Re: How to dig a trench
 

I took out some scraggy bushes and a dead tree that was about to fall over and found our Telstra/Foxtel cables, not in a trench but in a plastic conduit (reads plastic pipe) some 5 cm above the ground in one place!.

We now have a bit of a strange looking rockery just to hide the cable conduit and stop it getting hacked up by the lawnmower.

I am guessing this was done by a fully licensed cowboy sorry workman: it is actual genuine Telstra Communications conduit, as evidenced by the wording on it!

Re: How to dig a trench
 

There was a piece on ACA the other night about the sorry service Telstra provide to remote farms in Victoria. If it wasn't true you would laugh. They showed phone lines running across fields with cows tripping over them. Phone lines running through creeks with no water proofing.

Endless 'temporary' wiring across trees and stuff that of course is temporary until it breaks and then they have to come and do another temporary fix :rolleyes:

Have they hired the top man from BT or something.

I'd love to use someone else than Telstra, but the house was previously wired up for Telstra phone and cable, so it seems an expensive waste not to use it. :confused:

Re: How to dig a trench
 

We had 'fun' trenching for power/phone earlier this year. ETSA (power) were happy to hand over specs for the trench and talk through the specs with the trenching company. Unfortunately they insisted on a 1.2m deep trench 1m wide (10x the width of the cable conduit). For 240m, that meant lots of $$s. Apparently it needs to be wide enough to walk/work in - though nobody ever did!!!!

Telstra (phone) sent a contractor to look at the job. We asked him to drop his cable into the same trench, but he obviously wanted to get paid to dig his own. We had to talk to someone higher up in Telstra to get them to pitch the idea to his boss of dropping a cable into a ready-made deep trench instead of digging another (at Telstra's expense). The problem was that this trench was dug by someone without Telstra accreditation! - it was 3 times deeper than needed and safe for high voltage cable, and free (for Telstra), but a phone cable ?, hmmm could they risk putting it in ?.

ETSA said that they'd supply (at my expense) the cable but not an electrician to lay it. Most electricians just laughed at the invitation to unroll a cable and drop it in a hole - it'd take months for them to find the time. The trench couldn't be left for longer than 2 days or it'd cave in. Eventually one electrician took the job (and the huge fee) to lay the cable and wire up the farm shed.

Telstra agreed to "try to send someone with cable" while the trench was still open. To our relief they showed up, dropped the cable in the deep trench and left.

Coordinating all the participants was very stressful and very expensive.

Re: How to dig a trench
 

Unions, socialism, red tape, jobs worth mentality, jobs for the boys, inefficient government, no-one prepared to break the mould. Just like the UK in the 70's. I think Australia is a great place but it is definitely the ultimate nanny state.

Re: How to dig a trench
 

It seems I have alot to look forward too :(

Re: How to dig a trench
 

go down your bottle shop buy a few cartons give them to the sparkies and ask nicley


bet your get the cables laid

Re: How to dig a trench
 

To avoid the exact problems you are encountering, I dug my own trench, and put a very large piece of conduit in it, then filled it back in, all that had to be done after that was any cables I needed were threaded through the conduit. Simple as that. Everyone who has worked on the house, said what a good idea it was.

Re: How to dig a trench
 

depends if you installed orange, grey or white conduit

Re: How to dig a trench
 

No wonder there's a shortage of electricians in Aus. they're all at your house...... :D

Re: How to dig a trench
 

Well, its not just Australia.

Several years ago, I lived in a council house in Liverpool (around the time of the Dereck Hatton council), and we had a coal fire with a back boiler.

Anyway, one day, the back boiler sprung a leak, and sent a jet of water up the chimney, washing down all of the soot all over the carpet. I turned off the water, and drained the system, and phoned the housing department repair department.

"Yep,thats an emergency job, we will be right out" they say

Two days later, several vans turn up, and disgorged the following:

1. A brickie (and his mate) to cut away the wall to get at the pipes
2, A plumber (and his mate) to replace the back boiler
3 .Another brickie (and his mate), but these two were specialists in firebricks, to replace the firebricks in the fireplace
4. A council foreman to make sure the job was done right (and he really earnt his money I dont think!)

Brickie (1) and his mate had to hang around until plumber (2), his mate, and brickie (3) and his mate had bone their bit, so he could repair the wall

After they had finished, they then told me they couldnt get hold of the plasterer (and his mate), but they would be along shortly.

It cost me a bloody fortune in tea and coffee!

4 months later the plastering crew finally turned up, and I finally had the job done!

Re: How to dig a trench
 

Its just like a comedy. Does the same guy turn up each time just in a different uniform.

Re: How to dig a trench
 

#
I would seriously love to ambush your post, but wont.

You do not need a different electrician to wire an air con.

The sparky, is responsible for mains feed hard wired to safety switch, the fridgey is responsible for safety switch to aircon.

Think someones takin the piss out of ya, i feel forya i really do :D