My Chorus green conduit install

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Gordy7

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#248226 15-Mar-2019 14:06

Had Chorus install their green conduit in my 450mm deep open trench today. Trench is about 22m long.

Preparation:

I had to drive a 32mm waste pipe under my path and also under my gate foundation.

The 32mm waste pipe was more than adequate to allow the socket end of the green conduit to pass through.

A hammer was used on a piece of timber to drive the waste pipe under the path

Attached a wooden point to the waste pipe

Success:

Results:

Conduit at my house end:

Conduit follows a 600mm radius in the trench:

Conduit in a small hole at the street outside my boundary:

View of conduit from my gate and along the trench:

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

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#2198677 15-Mar-2019 14:12

Very nice

Did they come and put the conduit in for you? if so how did you arrange that?

dt

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#2198685 15-Mar-2019 14:19

nice and clean well done mate

wellygary

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#2198710 15-Mar-2019 14:28

Nice, - did you have to cut the concrete down the side of the drive? or is that a trick of the photo...

Also , Have you thought about giving yourself some future proofing to run comms or power back out to the gate?

if you dump an empty conduit with a draw wire in it you get the future option to run security or whatever at the gate? just a thought

Never let a good hole/trench go to waste,

Gordy7

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#2198711 15-Mar-2019 14:28

Chorus/Downer came and installed the conduit..

On GZ, I found an earlier discussion, Jan 2018, to ring 0800 463 896 option 3.

Told the guy I had read about Chorus supplying the conduit...

Chorus emailed me an application which I sent off.... 5 to 7 working days for delivery.

All formal with reference numbers and service order numbers issued.

I gave Chorus 2 weeks notice which gave me time to cut and break up 7 metres of concrete and dig the trench. Blisters are just starting to go away :-)

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

Gordy7

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#2198735 15-Mar-2019 14:43

wellygary:

Nice, - did you have to cut the concrete down the side of the drive? or is that a trick of the photo...

Also , Have you thought about giving yourself some future proofing to run comms or power back out to the gate?

if you dump an empty conduit with a draw wire in it you get the future option to run security or whatever at the gate? just a thought

Never let a good hole/trench go to waste,

Hired a diamond saw. Based on a test examination of the concrete I thought it was 100mm max thick.

Turned out the concrete as more like 125mm to 150mm thick. The saw missed most of the reinforcing mesh.

However I did call into play my trusty ancient axle found on a farming property years ago. I used the axle to break up the concrete. I had to lift the axle about 500 to 700mm and let it drop. Better than swinging a sledge hammer and less strain on the body. Axle details 1800mm long, 30mm diam in the smallest cross section and weighed over 16kg.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

Gordy7

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#2198755 15-Mar-2019 14:56

wellygary:

Also , Have you thought about giving yourself some future proofing to run comms or power back out to the gate?

if you dump an empty conduit with a draw wire in it you get the future option to run security or whatever at the gate? just a thought

Never let a good hole/trench go to waste,

Long before I envisaged fibre trenching, I fitted a magnet-reed switch system to my gate. I can't see my gate from my house. The switches operate: 1. An HPM 70m range wireless door bell in my house, and, 2. A Z-Wave alarm which notifies my phone and will eventually hook up to my developing alarm system.

Good idea to put the extra conduit in the ground for things I haven't thought of yet.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

DarthKermit

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#2198852 15-Mar-2019 16:16

Good job there. You won't regret it long term being buried deep down rather than tacked with some drawing pins to a fence.

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dfnt

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#2215995 12-Apr-2019 20:04

We just bought a house, which doesn't get fibre till May, and I want to get fibre it installed "properly" once it arrives. After seeing the cheap job they did in the rental we're currently in I don't want a repeat so want to dig my own trench etc.

Do you discuss wanting to do your own trench when Chorus come and do the initial scoping? How do you know where to start the trench in order to meet the lead in, is that also discussed in the initial scoping?

Probably obvious questions but I'm new to all this, including being our first home :)

quickymart

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#2216163 12-Apr-2019 22:23

Is there an existing copper line to the address?

dfnt

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#2216165 12-Apr-2019 22:28

quickymart:

Is there an existing copper line to the address?

Unsure, like most of Karori it's serviced by Vodafone/Cable/FibreX

Settlement isn't till June, so I'm really just planning what I need to do in my head at this stage

Gordy7

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#2216399 13-Apr-2019 11:32

dfnt:

We just bought a house, which doesn't get fibre till May, and I want to get fibre it installed "properly" once it arrives. After seeing the cheap job they did in the rental we're currently in I don't want a repeat so want to dig my own trench etc.

