Full fibre install - want to drill into my house?!

[Rubbleonthedouble2]

Has anyone had a broadband upgrade to full fibre and how did it go/what actually happened?

I've received an email from open reach telling me that they'll need to drill a small hole into my house! There was also a link to a video but that skimmed over the details and focused more on telling me I can watch my shows without buffing 🙄

We just renovated the house a couple of years ago and all the wires etc are nicely hidden, I don't want want new holes and exposed wires that the babies (1&3!) can get to and pull on.

When I had this done a few years ago for fiber, I was able to get them to just reuse the hole that was there for the old copper cable internet connection to the house. Remove the old cable, pass the new one through, simple! If you're lucky, they'll be coming in the same kind of location.

I just asked the engineer on the day and they were happy to do it, one less job for them to do!

I'm an electrician, curious what you think the listing of the building has to do with it?

Listings and historic buildings give no specifications on wiring for telecommunications or mains wiring, particularly surface wiring which is seen as transient and reversible. except that they should have the "lowest impact practicable"

For example we would clip an external cable into the mortar line rather than the brick or stone, use a suitably coloured cable with the smallest profile. If I'm running down a nice listed Georgian facard I'll either opt to run down the side elevation, into an internal corner or behind a drainpipe, where practicable.

As to passing through the wall, the approved inlet connector and a blob of silicone is the only option, an fine on all building types and ages.

You should have asked about the building as your example is irrelevant

No bricks
No mortar
Lathe and plaster infill panels are not strong enough for H&S

So it’s the 14th century timber structure then

You can’t dig a hole into 14th century timber and then mastic fill

You create a long term problem with decay, infestation and the mastic would retain water at source causing further decay
The best resolution is to find alternatives
Which we did.

Listing protects buildings. It makes everyone think twice before they carry out inappropriate works. It ensures people get appropriate advice.

Plusnet is owned by BT.

Then logic would dictate following the wooden framework rather than the lathe and plaster. On a black and white I'd always pull a cable through the woodwork out of choice, nice slim auger bit, 6mm diameter and through you go, virtually no clearance to fill.

My point is many BT engineers do know what they are doing and won't wreck a nice building.

I think Prune was talking about the ladder anchoring holes, not the cableway.

You are drilling through the centre axis of the beam, not the top or bottom edges, right?

Is it mainly wi-fi you are using?
We replaced the BT hub box with a different make, help a lot (the BT hubs aren't great). Also if you have a larger house you may need to add additional routers, we also needed to do this. DH has then also hardwired in as many devices as possible, so 2 TV's and 3 PC's so only phones and the laptop use the WiFi.

We moved to plusnet at the end of our BT contract as they are cheaper.

Yes I was
we didn’t even get that far discussing cables as the anchor simply wasn’t going to happen.

We had ours done with Fibrus a couple of months ago. I was a bit concerned as we live in the country and our house is quite a long way back from the road so I thought they might need to dig the drive up. But DH works from home and our existing connection was very unreliable so we decided it was worth the disruption. But in fact they just lifted a hatch up in the road where the main cable is and used some kind of device that "burrowed" under the garden alongside existing cables and came up right by the house. Then they were in our house for a very short time, drilled a small hole to pull it through and we were up and running in no time. It was really very unobtrusive and there was no mess - I was impressed. And the difference compared to our old broadband is huge. I'm still getting over the novelty of being able to video call DD at the same time as DH is in a work Teams meeting! 😂

used some kind of device that "burrowed" under the garden alongside existing cables

Either they put a sort of parachute that I don't know the name of on the end of the cable and blew it down an existing cableway, or they used a mole to make a new tunnel. The former is more likely as the latter risks cutting the existing cables.

You can get flat cat6 cables that run neatly under a carpet, they no good for very long runs, but up to 10m are fine. If you use a normal cable running along the skirting boards, be careful it doesn't have any really tight bends or kinks, like the fibre it needs to only have gentle curves. I have seen it stop working reliably because it's been crushed when it was stapled to the wall, and when a bunch of cables on a tray had been tiewrapped very tightly. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Network-internet-Connector-Compatible/dp/B0BVHVB2B7?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OLAPlY9xmcZ36HtBmlDCUUOFTalZ1YYB9pKjHz05gjXd5tnCdvF8YE8JVzKK24y2_Oory11WJBtF8ygjJnmlNPh7eRyaHVG3XVKzIElTVKXebvSCZaZYvCCviFe9MG0r0DCm-qPYRxi2FeEa41T9WvWsGBs_X6SAtdxCCu3QA2LpU_U-hxILFa5hVDo5ennNKX4gfcdlEqvMd6ahP3mHV5D7iqc9t0Z-QHEAcD1LupMVSlJjNrfU--tix6dCkgouM2BWVdIkeHo7nPBDK9X8bH-qzV7M-QRKszC3RPV1NlU.t2FCMqy_fDbQCVw3HC3klr08-UQW6CLR4MWnY-GITe4&dib_tag=se&keywords=flat%2Bcat5e%2Bcable&qid=1778922152&s=computers&sr=1-4&th=1