Preparing for UFB

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froob

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#193578 15-Mar-2016 22:22

Hi all,

Chorus is currently rolling out UFB in our suburb, and it will apparently be good to go in our street in a couple of months. In light of that, I thought I would try to take a few preparatory steps with our house to get the install as neat as possible.

Our copper connection is an aerial install and the fibre would no doubt be the same. The standard approach to this seems to be to run the fibre in a conduit from where it hits the eave to an ETP box near the base of the cladding, and from there either straight through the wall into the house, or through a foundation vent into the subfloor.

In our case, the overhead services at the front of the house, where they are very visible. Conduit down the front face would probably not be a welcome addition. My plan was instead to install some conduit running from the soffit into the roof space. From there, I could either install some conduit back through a soffit on a less visible side of the house for an install as above, or down through an internal wall to the subfloor.

My question is: what flexible conduit would you recommend for this? This thread suggests that the ribbed flexi conduit is no good. But, I don't seem to be able to find anything else. Would the commonly available grey 20mm HDPE "akathene" water pipes be a suitable substitute?

Would appreciate any input on this.

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#1514048 15-Mar-2016 23:26

Use standard 20mm rigid conduit that you can buy from any electrical store.. This sort of stuff: http://www.marley.co.nz/products/cable-management/conduit-systems/rigid-conduit/

http://www.enable.net.nz/new-home-builds-and-renovations/preparing-your-home-for-fibre-broadband.html <- Might be of use, especially the PDFs down the bottom.

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froob

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#1514145 16-Mar-2016 08:23

Thanks for the reply. The standard PVC conduit will work well in the subfloor etc where there is good access, but I think I will struggle to feed it through the soffit and up over the top plate. My thought was a bit of flex in the conduit would be useful, so it could be run in a sweeping bend. Or am I missing the point?

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DarthKermit

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#1514197 16-Mar-2016 09:20

Flexi conduit is ok, but you must put a draw string inside it, otherwise it's very difficult to push any kind of wire through it.

Lias

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#1514410 16-Mar-2016 13:18

froob: Thanks for the reply. The standard PVC conduit will work well in the subfloor etc where there is good access, but I think I will struggle to feed it through the soffit and up over the top plate. My thought was a bit of flex in the conduit would be useful, so it could be run in a sweeping bend. Or am I missing the point?

As per the other thread, even with draw strings trying to pull things through ribbed flexi conduit can be.. painful.. At the end of the day it's your call, but I would avoid using it if humanly possible.

chevrolux

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#1514557 16-Mar-2016 15:14

20mm water pipe is a much much better option than flexi conduit. Just make sure it is secured and not wobbling around - makes it a lot easier to rod.

'back in the day' we did a bunch of flats with that water pipe and works really really well. Sometimes got a bit hard to rod over say 20m or so.

PANiCnz

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#1514654 16-Mar-2016 18:16

For my recent aerial install I had them run the fibre to the side of the house and run the new conduit down behind the drain pipe. Very tidy work and more importantly can't be seen from the street.

Totally agree that conduit down the front of the house is an eyesore.

I originally wanted them to run the fibre through the roof to the ONT (had gib off a wall inside so thought there would be no issue). They wouldnt do this as the external termination point needed to be less than a metre off the ground.

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mcraenz

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#1514674 16-Mar-2016 19:27

At the risk of being a thread hijacker - I'm in a similar situation. UFB due Nov. Current copper is aerial. If I (and the op) were to dig our own trench will the installer be happy to use it? Or will they just say aerial copper=aerial ufb?

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DarthKermit

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#1514690 16-Mar-2016 19:53

^^^

It might depend on how the UFB is delivered at road side. If it comes out of the ground at road side, I can't see why they couldn't go underground to your house. The copper line is typically disconnected with a UFB install.

