New home and connecting to fibre etc.

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CutCutCut

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#2059100 19-Jul-2018 23:11

We had fibre installed in our new home about 2 weeks ago. We had duct to the house from the road (about 560m) up to the ETP. Then we just had microduct inside conduit from ETP running up inside to the comms cabinet. Literally only about 1m away. It was pretty easy install except they got stuck at one stage trying to get it in from the road, but they just blew it the other way and it worked. But no cat 6 at anywhere from the ETP, we're in a new subdivision with only fibre available though. The chorus guys seemed to appreciate all the hard work being done ready for them.

mattwnz

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#2059108 20-Jul-2018 00:16

CutCutCut:

We had fibre installed in our new home about 2 weeks ago. We had duct to the house from the road (about 560m) up to the ETP. Then we just had microduct inside conduit from ETP running up inside to the comms cabinet. Literally only about 1m away. It was pretty easy install except they got stuck at one stage trying to get it in from the road, but they just blew it the other way and it worked. But no cat 6 at anywhere from the ETP, we're in a new subdivision with only fibre available though. The chorus guys seemed to appreciate all the hard work being done ready for them.

Thanks. The distance between my ETP and the ITP/ONT is about 16 metres, as it is going upstairs and into the middle of the house through floor joists. So I want to make sure that if the fibre breaks in the pipe, that a new fibre can be pulled/blown through, without the need for cutting holes in gib ceilings, or having to repipe it. There is only a single street in the town that has fibre, as it is a new development, and none of the older areas have fibre, so I suspect the electrician may not have done too many pre installs. At the moment it looks like they expect that chorus will blow fibre down a 20mm conduit, but I don't know if they can blow fibre down a conduit that wide, I thougth they mainly blow it down microducts. I have asked whether they could put a microduct in the conduit, becuase that could potentially also be used as a drawwire if another fibre needed to be brought in, in the future. The OptiCat wire in the conduit is also another option, and that is mentioned on the chorus website, but I don't think that is a normal chorus install, and potentially expensive .

We do currently have fibre installed in the current house I am in, but when that was installed, they just put a microduct under the floorboards. So if that breaks, it is easy to just get back under teh house to install a new one. Not so easy though when the house has a concrete floor, and it is going through floor joists on a second level.

Goosey

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#2059124 20-Jul-2018 06:52

The microduct (which the fibre will get blown into/thru), will get pulled through the 20mm conduit, hence why it needs draw wire and in this case they say the draw wire should be a couple cat cables.

Easy.

Edit: But if the distance between the ETP and the location of the ONT is only a few whiskers away then 20mm conduit a bit overkill so all you need is the draw wire to go though your studs/dwangs/nogs in a logical 'no massive tight bends' path. The fibre installer then pulls though the fibre micrduct or hybrid cable that way.

cyril7

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#2059270 20-Jul-2018 12:06

By the way, the cat6 cables dont need to be run in the conduit, they can run outside of it just like any other data cables in your house. The conduit is primarily for the fibre be it Opti5e or room for a micro duct, so just a draw wire is sufficient. nothing flash I normally use a bit of security 4core.

Cyril

mattwnz

20141 posts

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#2062351 25-Jul-2018 15:35

Thanks. This is the electricians first fibre installation, so they are not familiar with the prewire stage for it. Currently they have put the network cable into the conduit, so we will ask them to move it out and just put a drawwire in the conduit. The green conduit from the ceiling runs down into the concrete slab and finshes about 500mm below ground level on the outside of the footing.

I was wondering though how this can be hooked up the ETP, without drilling through walls etc. Is the photo diagram below the way they normally do it for concrete slabs? The green line is the existing conduit that has been installed into the wall framing behind the cladding. I would then expect them to connect more conduit so it loops back up to the ETP, and then the ETP connects to the main fibre line coming it the property. This setup similar to how it was installed on my current house, although on my current house, the fibre between the ETP and ITP /ONT goes down and under the house, as it is on piles.

chevrolux

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#2062355 25-Jul-2018 15:44

Is that lined internally already? If not, why not drill down from the bottom plate on an angle like your heatpump ducting has been done (25mm bit would be heaps big enough). Much less mucking than digging down to the bottom of the slab and mucking around with all those bends. Then you can just come out of the ETP with a piece of flexi conduit (20mm), and sweep it up in to the slab and just saddle it down nicely.

The "normal" way to do it is just drill straight through the cladding and the ETP is mounted over the top of that hole. There are rear penetrations on the ETP box.

cyril7

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#2062372 25-Jul-2018 15:56

Hi, as Sam says, why do you not just have the internal conduit end in the cavity behind the ETP, then drill a hole through the wall behind the ETP for services to access the building and then the conduit. On the inside wall directly behind the ETP place a flushbox and blank plate over it on a stud adjacent all this then you can use this as a hand hole to access all cabling from the ETP and to the conduit, this is the normal way of doing things.

Edit: I assume this wall is the side of a garage or service area, or is it a prime lived in room?

Cyril

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mattwnz

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#2062379 25-Jul-2018 15:58

chevrolux:

Is that lined internally already? If not, why not drill down from the bottom plate on an angle like your heatpump ducting has been done (25mm bit would be heaps big enough). Much less mucking than digging down to the bottom of the slab and mucking around with all those bends. Then you can just come out of the ETP with a piece of flexi conduit (20mm), and sweep it up in to the slab and just saddle it down nicely.

The "normal" way to do it is just drill straight through the cladding and the ETP is mounted over the top of that hole. There are rear penetrations on the ETP box.

