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

[B_Kranski]

Simple reply, "expect what you would do"

That means expect what you would do for a certain price.
Also means expect what you would do as a person.
Also remember, customers goes to work, customers pays bills, dish pays installers to install, dish pays launch companies to launch, and launch companies pays employees to launch, which then may become customers, the world goes round and round.

moral of the story...This guys paid for an install, dish paid the installer to install the working system, but they have guidlines on what they include in that price. If that is the only way to get the syetm running is to run 250 of coax, and only 50 feet is covered, then the rest should be the customers responsibility, however. Remember, that that customer is paying your bill, maybe not directly, but with monthly charges. So treat him with respect, because if you don't, he tells his friends that dish sucks and then you lose the potential for more installs. Kindly let him know that only 50' is covered and tell him the price that would be to bury it himself. Or kindly offer ideas on how to get it burried.

Alot to be said about people in the customer service buisness if they don't respect the customer. I know if I go to Best Buy and some rep said get off your lazy %$$, I would find my way to the next electronics store.

Just respect the customer as they do pay the bill, the customer should also respect the limits of what the installer can do for free.

 

[vurbano]

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?

1. Cable repairs are only free if you are on a protection plan.
2. Satellite is far more expensive than cable. You can get basic service on multiple TV sets in your home with cable with no extra boxes or fees, impossible with satellite.

 

[Claude Greiner]

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!

Exactly! Whenever you leave it to the customer to complete the Job, they never do and you ended up getting called back out to complete it reguardless what was origionally agreed upon.

I know there are alot of installers on this board, but in my opinion a pole a mount is part of the standard installation and so is burrying cable. Its un-accecptable in my book to leave cable running accross the ground!

Im not saying you need to dig a 24 inch deep trench, but the least the installer could have done is get a shovel split away the ground and burried the cable a few inches below ground level!

If the installer wants to play the $1.00 per foot game, he better be doing it right and going down 6-8 inches and putting it in plastic couduit.

Personally the way I see it, you got a 90 day warranty on the work. As soon as the dog chews through the cable or it gets cut by the lawnmower, I would play dumb like the rest of the customers out there and request a free service call to come out and fix it

 

[msa6]

1. Cable repairs are only free if you are on a protection plan.
2. Satellite is far more expensive than cable. You can get basic service on multiple TV sets in your home with cable with no extra boxes or fees, impossible with satellite.

Cable doesn't charge for work outside the house (like the drop from the street to the house). In my view, Dish shouldn't either. And I don't mean that the installer should do it for nothing. I mean that paying for Dish service should include the company getting the signal to the house. There's a "do it yourself" element to this that doesn't make sense, at least not in the highly competitive environment for pay TV today.

 

[ts7]

I don't think it is reasonable to expect the installer or Dish to bury a cable 250'. I recently had to move my dish from roof to pole mount to pick up HD. This involved about 75' of extra cable. Installer provided cable, pole mount, etc at no charge to me. They were also willing to bury but I wanted it in conduit so I rented a trencher ($60 for 4 hours) and dug the trench myself. This thing cut through tree roots like butter. I ended up with a 7" deep trench that I dropped 1.5" conduit into. The installer was more than happy to re-run the temp drop through my conduit and reconnect.

Bottom line, for about $150 or so, you could probably rent a trencher, dig a trench yourself, drop plastic conduit in it and run all new cable, abandoning any old stuff eliminating the concern of locating/cutting into the old stuff. Adding a pull string would give you the flexibility to pull more cable in the future.

 

[cybertrip]

I'm not asking for a house/garage run. I'm asking for the equivalent of the run from the street to the house...the cable company doesn't charge for that, does it? Comcast's network comes close to my house, and then they finish it up with the drop. Dish's network comes close (out 250' from the house), and then I think they should finish it with the drop to the house.

And I'm all in favor of people getting paid for their work. I don't want anything done at my house by someone who's not getting paid. I just think EchoStar should pay for his time, not me. Or they should never install a dish further from the home than they're willing to bury the coax run.

The cable company would be responsible for the cable between the street and your house. Satellite's equivellent is that they are not technically responsible for any premise equipment or cabling. They offer a 4 room install for free, outside wiring only, unless pre-wired. The satellite is supposed to be installed as close to the entry way as possible. A 250' run of cable from the dish to the house is not a standard installation and falls outside of their scope. It is up to the customer to provide proper line of site as close to the home as possible.