My UFB installer (Chorus area) was more than happy to use the conduit that I'd installed from the UFB pillar to the side of the house. It saved him a lot of time and effort.

gished

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#1515321 18-Mar-2016 08:45

Are there any recommendations for places to get conduit (like that marley stuff) in the Wellington area? Do places like Bunnings have this and can you rock up to trade orientated shops like Stewarts Electrical?

I'm also in the boat of getting UFB installed atm and have been told that the ETP to ONT work only covers 5 meters of ducting (I need about 10 and for it to go around a 90 degree corner)

DarthKermit

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#1515336 18-Mar-2016 09:03

gished:

Are there any recommendations for places to get conduit (like that marley stuff) in the Wellington area? Do places like Bunnings have this and can you rock up to trade orientated shops like Stewarts Electrical?

I'm also in the boat of getting UFB installed atm and have been told that the ETP to ONT work only covers 5 meters of ducting (I need about 10 and for it to go around a 90 degree corner)

Bunnings don't have the green conduit that Chorus use. You might be able to get this at electrical suppliers like Stewarts. They're happy to sell to the general publc, you're just unlikely to get trade discount from them.

For my UFB install, the tech left me the external termination point so I could mount it myself. I ran 20 mm grey electrical conduit from it to where I wanted the ONT installed. Since there will only be one cable installed in this conduit, 20 mm diameter is fine.

froob

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#1582354 28-Jun-2016 21:04

A belated thank you for the input provided in this thread. I wentwith a 15mm polyethylene water pipe as a conduit in the end ("Marley EnduroFlex").

It took a little bit of convincing to sell the UFB techs on the idea of using my conduit, but once they had warmed to it, I think they were very happy with how quick it made the install. They ended up completing the entire install in one sitting, when I was only booked in for the initial scoping visit.

The cable was very easy to push through the pipe, and I didn't really need the draw cords I had installed.

A couple of interesting observations about the install: a. the UFB tech decided there was no need for an ETP and installed the cable directly from the street to my comms cabinet b. it was an aerial install, but the techs didn't take down any of my other overhead lines, which I had thought was a requirement.

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DarthKermit

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#1582398 29-Jun-2016 02:36

Glad to hear you install went ok in the end.

I was helping a friend a few months ago with running some Cat5e around his house. We visited Corys Electrical for some parts and the guy behind the counter said they're not allowed to sell the green Chorus branded conduit and associated fittings to the general public. He said they could get a $20,000 fine for doing so.

meesham

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#1582504 29-Jun-2016 11:06

froob:

A couple of interesting observations about the install: a. the UFB tech decided there was no need for an ETP and installed the cable directly from the street to my comms cabinet b. it was an aerial install, but the techs didn't take down any of my other overhead lines, which I had thought was a requirement.

That's very interesting, my main problem I'm trying to figure out at the moment is where to put the ETP (gas bottles are near the best spot for it). So does the cable connect at the eaves, go into your roof space and then down into your cabinet without a break in the cable?

froob

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#1582637 29-Jun-2016 13:15

meesham: ...So does the cable connect at the eaves, go into your roof space and then down into your cabinet without a break in the cable?

That's right - it's a single length of cable all the way from the black box on the pole to my cabinet. The yellow fibre lead is joined onto the end of that and tucked in behind the ONT as per usual.

I suspect it's a non-standard approach and they probably wouldn't do it on request. I was surprised when he wanted to do it that way, but he basically said there was no need for their ETP unless they were integrating the copper Iine.

I had actually set up the conduit to run to the exterior for the ETP, so had to use a different conduit for the second half of the run.

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mcraenz

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#1582915 29-Jun-2016 19:07

I'm going to ask Chorus if they will run the fibre back down the pole and into trenched conduit (that I will dig and lay my self). The conduit will run from the ETP location to the bottom of the pole.

How should the conduit at the pole end be 'terminated'? It shouldn't just be a piece of conduit sticking out of the ground should it? Should there be some kind of box?

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