright when it comes to their teething habits.

 

[chadzx11]

At the risk of kicking you when you're down, but that must be one heck of a dog you have. I have yet to see a dog chew on any coax...or anything else carrying a current. I don't think you're giving your dog enough credit. Most seem to have the ability to sense electrical current, and as such, won't mess with it.

I've seen it on QC's. The last one I saw the dog chewed the wire at the ground block and the customer "fixed" them. I noted that, as the dog's fault, not the installers, but it is still documented. IMO, that should preclude any "free" service calls to that customer for any reason, but what do I know?

Whenever I run across unburried cable it gets noted as "trip hazzard" and escalated if its a high traffic area or crosses a sidewalk. I found one with conduit on top of the sidewalk when the rest of the run was burried, and a different one where the tech buried nothing, but did a sidewalk bore. WTFs up with that?


Personally, I buried my runs. I don't trust the customers enough to leave my ass swinging in the wind like that. All it takes is some geezer to trip and break his hip one time and you are screwed. Note to techs: just because that customer says he will bury the cable, not to worry about it does not mean he will do it. You can take that to the bank!

 

[daro]

Just grab a shovel and man up !

 

[msa6]

Any way of locating the existing, good buried coax short of ripping up the one bad one (which will mean taking apart the feed horn)? I recall a little gizmo from radio shack that you use with an AM radio to locate your underground dog fence. Anything similar for locating coax?

Look, Charlie can do whatever he wants in terms of deciding what he'll pay for, what he won't pay for. And i suppose the proof is in the numbers...in spite of only paying to bury 25' (or 50') he's gotten himself a few customers. But you know, the numbers aren't growing like they once did, and there are a few reasons. Market saturation is one. But another is the fact that cable is better than it used to be, and the advantages that satellite used to enjoy aren't what they once were. My town is a perfect, albeit extreme, example: the cable system stunk when it was un-bankrupt Adelphia, and was even worse when it was bankrupt Adelphia. Now it's Comcast, and the product and service are much, much better (and improving all the time). There was no option when I moved here four years ago. Now there is an option.

And while the market is pretty saturated, with 13 million customers (I think that's right) and churn of call it 1.6% per month (and moving up), Charlie has to sign up 3.2 million new people every year merely to end the year with the same number of customers he started the year with. That's heavy lifting in a saturated market with better cable competition. His ability to throw coax burial beyond 50' back at the customer may not cut it any more. It may not cut it for me, and I know the company (and it's management) very well.

I guess I might also think that after 10+ years (never a late payment!) you've earned a couple of hundred feet of free burial!

 

[chadzx11]

:yikes


The ones who need to man up are the installers on here.

WAH! I don't get paid enough! Snivel Snivel!




I happen to agree that most don't get paid enough. Instead of screwing over customers, some of us have chosen to move on.

 

[webbydude]

I could be wrong, but I think the 50' thing is universally accepted with both D* and E*. Currently D*'s churn rate is a hell of lot lower than E*.

As I stated earlier, a lot the reasons why the cable (Comcast for you) company is higher in monthly payments, is due to the built-in "free service" that is a part of your bill.

 

[webbydude]

:yikes


The ones who need to man up are the installers on here.

WAH! I don't get paid enough! Snivel Snivel!




I happen to agree that most don't get paid enough. Instead of screwing over customers, some of us have chosen to move on.

Oh, I'll bury...but only what I accepted when I signed on board with my RSP.