They have obviously not heard about Hatton Garden at Easter 2015. Two 350/400mm diameter holes through 500mm of reinforced concrete. Those diamond cores make easy work of most materials ...

Back in the mid eighties, we were tunnelling under Euston road to make a crossing for the British Library .... the concrete was stitch drilled with 8 inch diamond core drills, we followed behind compressed air breakers to remove what was left .... gutty work. Those drills went through pretty much anything.

It had to be done accurately, the Euston road above didn’t close, nor did the underground just below.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Those diamond cores make easy work of most materials ...

They certainly do, I've got 110mm duct through 400mm of hard brick with a sub-£100 diamond core and a £50 SDS drill from Screwfix. It took a few hours, and I wouldn't expect that core to last very long under repeated use, but it worked.

A professional using proper tools would have had no problems whatsoever.

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

If it's simply fibre you're running round the house, why not run it alongside your existing electrical cables? Turn the bloody power off tho if you do try and take socket face plate off..

It's good you mention that because today I am in the process of redecorating the office and I have fitted some extra sockets obviously fitting them with the power off. Leaving the power on while the sockets are off to paint the wall.
I was in the main junction box and it looks like an armoured cable my guess would be 23 amp, is running to the water heating system through there, this makes the existing ducting extremely tight. However it might be possible to do as you suggested I will do some trials with a roll of old coax thats not used anymore, just to see the lengths and if they fit then just use the coax to pull the fibre through after.
Before someone says thats a waste of coax, the coax is never going to be used again anyway as its sticky and seems to make tv images loose connection and degrade in quality so its damaged.

Main junction box, armoured cable, what on Earth is going on in your house? Was it a radial or ring circuit? Cable is measured in mm2 not amps, and you shouldn’t be spurring off cables if you don’t know what they feed, well actually you shouldn’t be spurring off anything if your not an electrician.

Not always done accurately................

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21957471


Oooops!

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Not always done accurately................

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21957471


Oooops!

Ask Network Rail about West Drayton - they drilled through into a known and marked BT duct taking out aound 30,000 connections plus mobile back haul for all operators. Then they made it difficult for BT to get on site to repair.

All reminds me about the thinking of General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord who was an old style Prussian officer who served in the 1940s Wehrmacht although he was openly opposed to the policies and direction of the Government of the time.

He describes the officers working under his command as:

I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.

I thought a basic spur was all one could do nowadays?

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Not always done accurately................

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21957471


Oooops!

I bet that didn’t auger well for the future

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

I know a local company that are quite cheap and do major installs very well and the companies that use them have reused them whenever they expanded the fibre network so its clearly good as the links work.

Right fibre is going to be hugely expensive compared to copper. I would suggest at least £100 to splice LC connectors on each end of a run. Further unless you do it in single mode the fibre will not stand the test of time, and single mode optics are even more expensive than multimode.

Fibre in a domestic property is almost always about as sensible as Cat7/8 cable. It is only really justified in reaching an outbuilding that would put you over the distance limit. Just install some Cat6a and be done with it.