atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Any Yahoo can run cable

A couple of days ago, I got one of those "do you do residential cabling" questions and I decided to set up the service call for Saturday. I mean, how bad could it be, they had all new Cat5 cable run by the electrician and all they wanted to do was add VOIP but it wouldn't work.

After seeing my NCAA Women's team get bounced from the tournament, I was not in a great mood, but this ought to be a quick job for a Saturday.

Wow, was I ever wrong. The house had been added onto and all new cable was run all right, using Cat-3 techniques. They used Decora screw terminal jacks, terminated the blue pair on the first line and the green pair on the second (shades of Ma Bell installers?) and twisted and taped their way to the complete installation. The new garage had 6 drops, but I came to find out that there were 6-10 more spliced and looped jacks in the ceiling of the house. Not a single cable was complete end-to-end and all the 2nd and 4th pairs were spared except for one room where only the 4th pair was terminated on a jack.

The best part, was they had one junction box in the attic with 2 cables and twisted and taped the same 2 pairs only in the box.

I solved half my problem by running a new voice and data cable from the demarc to the office, fed the now newly naked DSL on the 4th pair and the VOIP dial tone back on the first pair of the voice cable, and spared the data cable for future use in the rest of the house. Then I gave the customer 300' of Cat5e and they'll have a party with their friends supplying the labor to pull new cables to a common point.

There should be a rule that if you run Cat5 you ought to know how to use it.....


Carl

Your last statement goes for all categories of cable. There's more to cabling than most realize. I've seen people pull CAT5, just because someone told them CAT5 was better. Better than what for what?

That is a good laugh, A few years ago I had a lawyers house that he paid some kids to run the cat 5 and all the cable tv and CCTV cable. Well after they had ran about 15,000 feet of it raped around the duct work in the attic and in a million other places he called to see if I could rip it out and re do it all. It was a night mare pulling all thay out but it sure looked good when me and my guys got finished. ( Keep in mind this was a 3 story house with a basement also)

So yes I agree with justbill I think there should be a commopn sense class that needs to be successfully passed so a person know what they are doing when it comes to pulling cable.

I've always had a problem that licensed electricians were, by default, licensed for low-voltage (telecom, network, audio, and video) work. I am not an electrician and had to train and study to pass the two separate restricted electrician's exams. They weren't easy so I felt good about passing them. The funny thing was that our county adopted the NEC portion regarding limited energy after I was already in business. I had to "convince" them that I was qualified to sit for the exam. They actually were trying to tell me I had to go work for a master electrician for 2 years before I could sit for the exam.

I pretty much work exclusively with a friend of mine who has been a master electrician for over 20 years and his son, with 7 years experience in electric work. These guys had absolutely no clue what they were doing at the start. Since I knew them and knew we were in this together, I worked very hard to train them and teach them how to terminate, etc. In the end, they do very good work and am very comfortable putting my company's name on their work.

The irony is that the county office suggested that I work for the the same guy I spent countless hours training. Go figure.

I've always had a problem that licensed electricians were, by default, licensed for low-voltage

That's always been a beef of mine also. Funny thing is their test only has three or four questions relating to our work. They could get them wrong or just not even answer them and still easily pass the exam. The limited test that we have to take usually has at least 75 questions on the subject. So as far as I'm concerned, if they want to do this kind of work let them take the same test. Judging from the discussions on the three electrical forums I belong to, few sparkies would be able to even understand the questions.

I had to "convince" them that I was qualified to sit for the exam. They actually were trying to tell me I had to go work for a master electrician for 2 years before I could sit for the exam.

I often think about that situation and there are probably three variations. Suppose there always was a licensing requirement in your state and you decided one day to become licensed. Even if you had been running an "unlicensed" business in the state for years, no argument they could require you to get the necessary experience with an EC or at least another LV license holder.

Now, suppose they newly enact a licensing requirement. You have been in business for years, certainly they can't expect you to close up and work for an EC for the next two years before you could continue to operate on your own. I really don't think that would withstand a legal challenge if they insisted. You should be allowed to sit for the test.

Or, how about you have been in business for years in a state that does not require a LV license. You want to do some wiring a few miles away in a neighboring state that always has had a licensing requirement. If they insist that you need to have the required time with an EC before sitting for the test should that withstand a legal challenge?