Cable doesn't charge for work outside the house (like the drop from the street to the house). In my view, Dish shouldn't either. And I don't mean that the installer should do it for nothing. I mean that paying for Dish service should include the company getting the signal to the house. There's a "do it yourself" element to this that doesn't make sense, at least not in the highly competitive environment for pay TV today.

Dish already gets the signal to your home. It's at everyone's home. It's up to the customer to get the equipment and have it installed to decode the signal. The highly competitive market cannot afford to be doing abnormal installs for free. Even cable doesn't do abnormal installs for free. Cable will usually run the cable to your house and offer two room installs for free. Anything after that comes at cost. Cable is also shooting themselves in the foot by doing 300'+ RG-11 trenched runs for free as they pay quite a bit of money to run that line to the home and if the customer cancels service then it is wasted money. I understand what you are talking about, but you need to understand the business portion. They can't make everyone happy or they would not be making money. If everyone was happy with one service do you think there would be competition?

 

[Liquidforce88]

Cable around here does not bury for free. I don't know about other areas. At my house They would only fly it to the house, if I wanted it in the ground it was extra.

Also everything is not free with Comcast here. Try getting those guys out for a service call. $30 for some guy to come out and hand me a cable modem. $29 for every outlet you want hooked up in the house, you only get 1 free. Then when you figure it's $60 for just basic, Dish was a far better deal for me.

I know in more urban areas they are more competitive, but when you are out in a small town and they are the only game in town, they charge that heck out of you.

Now as a tech I would have explained to the customer that after 50' burial cost extra. That 50 is only included on an install. I have never run into a situation where a service call needed a new line run that had to be buried. At the rates that Dish pays for a service call I would not bury any of it for free. With the amount gas costs these days the pay for a service call hardly pays for the gas to get to the job.

As the customer I understand the question of "Why should I have to bury it". Then again it is part of the customers responsiblity to know what they are getting when they sign up for a service or when they buy anything. Although all any customer ever hears is the free part of the Standard installation.

To the original poster. All you have to do is split the grass and push the cable in. Your shovel will probably not hurt the old cable as you will be running parallel to it, just take it easy when you encounter any resistance.

 

[memory]

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.

Man people like thsi piss me off as a installer I mean so what you have been a customer for yada yada years that doesnt mean diddly to the installer or dish or direct. If I put a pole in the ground Ill bury the first 35 ft and then its 2 dollars a foot if you want me to do it. SOOOO either pay someone else to do it and stop bitching and do it yourself I mean he went above the call of duty and put a pole 250 ft from your ho use to get you service that YOU wanted!!!

 

[Van]

Cable will bring a drop to the house, after that they charge per line to get it into your house if there's no lines in the house or the ones in there are not useable. If the pole is far from the house then they'll bury but there will be a charge to trench a line to the house, if you want a pole expect to pay out a small fortune.

No telco or cable or dbs company will give everything for free that would be foolish but they will give some things free. The bottom line here is that dish has a standard install plan that covers what is now considered standard such as 120ft of coax, a pole mount, 50ft of trenched line, crawl space work, attic work, one exterioir wall penetration, interior wall penetrations, hooking up receiver to vcr and tv, a standard wall fish, labour time for the installation, most equipment free. The break down goes something like this.

Labour $59 an hour
Pole mount $99 ( includes hole dug, cement, pole )
Attic / Crawlspace is labour charge at a minimum of 1 hour
Line trench $1 per foot
Equipment ranges from $0.50 up to $500

In house techs wont ever see a dime of any labour charges or additional equipment charges, but subs will see money from labour charges. Subs are almost exclusively paid by the job and time is the most precious commodity they have and for all installers its in short supply.

For the OP I see your point but your expectations are better suited to a high end luxury car dealership not a dbs provider that you can find in $500 mobile homes or crack houses in the bad side of town.

Now onto a simple way to find the old cable, take one end of the bad line and start pulling it up as you walk along wich will make a guide for you to bury the new one. Someone else suggested soaking the ground and using the old to pull the new one through, this is a gamble thats not in your favour so dont try it.