Do you discuss wanting to do your own trench when Chorus come and do the initial scoping? How do you know where to start the trench in order to meet the lead in, is that also discussed in the initial scoping?

Probably obvious questions but I'm new to all this, including being our first home :)

I did a lot of reading on GZ and read a Chorus requirement for trenching. I can dig out more links later.

My story is a bit long winded as I worked through my options to get a good tidy fibre installation.

I had a green underground conduit for existing copper which was in good condition, so I thought it would be very good for fibre. So I prepared draw strings at the house end of the conduit to help make the fibre install easier.

When the street fibre arrived in mid Oct 18, underground duct risers were placed 20m from my copper conduit. I spoke to the Chorus subcontractor - they could see the issue but they were working to Chorus street plans.

Eventually my first scoping visit was 16 Feb 19. They offered - tack it to the decaying fence or a 7m slot in my large concrete pad in front of my house. This slot would have cut through a large concrete foundation as part of my automatic gate and side gate. So, I was not very happy with either of these options. I did discuss putting a surface galv steel conduit on my concrete at the foot of my fence. This would still have required above surface fibre ducts in flexible conduit for 200 to 400mm to allow for minimum bend radius of the duct so that fibre could be fed through easily.

Some discussion followed on burying the duct at my boundary... this would require a trench 450mm deep. That was the end of the discussion on the street end.

At my house end the scoping techs indicated where the ETP would be suitable... well away from my power box and any cables that might cause a problem.

As the fibre activation date was only a week later than this scoping visit I decided to cancel the fibre installation while I thought about my options.

Overnight, I decided to again go ahead and requested fibre installation. I thought that the - tack it to the fence option would do - at least fibre 100/20 would be a lot better than VDSL 20/3. I would worry about fence repairs somewhere down the track.

Next scoping visit turned out to be 5 weeks away - 20 March.

As the thought of a 24m trench seemed a big job, I rushed around town to see if the underground conduit thrusting machine was still available... the machine had left town a week earlier.

So it was back to digging my own trench.

I allowed: 1 week for cutting and breaking up 7m x 350mm concrete, 1 week for digging the 24m trench, 1 day for thrusting my own 32mm pipe under a 1m path, a day for thrusting a 32mm pipe under my front fence foundation 600mm, a week to get Chorus green conduit delivered and installed.

New scoping techs arrived early in the morning of 20 March (not the scheduled afternoon visit).

As my house has a wooden floor, the techs were able to pass the ruggedised duct 8.5m under the floor using temporary rigid PVC conduit as a guide. The conduit was later remove and the remaining ruggedised duct was drawn through the Chorus green conduit and out to the street.

The good thing was that the ETP ended up on the wall of my house just outside where the ONT was placed in my lounge.

Overall a pretty tidy job.

The techs blew the fibre from a street pit to my ETP, completed the fibre joint fusing and had my fibre activated by midday - 2.5 weeks ahead of the due activation date :-)

The street ducts were buried, covered with soil and grass planted.

As another GZ member suggested - I added an orange conduit in my trench and out to my gate for an alarm. I bought 20mm orange conduit - sight unseen as Bunnings is over 100km from where I live. The bore of this conduit is only 15mm but will be suitable for my requirements. A larger size would have been better. So... beware.... Bunnings conduit size is outside diameter for some strange reason.

Edit: Chorus will provide the green conduit for up to 30m.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

dfnt

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#2216476 13-Apr-2019 13:21

Cool thanks for that, that's helpful to know

I found a couple of pdf's on the Chorus website which are quite useful so got some things to think about

Edit: Looking at the listing photos I think existing copper is overhead so I assume they would run fibre overhead too. This would probably be the easiest because they could run the fibre in the roof space and into the office I want the ETP to be installed in

nzkc

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#2216484 13-Apr-2019 13:39

Are you available for hire? Cause damn that looks great! And I am now tempted to try something similar for part of my upcoming fibre install as Chorus want to run a (fairly small) portion of it along a fence rather than trench.

Gordy7

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#2216519 13-Apr-2019 15:56

Chorus generally offer like for like fibre installs.... Overhead copper gets overhead fibre...

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

Jase2985

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#2216589 13-Apr-2019 17:09

dfnt:

Cool thanks for that, that's helpful to know

I found a couple of pdf's on the Chorus website which are quite useful so got some things to think about

Edit: Looking at the listing photos I think existing copper is overhead so I assume they would run fibre overhead too. This would probably be the easiest because they could run the fibre in the roof space and into the office I want the ETP to be installed in

the ETP goes on the outside of the house. ETP = External Termination Point

they can fun it through the roof if they can get to it, but from the roof to where the ONT will be they will not run it inside a wall so it will be surface mounted so be aware of that.

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