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

[darrencp22]

Dish has proven they dont want your business. See if direct will do it or switch to cable.

 

[iwc5893]

Dish has proven they dont want your business. See if direct will do it or switch to cable.

DirecTV has the same policies, depending upon which company does the install.

 

[cybertrip]

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.

Where I live Verizon and the Cable Co will trench for free. It makes sense. If they don't provide a service line then they don't get the customer.

 

[cybertrip]

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.

You own the dish, and all the cables. You are technically responsible for the dish and the cables after the installation or a month or two after the installation. This is why they offer the protection. You must understand that neither Dish or DirecTV operate the same way as a cable company. Generally a install farther than 50' is not normal. IMO that installer probably should not have even installed the dish at 250' as leaving the cable on the ground is not safe and the cable can easily be degraded because of rodents. How is the dish grounded? Because, it should be tied in with the home's electrical ground with no more than 30' of ground wire. When Dish and DirecTV were new, did they provide free installation for anything? No, you had to buy a self-install kit or pay for an installer. We are lucky that we get what we get now.

 

[Van]

Dish has proven they dont want your business. See if direct will do it or switch to cable.

Are you going to post in every thread where someone has had a bad experience with dish and try and make it more volatile?

Where I live Verizon and the Cable Co will trench for free. It makes sense. If they don't provide a service line then they don't get the customer.

I've heard of some places doing it but I wonder how far they will trench it free though.

 

[cybertrip]

Are you going to post in every thread where someone has had a bad experience with dish and try and make it more volatile?
I've heard of some places doing it but I wonder how far they will trench it free though.

When I worked at the cable co the max we could do is 300' of RG-11. Anything past that would've had to have been hard line which costs $$ so we would charge the customer for that. I've never ran in to an install that needed hard line unless the tap was on the other side of the street.

 

[Van]

I can think of one customer that did back in Michigan, he turned the cable company away and they never came back to get the spool they left sitting in his woods about 3/4's full.

 

[edpkp81]

Quote:
Originally Posted by edpkp81
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.

It's outside and buried!

 

[kb7oeb]

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 saw a video of a dog going to town on a cable tv wire that carries voltage to power phone equipment, you could tell he was getting zapped when he bit hard enough but he didn't stop.

 

[KAB]

Dish has proven they dont want your business. See if direct will do it or switch to cable.

Your obsession is disturbing!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kru83]

the main reason the guy did not burried the whole cable run is cause he was there on service call, which he probably got paid flat rate of 35 dollar. he does not get paid extra for the 250 feet of cable that he ran.

if it was new connect he might have burried the cable cause new connect pays more..

also dont the cable company have the trenching machines ??? i never seen cable company with shovel trenching lines.

 

[Van]

Quote:
Originally Posted by edpkp81
He then added a double female connector




It's outside and buried!

Oh not good at all, that line will get flooded, I'd call dish and get this line replaced soon. I've had to replace lines where an installer did the same thing, one had wrapped it in cloth tape while another had put weather boots, smeared silicone, and wrapped it in plastic and rubber bands to close the plastic and both of these still got water into the lines.

 

[Jared Twomey]

I would never bury a line at a customers house, but at my house I have a line that has been buried for 5 years now, with never a problem. I just put dielectric grease in the connectors, used heat shrink tubing, and then wrapped it very tightly with electrical tape.

 

[ddgtomahawk]

Are you going to post in every thread where someone has had a bad experience with dish and try and make it more volatile?
I've heard of some places doing it but I wonder how far they will trench it free though.

Verizon wanted 600-850 to get to my house a buried acre run- I just ask them out of pure interest didnt want to get it or I would dig it myself but hey I say just dig it let the poor guy go. Which the Op is doing so cool

 

[dishcomm]

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.

I work for a DNS contractor. We are responsible for the first 50 feet. Thereafter it is $1.50 per foot to bury. If a trencher is needed there is a small fee for that.
Of course Dish Network employees may have different rules.
A littel commom sense here.
Obviously the time and effort to bury 200 feet of cable is extensive. Would you not think there should be additional charges necessary to complete that work?
BTW On the Dish Network Service Agreement which every customer is supposed to read and sign as part of the work, there is a descrption of of what is considered to be part of a BASIC install. 200 feet of cable buried is NOT basic. IN fact all footage of cable installed in excess of 200 feet is also NOT part of a BASIC install.

 

[dishcomm]

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!!)

With RG-6 a Sonoma amplifier will take care of the distance issue. Of course the customer would have to pay fo rthat item as well. We DO NOT instal RG-11 cable...Ever....

 

[dishcomm]

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.

Well here's the deal. The cable and tecos use contractors to bury the service drops. Those companuies have machines to do most of the work. The cost os figurd into your monthly bills. There is no "free".. Satellite installers do not have these machines and heavy tools. So you will not have your demands met .
BTW according to Dish, the customer NEVER owns the install. The installation compnay does. In fact Dish ahs a "last man there' policy. Meaning the last person who performed service on your system techinically "owns" the job. Now before you reply, I will remind you of the rules governing a BASIOC INSTALL. Rules which are clearly spelled out on the Dish Network Service Agreement.

 

[dishcomm]

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!

on very rare occasions customers will bury cable to avoid the charges. If that occures I make them sign all liabilty away and on to themsleves. Then just to cover it further, we put extensive notes on the customers account to document the agreement between us and the customer.
Not once have I had an issue with this.

 

[dishcomm]

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!

Nope sorry. Guess what. Ouyr costs continue to rise and installation pay rates are stagnant. I have not gotten a pay raise in 5 years. Would any other trade or employment type stand for that? No way..Imagine going to the local bank or your town hall and telling the people that work there that they won't be seeing a pay raise for the next 5 years. You'd have a rebellion on your hands. Most of do this work because we are dedicated to it. We do a good job and service our customers well. But as with anythting there are limits. \
Your asking for 200 feet of cable burial thru rocks, hills and tree roots crosses that line. BY a zip code.

 

[dishcomm]

: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.

Chad, your comments are out of line. If you are willing to do all this extra work for free and then explain ot the customers on the rest of your route that you won't be getting them today , have at it.
Not trying to start anything with you. I simply disagree with your assertion that we are whining. We have expenses just like anyone else. We have families ot feed and bill sto pay. The bottom lne is this. I am in this business to make a profit. If I work I get paid. That's that.
Look, no other trade would put up with this. Why shopuld we.
Ask an electrician or plumber is they would perfomr these extra services free of charge. They'd be very amused.