I'd also consider calling the contractor office that came out and did the work to see about getting something worked out with them to get this line buried, expect to pay something but if they arent willing to work with you then let them know you'll be calling to dish.

 

[edpkp81]

Last year I had my dish moved from the side of my house to the front of my property . The installer took the original coax (2 lines), pulled them back to my switch then ran them up the other side of the house. He then added a double female connector then ran some new coax up to the new dish location. He told me I had to do the burying. When I added HD about 6 months later, a different installer ran another run of coax from my wing dish to the switch (about 100'). He, too, told me I had to bury the coax myself. I really didn't give it much thought.

 

[chadzx11]

Exactly! Whenever you leave it to the customer to complete the Job, they never do and you ended up getting called back out to complete it reguardless what was origionally agreed upon.

I know there are alot of installers on this board, but in my opinion a pole a mount is part of the standard installation and so is burrying cable. Its un-accecptable in my book to leave cable running accross the ground!

Im not saying you need to dig a 24 inch deep trench, but the least the installer could have done is get a shovel split away the ground and burried the cable a few inches below ground level!

If the installer wants to play the $1.00 per foot game, he better be doing it right and going down 6-8 inches and putting it in plastic couduit.

Personally the way I see it, you got a 90 day warranty on the work. As soon as the dog chews through the cable or it gets cut by the lawnmower, I would play dumb like the rest of the customers out there and request a free service call to come out and fix it

I agree. I see a lot of inhouse techs making excuses, but nobody but me and you who have to buy our own insurance. These guys have no concept of liability. I would not have put a dish 250" away from the house, but if I remote the dish, the cable is getting burried. I'd rather spend an unproductive half hour protecting my ass than getting sued by a personal injury ambulance chaser.

Anyway, anything over about 50 feet would have me telling the customer that some coduit needs to magically appear before I finish.

Personally, I used to hate going behind non trench digging aholes. Luckily, when I find that crap now, all I have to do is photograph it. IMO, what I see now is worse, because these guys are charging 150 for a pole mount and NOT burying the cable. That is messed up, IMO.

I didn't bury deep, and here's why: I would rather have it ~4 inches underground and thus able to be pulled up in case the guy or gal needs to dig. Try to keep it in a straight line from the dish. If I had to replace a line, I would probably do both. Better safe than sorry.

 

[rcdallas]

Just a good reason why they need to sub out the burying to a contractor. Cable company does this.

I buried almost all my installs. I'm not afraid to work.

 

[PKII]

I have mine about 100 feet from the dish. I put in a plastic pipe so I could easily change the cable if needed. (after many years of digging up the wire and replacing it many times) lol

 

[Jared Twomey]

I agree. I see a lot of inhouse techs making excuses, but nobody but me and you who have to buy our own insurance. These guys have no concept of liability.

I'm not in-house, and have my own liability... that said, I only do what I am paid to do. For the first few years I did all kinds of free work, then I realized I wasn't making any money.
As far as the liability goes... if I ever leave a line above ground for whatever reason, everything is noted on the work order and signed off on by the customer. And I also use that orange utility marking spray paint to mark the line so that the customer sees it.

 

[Van]

He then added a double female connector

If its outside then thats not a good thing, dish policy is no outside splices of the coax using barrels.

 

[Van]

I'm not in-house, and have my own liability... that said, I only do what I am paid to do. For the first few years I did all kinds of free work, then I realized I wasn't making any money.
As far as the liability goes... if I ever leave a line above ground for whatever reason, everything is noted on the work order and signed off on by the customer. And I also use that orange utility marking spray paint to mark the line so that the customer sees it.

Inhouse or not I dont work for free either, its one thing to do something small but when your getting into heavy work and or time consuming work that will add hours to your day then no way not without compensation because the last thing that'll happen is someone else picking up your 4 room install that you wont be able to get too until 8pm instead of 4pm because you've been to nice and moving mountains all day.

I dont think any of the installers here are afraid of working but there is a diference between working hard and working stupid and unfortunately E and D are trying hard as hell to get its installers to work as stupid as possible.

