Poor experience with a contractor of Sky

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bnapi

92 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#457098 9-Apr-2011 21:45

Say a person had a sky dish put up on their roof and the cable ran from the dish to inside a bedroom upstairs and was connected to a sky box, if the person wanted another sky box in the lounge downstairs could the installer run a second cable from the sky dish and take the cable down the outside of the house from upstairs to downstairs or would the second cable need to go from the upstairs bedroom outside the wall cavity and down the steps and walls to downstairs in the lounge?

darkraid

47 posts

Geek

#457116 9-Apr-2011 22:34

bnapi: Say a person had a sky dish put up on their roof and the cable ran from the dish to inside a bedroom upstairs and was connected to a sky box, if the person wanted another sky box in the lounge downstairs could the installer run a second cable from the sky dish and take the cable down the outside of the house from upstairs to downstairs or would the second cable need to go from the upstairs bedroom outside the wall cavity and down the steps and walls to downstairs in the lounge?

From my understanding with the contractor I dealed with he said he was going to put the splitter on the back of the satellite and run a second cable from outside to the second room. Which I cannot understand because wouldn't this be bad for the splitter unless they have some sort of weather proofed one...?

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#457254 10-Apr-2011 17:14

Darkrain:
You do get weatherproof splitters. Generally it is better to still have it covered despite being weatherproof (or IP-rated, Ingress Protection, see Wikipedia). Apart from less stress on seals, a lower temperature (out of sunlight) also means lower noise levels.

Handle9:
I am an engineer in both full-time employment for a large manufacturing company and also running an additional small business. My wife is a mechanical engineer running a contracting services business. We know a little bit of how business works. If you already get say 40% trade discount, and you get a failure rate of say 5% (which is bad, change supplier), and you can claim the cost of stock from income tax, then why charge the customer a huge mark-up? Customers do not go only on hourly rate, they go on total quote price.

You can never have enough Volvos!

Handle9

11394 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#457270 10-Apr-2011 18:16

Niel: Darkrain:

Handle9:
I am an engineer in both full-time employment for a large manufacturing company and also running an additional small business. My wife is a mechanical engineer running a contracting services business. We know a little bit of how business works. If you already get say 40% trade discount, and you get a failure rate of say 5% (which is bad, change supplier), and you can claim the cost of stock from income tax, then why charge the customer a huge mark-up?

I work in a large electronic product supply and contracting business in the building industry.

Your premise around deducting the cost of stock as an expense is fine but you can't claim wages as an expense. A supplier will usually replace faulty product at no charge but you still have to do the fault finding, remove the faulty product and then do the replacement. You can't expense this, it's wages of someone to do it.

At the end of the day the customer can generally free issue the parts if they choose and a contractor will work for an hourly rate. Any product faults are the customers problem and the contractor can charge for fault finding etc if it's not an installation fault.

I never said anything about charging a huge mark up, you were complaining about any mark up being put on. At the end of the day it's the customers choice what they value. Most people want to have one person/company who's responsible, lack the knowledge to choose components and just don't have time to do it.

Niel: Customers do not go only on hourly rate, they go on total quote price.

Some do, some don't, especially for service work. Up to you whether you choose to believe that but it is a fact. I'm not just talking about individuals. I deal with some very large, high profile corporates who are absolutely fixated on hourly rate, not total value.

darkraid

47 posts

Geek

#457296 10-Apr-2011 20:37

Niel: Darkraid:
You do get weatherproof splitters. Generally it is better to still have it covered despite being weatherproof (or IP-rated, Ingress Protection, see Wikipedia). Apart from less stress on seals, a lower temperature (out of sunlight) also means lower noise levels.

Another bonus of my plan over his.

bnapi

92 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#457315 10-Apr-2011 21:46

darkraid:
bnapi: Say a person had a sky dish put up on their roof and the cable ran from the dish to inside a bedroom upstairs and was connected to a sky box, if the person wanted another sky box in the lounge downstairs could the installer run a second cable from the sky dish and take the cable down the outside of the house from upstairs to downstairs or would the second cable need to go from the upstairs bedroom outside the wall cavity and down the steps and walls to downstairs in the lounge?

From my understanding with the contractor I dealed with he said he was going to put the splitter on the back of the satellite and run a second cable from outside to the second room. Which I cannot understand because wouldn't this be bad for the splitter unless they have some sort of weather proofed one...?

If the splitter is not put outside the house, where else could it go to run the cable from the outside to the second room? Could the splitter be put into the roof then a second cable run from the splitter to the outside of the roof to the second room? Out of curiosity do the splitters have a maximum number of sky set top boxes they can connect to?

darkraid

47 posts

Geek

#457319 10-Apr-2011 21:58

bnapi:
darkraid:
bnapi: Say a person had a sky dish put up on their roof and the cable ran from the dish to inside a bedroom upstairs and was connected to a sky box, if the person wanted another sky box in the lounge downstairs could the installer run a second cable from the sky dish and take the cable down the outside of the house from upstairs to downstairs or would the second cable need to go from the upstairs bedroom outside the wall cavity and down the steps and walls to downstairs in the lounge?

From my understanding with the contractor I dealed with he said he was going to put the splitter on the back of the satellite and run a second cable from outside to the second room. Which I cannot understand because wouldn't this be bad for the splitter unless they have some sort of weather proofed one...?

If the splitter is not put outside the house, where else could it go to run the cable from the outside to the second room? Could the splitter be put into the roof then a second cable run from the splitter to the outside of the roof to the second room? Out of curiosity do the splitters have a maximum number of sky set top boxes they can connect to?

Yes but I was referring to the splitter failing after rain and heat from the outside world.

