Cowboy installers...geez, are they all like this?!

M

Multiplex

Guest
My Sky+ installers came this morning. I'll just list my complaints otherwise I'll start ranting.

1) Rang at 7:30am to say arriving between 8am and 11am. They then turned up ten minutes later...

2) Because I needed special heights there were two of them. The first thing they both did was confront me and tell me that the cabling would cost between £10-£15. I said I had never heard that before!! They said "oh Sky never tell customers this, it's really annoying for us. By the way, you need to pay us before we leave".

They went outside and I went in and rang Sky straight away...the nice person at the call centre looked up the charges and said the first 20metres are free, then £2 per metre after that. (and I like need 10m, no more...). The guy comes back inside and I tell him that I get 20m free and just spoke to Sky. He says he'll phone his supervisor cos that's wrong...then he goes to his mate outside and I hear him saying "was there a problem with the SECAM"...mate replies: "what?" and then they start wispering. Geez!

Anyway, they left without phoning their supervisor and made no more mention of it.

3) They drill a hole next to my existing feed and the guy outside feeds the cable through the new hole. Now do I expect too much for just a little bit of sealant on the inside and the outside? They haven't used any at all...

Could an installation get any worse, they've dropped the cable from my roof without any hooks fixing the cable on the wall! I mean, this cable is just hanging from the dish and is flapping in the wind.

Here's a picture! The long straight cable (i.e. hanging) is the one they installed.

sky1.jpg


Ok, I'm done now. But just to name and shame the contracter was CUSTOM CABLE (serves Croyden in London) and the installer signed himself (scribble really) R Jafter (or something).

How difficult is it to do a job properly?

Simon.
 
I would send this info and the picture to Sky and see what they have to say about it.
 
I've had Sky installed 3 times and had problems every time.

They'll generally arrive and try to get out of doing the job with all sorts of stupid reasons because they still get paid.
They never want to run the cable inside the house. I've had to do it myself every time to get it done properly.
One tried to put the dish on an extension bar on the north side of my house and point it over the roof instead of fixing it on the back (which faces south) like the rest of the houses on the street.

And as you mentioned they never seal any holes.

There must be good installers out there but I've never met one.

ledzep
 
My install wasn't sealed where they drilled a substantial hole for 2x cables (sky+).

I asked the guy to re-align the dish after putting up the new LNB as it was pretty poor signal. It used to be better so i'm guessing it has moved slightly over time. The signal is now worse. The quality is noticably worse.

The guys were pretty efficient and friendly though so I didn't complain. They did stick in a long telephone lead pretty neatly when I told them it's probably not worth the hassle.

Only other thing is my Sky+ box is faulty and has never been able to record.

I have a guy coming tomorrow to replace the box. I will leave a note for him asking him to re-align the dish.

\\Chris
 
I guess I'm lucky because both my installs have been vers smooth and a good job done.

The first install (Sky Engineer) was for a standard digibox, the guys were excellent, even left me nearly a whole roll of cable to replace my aged existing stuff so that I could use the 'eyes' in the bedrooms. And gave me a second controller free (OK it was a bit battered, but gift horse and teeth spring to mind!)

The second install (Independent Engineer) was for Sky+ and a relocate of the old box, again, installer was excellent, friendly, and after bacon butty and coffee, was very chatty about the pros and cons of the Sky+ V2 box. Everything smooth, except the remote eye / booster RF cables which didn't go back right, but 5 minutes tidy up after he'd left that was sorted.

All in all a good job, well done both times, all holes sealed, no gash cabling work done, drip loops at all entry points.

Thank goodness I haven't had some of the problems that you guys have, if I had I'd have blown a gasket!

Doc
 
After your post i have noticed that they havn't left drip loops on my Sky+ cables.

I will have to get some silicon sealer in there as i dont want my new tv going POP!

\\Chris
 
If you can, it would be better to push the cable back through a little from the inside and put a drip loop in if you can.

Doc
 
I was considering doing that but i will have to take the staples out.

I only have a normal staple gun. Not one which takes coax staples. Unless normal guns do?

\\Chris
 
Hi i used to work for a retailer that told people yes Sky charge £40 (it was that at the time) for a standard installation but we charge £60 for a standard installation . a lot of people walked out .
for the extra £20 you got a really experienced CAI fully trained installer who had pride in his work . He used Quality CT125 cable .He put in drip loops (i have seen many products ruined because of a lack of a drip loop) and he properly sealed the holes.
he spent that much longer setting up the dish etc.

This guy now does next to no Sky installs he fits systems in big hotels etc the reason ? we couldnt make it worth his while £60 less the shops cut was not enough if he did 3 jobs a day properly including traveling time. Thats only £180 if you take out his overheads VAT .(the cost of insurance is very high) Van /petrol/cable/ parts/etc its just not enough to run a business on.
Quality people need quality wages.

SKY offer cheap installs and thats what you get there are exceptions to this rule but if you see a dish just above 7 ft its normaly a SKY direct install. because of such a low cost it hard to sell an install at £100 but sometimes thats what it takes.

Not everyone is a tight wad but a lot are
 
This is one reason why I did my own install.
The other reason was simply because I didn't want any stranger fiddling with... hell, even seeing my valuable AV gear.

If climbing on your roof doesn't bother you too much, then I don't think it's too hard. It just takes a while longer.

With the help of friend monitoring the signal strength and quality on screen, communicating with me on the roof, I was able to make small adjustments to the dish to get the best possible reception.
I used quality cabling and spent time fastening cables neatly in and out.
I also installed a new phone socket next to the digibox, and ran cables under the floor. No installation engineer would have done that!

Unfortunately I'm an awful scinic, and I just don't trust workmen these days. I really would rather do it myself!
 
I am going to slacken the cable to make a drip loop and get some silicone sealant in the hole.

A sky engineer is coming out tomorrow. I will get him to align the dish better.

Any tips on how to fasten the cable to a pebble-dashed wall?

I would of done the install myself if I had not taken up the £99 refurb deal.

\\Chris
 
Any tips on how to fasten the cable to a pebble-dashed wall?

oooh! not a nice job .

Wear goggles to protect your eyes and take lots of ties up with you on the ladders. 80% of them will ping back out and fall to the ground as you hammer them in to brick.

Its a pain in the bottom as I found out.
You can't see what's behind the pebble-dashing so you have to guess where the gaps between bricks are.
 
Yeah, it's a tough one, just trial and error really. You want some cable clips with hard nails. Another option is to drill some holes for rawl plugs but it's time consuming.

As for silicone, make sure you blow all the dust out of the hole before you gun the sealant in or it won't take.
 
Trust me Multiplex, thats nothing. When I ordered SKY+, these people from i don't know where came to my house, they could hardly speak English. They came round a total of 6 times, broke 2 of the sky boxes, tried to charge me £50 for cable, threatend to cut the cable when I didn't pay, covered our carpets in mud. And much much more that I won't get into. Sky still not working

About 4 weeks later we got one guy from sky, and he got everything working in seconds and was kind and professional.
 
well done bobgriffiths i totaly agree
as a cai member i have always charged more for my installs
as i do not do a standard job which is what sky offer

phone cables under floors,through lofts,dishes on chimneys
etc
 
i had some daft **** tap my plasma screen like a kid does to a fish tank.(no f***ing good them butty they only last few months)
 
There's an update to my story! Custom Cable rang me a few days ago asking how the install went...! So I told them my problems and the person I spoke to said he'd get his manager to call me and they'll send someone around to sort it out.

Guess what...NO ONE'S CALLED!!!

Simon.
 

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