 

[wmi]

Inhouse or not I dont work for free either, its one thing to do something small but when your getting into heavy work and or time consuming work that will add hours to your day then no way not without compensation because the last thing that'll happen is someone else picking up your 4 room install that you wont be able to get too until 8pm instead of 4pm because you've been to nice and moving mountains all day.

I dont think any of the installers here are afraid of working but there is a diference between working hard and working stupid and unfortunately E and D are trying hard as hell to get its installers to work as stupid as possible.

Amen to that. What a lot of customers don't understand is Dish is sending us out with 15-17 hours of work each day and expecting us (and telling the customers) we will be at that last job by 5 p.m.
And that eliminates us doing ANYTHING extra like we use to back in days when we only had 3 jobs and time to work most everything to the customer's liking.

But then again I don't really expect the customer to understand when I myself don't understand the irrationality of it.

 

[Scott6760]

I read the entire thread and never once saw this asked...what happened 8 or 10 years ago when you were originally installed? Did the installer bury the cable for free, or did you pay him after the first 50 feet? If I'm not mistaken, the install wasn't even free back then. So most likely you paid for the install, and paid extra for the pole mount and to have the 250 feet of cable buried. If I was your tech I would have buried the first 50 feet and offered to bury the rest for a charge. On a run that long I probably would do it for a flat fee of about $150, but came back another day with my trencher.

If you want to do it right, I would pull up BOTH old lines and when they come up they will leave a small trench behind. You will just need to widen this trench with a flat shovel. Discard both old lines, even the one that is still 'good' because if one failed the other isn't far behind. Run one more new line from the dish to the house and bury them both. You don't need conduit, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

You probably won't get anywhere by calling Dish, unless they send an in-house tech out. If you don't want to do the work yourself look up a local Dish retailer in the phone book.

 

[rcdallas]

An in-house tech can do it with reason, by means of how long the actual install took, or the work load they have in front of them, etc.., they paid by the hour, anyone doing piece work I certainly would not do it for free, nor expect nonetheless.

I took pride in my installs, certain things I would do, others such as DVD hookups or moving of furniture, etc... not part of the game.

I held a very low TC12 rate and maintained gold status 6 months in a row, I didn't get that way by sitting on my ass and watching the grass grow beneath my feet.

Again burying should be contracted out. No headaches no fuss.

 

[msa6]

I read the entire thread and never once saw this asked...what happened 8 or 10 years ago when you were originally installed? Did the installer bury the cable for free, or did you pay him after the first 50 feet? If I'm not mistaken, the install wasn't even free back then. So most likely you paid for the install, and paid extra for the pole mount and to have the 250 feet of cable buried. If I was your tech I would have buried the first 50 feet and offered to bury the rest for a charge. On a run that long I probably would do it for a flat fee of about $150, but came back another day with my trencher.

If you want to do it right, I would pull up BOTH old lines and when they come up they will leave a small trench behind. You will just need to widen this trench with a flat shovel. Discard both old lines, even the one that is still 'good' because if one failed the other isn't far behind. Run one more new line from the dish to the house and bury them both. You don't need conduit, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

You probably won't get anywhere by calling Dish, unless they send an in-house tech out. If you don't want to do the work yourself look up a local Dish retailer in the phone book.

Good question, regarding the original install. Paid nothing on the burial because we left it above ground at that time...the house was newly built, and the yard wasn't fully graded yet. When that work was done, we buried it (the guy who did yard prep did the burial). Dish never told me that I "owned" the coax after the first 50' of burial. Live and learn.

We've had a lot of rain (VA), and I managed to get about half buried yesterday with a shovel, and hope to do the other half later in the week. All things being equal, I'd rather see it buried in conduit. Maybe some other time (or the next time it goes bad!).

Let me reiterate one more time: I have no interest in an installer working at my home for free. Whoever buries my coax (if it's not me) should be paid a fair wage. My question is who should pay...me or Dish. Their economics, and success, say that beyond 50' the customer should pay. I guess I would conclude by saying they should make that very clear to a customer before installation, because long coax runs can be problematic, as I've learned. Or they should not do installations more than 50' from the house. Or they should pay to bury the full run. But not informing me on installation, and then telling me that I have to pay to bury a new line when the old one goes bad, doesn't work. I guess the fact that we left the original install unburied is where the problem began.

Have a nice holiday.