So, about 40m yesterday, interrupted for half an hour by some bloke in a very high vis jacket stopping work to get what I assume were ID cards (all the workers were reaching for their wallets) and them all having a nice chat in a circle.

So 20m left for today, no problem.

Except they came early to take the digger that they'd left overnight and then promptly departed.

No clue as to when they'll be back and the works office e-mail says I need to speak to BT.

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Jul-17 16:04:37)

In reply to a post by fiddler:

the works office e-mail says I need to speak to BT.

Maybe its me being paranoid, but that doesn't sound good.

Have you spoken to BT, if so what did they say?

Paul

It's Openreach you really need to speak to

i find it amazing that you got them to even do the work (at least you have Fibre by the end of it, emm eventually)

I myself have used a ping pong ball (which was a few mm smaller than the pipe) with string attached to it and used a hoover the other end and sucked it through, worked first try.

As an idea Paul, that sucks.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I myself have used a ping pong ball (which was a few mm smaller than the pipe) with string attached to it and used a hoover the other end and sucked it through, worked first try.

As an idea Paul, that sucks.

LOL.

Paul

A further e-mail from them, after some light badgering from myself and the neighbour, to say that there had been a misunderstanding in the office about how to proceed with the final segment (mixture of hard rock and concrete).

Surveyor came out again this morning (no one around to check or discuss) who says there's 50m left to do and they'll get back to us with a plan and time-scale....

As I understand it, OR sub-contracted the work to one company (local-ish), who then sub-contracted it to another (really not local), hence most of the working day spent driving to and from site instead of doing the physical work and simple queries needing to pass through several people to be answered.

So, a month on from my last post.

Diggers had finished their work about 3 weeks ago. A week later, Openreach's external team arrived and ground to a halt immediately.

1) the nylon rope to pull the fibre up the drive was stuck solid and they suspected that at some point when the dig team were filling back in and tamping down, that they crushed the pipe and snagged the rope.
2) the hole in the ground where the pipes connecting where the two properties met the fibre coming up the drive was in the wrong place meaning that the bend back to our property was too tight for the fibre so this would have to me moved.

Relevant permission to dig paperwork filled in and passed back to the dig team. The Openreach engineer was very apologetic and gave me his mobile number to call him back later in the week for an update (seemed to be the only person amongst the many that have been on site who knew what he was doing, so a case of beer fro him when all this is over). Later in the week, he still hadn't heard back from the sub-contractors. A gentle e-mail from myself to them was met with the stock response of, "you need to speak to BT" which seemed pointless now that Openreach were involved.

Then, out of the blue on Thursday, the dig team arrived... then left within an hour as they didn't have the job order to sort out the junction connection the two properties to the fibre. A quick text to the Openreach engineer and permission from him to forward his mobile to the dig team resulted in them coming back the following day to meet him on site to "get it sorted".

So, that's where we stand. Apparently, fingers crossed, the dig work is done and what's left is pulling the fibre up the drive and then bringing it into the houses.