The linings aren't on. But the green conduit is already in the slab, so the slab doesn't need drilling. It comes out the side of the slab about 500mm below ground level. So it is similar to the heatpump one, just 500mm below ground level.

My current ETP on the current house I am in has fibre going in and coming out below as shown below. So ideally this is how we would want it. I don't want it being drilled into the cladding as it potentially could cause weather tightness issues. All other wires that penetrate the cavity and cladding have special stick on flashings on the building wrap for wires to go through, where Chorus wouldn't be able to do this with the cladding and linings already being on at the stage where they come in to do the install. So this is why we went for the conduit method instead.

mattwnz

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#2062383 25-Jul-2018 16:04

cyril7:

Hi, as Sam says, why do you not just have the internal conduit end in the cavity behind the ETP, then drill a hole through the wall behind the ETP for services to access the building and then the conduit. On the inside wall directly behind the ETP place a flushbox and blank plate over it on a stud adjacent all this then you can use this as a hand hole to access all cabling from the ETP and to the conduit, this is the normal way of doing things.

Edit: I assume this wall is the side of a garage or service area, or is it a prime lived in room?

Cyril

Thanks. The main reason is for weather tightness, becuase as soon as you drill through a wall, there is the risk of water getting in. Ideally the ETP would go on the internal wall side, so only a single box would be required. Also all other services boxes are inside, even the meterbox. But apparently the ETP can only go on the outside wall. So it is really about getting the best solution without having to drill through the cedar wall itself. It isn't ideal having the large ugly ETP on top of the cedar, but unless they do a smaller ETP box that can go on the concrete footing below (currently about 450mm between cladding bottom and ground, and ETPs must be installed at least 300mm from ground), this looks to be the only way of doing it.

cyril7

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#2062384 25-Jul-2018 16:06

OK, interesting, well I suggest you use 2 or 3 swept bends and perform a 180deg horizontal redirection under the house slab (should not have to dig to far to present the indoor conduit back up under the ETP. In doing this I strongly recommend that you make a small break in the conduit in the ceiling space where the conduit comes out of the top plate and use that small break in conduit (say 100-200mm long) to act as a access way to the cables to ease pulling as the bunch of swept bends will create a bit of drag. I presume this location in the ceiling (ie where the conduit exists the top plate) is easily accessible so that in future you can assist cable pulling if you need to.

Cyril

cyril7

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#2062396 25-Jul-2018 16:19

By the way, I think you are being a little over precious re weather tightness, its a serious issue, but can be managed, however it is your house so its your privilege.

There are ways to deal with this, your sparkie should be well versed in this, you and the sparkie can work with Chorus to achieve what you want, most installers are very open to ensuring your happy if you work with them . Also its at the bottom of a wall cavity, it would be unusual for any water that ingresses to spread far and if you allow a small drain in the cladding standoff directly below any that did get through would be quickly dealt with, but hey, your call :)

Cyril

mattwnz

20141 posts

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#2062416 25-Jul-2018 16:33

cyril7:

OK, interesting, well I suggest you use 2 or 3 swept bends and perform a 180deg horizontal redirection under the house slab (should not have to dig to far to present the indoor conduit back up under the ETP. In doing this I strongly recommend that you make a small break in the conduit in the ceiling space where the conduit comes out of the top plate and use that small break in conduit (say 100-200mm long) to act as a access way to the cables to ease pulling as the bunch of swept bends will create a bit of drag. I presume this location in the ceiling (ie where the conduit exists the top plate) is easily accessible so that in future you can assist cable pulling if you need to.

Cyril

Thanks. There is no accessible roof space in this area due to it using shallow trusses, so once the conduit it is in and the linings are up, it is not accessible. That is one reason for getting it sorted before the linings go on. The electrician did suggest putting in the microduct now, to avoid having to pull it through, but that is normally part of the Chorus install process. In a way it would be far easier for @Chorus to install the fibre in two stages, so they can easily get it in now at this stage, rather than potentially struggling to get it in when the walls are all closed up. I am thinking whether it wouldn't be a bad idea to just put in some of this opticat cable which has fibre in it, as you previously mentioned, which is also mentioned Chorus page, on but imagine that isn't cheap for about 16 metres of it.

cyril7

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#2062423 25-Jul-2018 16:40

Hi, its not cheap, but in the size of things, 16m at a few $/m is nothing (I think I paid around $5/m last time I got some, honestly its probably the easiest from here. Ensure you leave a good 1.2-1.5m of slack at each end. I personally would run 1x Opti5e and 1x cat5e just in case, the reason for the 2nd one being 5e as opposed to cat6 is its thinner so less likely to cause issues if for whatever reason you had to re run in future.

Edit: Opti5e like most if not all fibres used in domestic installs (not in the street distribution) are bend insensitive rated (G.657 AorB) which means they are quite strong, and can have as little as 10mm min bend radius. That said, still treat it with respect when installing. The Opti5e packaging (ie being wrapped with 4xCat5e pairs) means it is pretty well protected.

Cyril

mattwnz

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#2062425 25-Jul-2018 16:42

cyril7:

Hi, its not cheap, but in the size of things, 16m at a few $/m is nothing (I think I paid around $5/m last time I got some, honestly its probably the easiest from here. Ensure you leave a good 1.2-1.5m of slack at each end. I personally would run 1x Opti5e and 1x cat5e just in case, the reason for the 2nd one being 5e as opposed to cat6 is its thinner so less likely to cause issues if for whatever reason you had to re run in future.

Cyril

Thanks, that isn't too badly priced, thought it might be a lot more.

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