And yes there is a maximum number of sky boxes that splitters can connect to. You buy splitters that have different amounts of outputs from one input. The splitter I bought yesterday has one input and two outputs.

If you were going to have 3 sky boxes in your home the sky contractor would install a 3way splitter.

Simple really.

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clevedon

1059 posts

Uber Geek

#457351 11-Apr-2011 07:26

darkraid: I've never heard of the part about paying the contractor the joining fee and first month's subscription. Wonder if they take credit card... lol.

Yeah they do, I paid by credit card for my parents MySky HDi install.

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#457352 11-Apr-2011 07:29

A splitter can go anywhere, and the ideal place is in the roof or under the eves where it is out of direct sunlight and rain. Also even if it has a perfect seal, if in the future it needs to be opened for whatever reason the seal will not reseal properly.

If it is an active splitter then in theory you can use an infinate number of them. In practice you are limited by your power supply, small amount of noise added, and a few other parameters. I assume they use active plitters, because there is already power available on the cable for the LNB and a passive splitter would half the power available for each split.

You can never have enough Volvos!

bnapi

92 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#457985 12-Apr-2011 20:44

clevedon:
darkraid: I've never heard of the part about paying the contractor the joining fee and first month's subscription. Wonder if they take credit card... lol.

Yeah they do, I paid by credit card for my parents MySky HDi install.

did the contractor have a mobile eftpos unit with him to be able to the accept credit card?

funnyfela

350 posts

Ultimate Geek

#458021 12-Apr-2011 22:06

I bet its not a splitter they were going to put outside,
they were probably going to upgrade the LND to a quad, which they seem to often do on callouts these days.

Aka the LNB has 4 outputs instead of one, I have to admit the last few shifts they haven't used splitters for our 4 decoders at all, always a quad with the cables going all the way back to the dish.

If you have to run heating in winter, you don’t own enough computers.

Etacovda

31 posts

Geek

#459595 17-Apr-2011 08:35

ah, people expectations on a sky installation never fail to amuse me. Extra half an hour for an internal run? in what reality? on a standard villa or a brick house, perhaps - but new houses, no chance. Most customers will have their tv on an outside wall. Sky techs are not sparkies, so they cannot use electrical wire as a draw (plus, this is illegal as you are not allowed to run power and data through the same holes in a wall, from what i gather?). So, how exactly are you going to get down an outside wall? remove the roofing and drill down the studs? i dont think so.

Expecting a technician to risk his life for your tv is ridiculous. New sky health and safety rules do not permit installers to work on wet roofs, period.

You are more than welcome to do this job yourself, believe me, the tech wont care - no warrantee on his part, and not having to deal with an unrealistic whiney customer. Win win.

Techs are paid a half hour for a cable run, including fit off.

You did not have a bad experience, only your own unrealistic expectations are to blame. The only thing i would say is a bit much is the 4 hour window, but that would probably depend where you live.

darkraid

47 posts

Geek

#459612 17-Apr-2011 10:13

Etacovda: ah, people expectations on a sky installation never fail to amuse me. Extra half an hour for an internal run? in what reality? on a standard villa or a brick house, perhaps - but new houses, no chance. Most customers will have their tv on an outside wall. Sky techs are not sparkies, so they cannot use electrical wire as a draw (plus, this is illegal as you are not allowed to run power and data through the same holes in a wall, from what i gather?). So, how exactly are you going to get down an outside wall? remove the roofing and drill down the studs? i dont think so.

Expecting a technician to risk his life for your tv is ridiculous. New sky health and safety rules do not permit installers to work on wet roofs, period.

You are more than welcome to do this job yourself, believe me, the tech wont care - no warrantee on his part, and not having to deal with an unrealistic whiney customer. Win win.

Techs are paid a half hour for a cable run, including fit off.

You did not have a bad experience, only your own unrealistic expectations are to blame. The only thing i would say is a bit much is the 4 hour window, but that would probably depend where you live.

Cool story bro. (Y)
You people that know everything never fail to amuse me.

Well my house is 20+ years old. As I have said my plan would have been so much better than the contractor that does it for a living because he didn't have to get up on the roof and risk his health and safety. He would have been inside the roof. Cable is a piece-a-piss to run down the internal walls in my house. I have no idea what you are talking about with putting the external cable down the outside wall??? Are you stupid?

The roof wasn't even wet. The contractor just wanted to go home for the day. Also he probably couldn't fit through the hatch to the roof anyway.

Well I would love to do the job myself and I am having to do half of it myself today. I'd like to see you get all the supplies needed to install off a contractor. He'd tell you where to put it.

My expectations where not unrealistic. My plan over his would have been a lot easier, would have been able to be done on the day (don't need to get on the "wet" roof) and would have used less cable and no need for cable ties. OHHH and btw it would look a hell of a lot better than external.

Have a nice day. :)

bfginger

1269 posts

Uber Geek

#459912 17-Apr-2011 23:28

Someone reports on the Trademe forum that a Sky door-to-door salesman told them the DSO means they'll need a Sky subscription to continue watching television. I guess they're paid by commission?

Beaker

74 posts

Master Geek

#467596 10-May-2011 15:04

My experience of sky installers is that they need to do (x) number of installs per day and get paid (x) amount per install. So it's common practice to do things the fastest way possible,

Alot of installs I have seen are rough as guts, particulaly when spome of them just drill straight thru roofing iron to get to the dish than even attempt to feed the wire outside to the gutter then reverse it back up the roof.

You pay $99 for an average install of sky, contractor probably see's $60 of that what do you expect?

So don't be hatin the player, be hatin the game..

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