-Hal

This is because there really isn't a telephone and data cabling trade, at least not recognized by the authorities. We seem to be just an unimportant adjunct to the electrical trade. Just look at the lack of care given to floor plans by archtects (sp) and general contractors. We fall into a gray area called low-voltage which includes voice, video, sound, alarm, and even thermostat wiring.
I have settled on voice, data,video, and fiber cabling as the niche for us and am going to slide on telephone systems. So far my biggest problem is getting the respect from all other trades I feel I need to do the best job I can for my customer. It isn't impossible but it sure is frustrating at times.
We are doing a job now at the local university through a general contractor that forbids us to talk directly to anyone there but his supervisor. It has taken me 10 days just to get 4 questions answered. Apparently with all this cat6 cable we are installing nobody thought it important to let us know the locations where it is to be terminated. Maybe I should just leave it hanging somewhere. :bang:

This is because there really isn't a telephone and data cabling trade, at least not recognized by the authorities. We seem to be just an unimportant adjunct to the electrical trade.

That's not true any longer. The construction Master Format that categorizes all consttruction and building trades was revised for the first time a few years ago. Communications, which includes data, voice, sound systems, etc. used to be as you said- a subset under the electrical division 16. It used to be that we were subcontractors to the EC. No longer. The old Division 16, electrical was eliminated and broken up into two distinct divisions. The new Division 26 is electrical that covers only electrical work. There is a new Division 27 for communications. That means that instead of reporting to the the EC we now report to the GC or owner directly, putting us on the same level as the EC. Take a look at the link to see how its organized.

We are doing a job now at the local university through a general contractor that forbids us to talk directly to anyone there but his supervisor.

Yup and this is probably why. Before you would have to talk to the EC who would in turn have to talk to the GC. Even more time and miscommunication.

-Hal

When they first started talking about the new Master Format I thought finally we will start getting the respect we deserve. But unfortunately they have been slow to adopt the new Master Format in my area. In the past two years I have only seen it on one bid. Some of the architects and engineers in this area say "what new Master Format".

OK I think it got missed. I don't think the EC is the problem here. In there defense at least they know how to run a wire, they may not be able to terminate but again not the point.

Carl I have to take issue with the fact that you made a service call then opted to let them "have a party" pulling the wire you gave them. Please tell me that part was a joke

All that happened there if this is no joke is. You made not only the EC but your self look untrained and therefore not worth the money you should have charged for the job.

Sigh, I was just giving you the best of the story. Now, here's the REST of the story. I was on a job site on Friday and these people called because they had no phone or internet service. I said I was out until the end of the day, but I could give them Saturday service either before 11AM or after 2:30PM because of the game.

They had gone to VOIP, but their troubles began because the internet stopped working and they had already ported their local number to the VOIP :-).

When I arrived, I dutifully toned the feed from the office, located it at the demarc...or so I thought, then found out the bad news that only 2 pairs showed up at the demarc. Back toning that cable from the demarc, I found the unterminated pairs in a suspended ceiling above the office. All this time, the customer was helping with the $2 tour, he was there when the place was wired, but he didn't do it. I pointed out the fact that all cables need to be run from end-to-end, not parallel with electrical, and never stapled, which these weren't.

His wife produced a cad-cam floor plan of the house. He helped me pull new cables to the demarc, and I showed him how to treat the cables. They are using wireless access to the wife's computer, and they have two boys, but the will not let them have computers away from the rest of the family. They are young now, and girls are Yukky, but you never know.

This whole service call was, in essence, a 3 hour training session on how to run cable, how to treat it, and not to worry about termination, because that's where the professional comes in.

I set up the router, the packet8, and gave them dial tone to everything that was still on the 1st pair. I didn't have any residential bridging modules on the truck, I don't stock Decora faceplates, I didn't have a reason to use a 100 pair 110 base, and I sure as heck didn't want to spend 8 hours pulling new voice and data cables by myself to 9 locations in an attic wearing a short sleeved shirt.

The customer already knew that the person who ran the cable should not have terminated it, and to be fair, they probaly ingored his requrest to have someone else do it.

Since they had a floor plan, I laid out where I wanted the cables pulled to, how many to pull, and the path of each cable. They will take about 2 weeks to do it, and that gives me time to collect the parts and clear my schedule. I would guess that final trim should take less than 3 more hours, with the customer screwing in the Decora faceplates and moving the toners.

So the subject should have read

ANY YAHOO CAN PULL CABLE, BUT DON'T LET THEM TRIM JACKS.


Carl