atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Day from Hell

My bad job of the week continues. Tuesday I get a call from a consultant wants me to cross connect two lines for a non profit that just moved. Job is 1 hour away then up 4 flights of steps to find the office is locked. Half hour later the maintenance guy shows up I tone out the jacks and head to the dmarc. Its a 100 year old office building and ever wire ever put in was still hanging there and no new lines labeled. After some luck I found the DSL and one of the lines so I connect the live line to their phones and hang a pair connected to the FAX with a note to connect it to line ###-#### and my number if any questions. Yesterday afternoon I get a call from non profit and they say Fairpoint has just labeled the lines can I come connect them ASAP because nothing is working. Now I want to know why tech couldn't connect the pair I left hanging with a note and why did they mess with the line that was working? :read:

I have a theory that for me at least, the degree of problems on a job is in direct proportion to the distance of the job away from the office. The farther away, the more difficult the problems on the job are.

Umm, what's "hockey" ???

Down here, we play the One True Sport: Baseball.

But right now, all the Cubbie and White Sox fans know who won the Stanley Cup!

Customer with large compound and house with gate.
Existing gate box works great, Runs on 24v dc and wired line to phone system to ring phone. Line to co port on system and gate quits. Determine that line is cut. Try all other 11 pair!! Nada.
Give owner the bad news. 350 ft and under driveway to run new cable. Old cable acts like it has water in it so I don't want to locate cut and splice.
She say lets get a wireless system, surely there are lots of them. I agree on this and start looking.
No so, all kinds of wireless gate intercoms, just most of them won't ring the system, they work with proprietary intercom boxes or phones.
The main maker of a Radio unit that does this had a recall and wont redeploy till 12/2010.
Phone Aire has one but it's push to talk, yuk.
Finally found one that phantoms over the power line 110v. Took it to site and tested at gate, works great, move transceiver anywhere else on property and no connection, can't find but one meter and can't find the feed for power to gate.
All we need do is connect a capacitor to the 2 breakers to pass the signal, can't find gate power source. Have hired 2 Sparkies with no luck.
All the time I have been looking we have a temp cable across lawn and have to go about once a week to splice because their giant Rottweilers eat them. Owner is stuck on wireless, budget unlimited, but can't find one that does what we want. Any know of unit that will work???

If the original cable is filled (Icky pic) then locate the cut, do a professional job splicing it, and reinstall the original system, and don't look back. Just because a wealthy customer thinks wireless is the way of the future, that should not deter you from providing them the best possible service.

Add up all the running around and futzing with new technology, and compare it to the cost of locating, digging, and splicing the original cable.

Start a new thread on this one and let's see what kind ideas can be engineered!

Man I hate working in attics.

Worst ever was running a bunch of RG6 in an attic of a clubhouse for a new senior housing development. It was the hottest day of the year, upper 90's and very humid.

We went up into the 'oven' and worked very quickly. Afterwards, jumped into the pool fully clothed to cool off...

I don't mind working in attics once I get through those stupid access holes in the ceiling. I need a small child to do my attic work!

very long, read at your own boredom...

Day from hell? Just got mostly done with a two week long project, which consisted of about a week's worth of hell days. To wit:

Day 1 (May 27th, Thursday): A 3.5 hour drive turns into 4.5 due to getting lost in Richmond looking for Graybar. New Murphy's Law: the one time you don't have GPS with you is the time you will need it the most.

Day 2 (May 28th, Friday): Framing is not done despite having 15 framers on site. Cannot hang brackets until framing is done, thus we cannot pull cable. Masonry drilling not done. Sup assures me both will be complete by days' end.

Day 3 (May 29th, Saturday): Materials arrive, most of them. Keystones are on backorder. Framing not done, no framers on site. Rather than sit on my behind for 3 days or turn around and go home, we spent 3 hours gluing and shooting 25 2 x 4s to the concrete deck - backcharge #1.

Day 4 (May 30th, Sunday): Go to pull cable, find that masonry drilling is incomplete. Spent 3 more hours drilling into more $$#@*&^ rebar and heavy wire laid in the mortar joints than I have ever seen - backcharge #2.

Day 6 (May 31st, Tuesday): Owner arrives on site, decides he wants all data boxes at 38" aff instead of 18", and the storage closet on the prints is now a GM's office and a business center. Change orders #1 and #2. and the obligatory OBTW: "You guys are doing the fire alarm system too, right?" Hell no I'm not, and neither is the EC. Better get someone in there quick, since they want to insulate and drywall the ceilings in two days!

Day 9 (June 3rd, Friday): Another change order, owner now wants phone jacks at the desk and nightstand in every room. Would have been nice to get this information BEFORE all firestopping was done. Gave a price, he decides it's not that important. Informed that the lobby is getting some fancy contoured ceiling that isn't on anyone's prints, so we cant do the CCTV or sound in there yet. "Will be done by Monday afternoon".

Day 10 (June 4th, Saturday): Core drilling for 3" EMT sleeves still not done by GC, spent 2 hours chiseling out block and brick. Backcharge #3 (did I mention that masonry and core drilling was specifically excluded from our contract?)

Day 11 (June 5th, Sunday): Drywall is not hung in our phone closet yet, despite 6 sheetock guys on site and hack upon hack of 5/8" x 12' drywall stacked in the 1st floor rooms (at least I got them to put it where it didn't cover up our boxes). We hang what we need to get our backboard up. Backcharge #4.

Day 12 (June 6th, Monday): Wall detail change, one side of every wall will now get resilient channel. Half of my boxes are now in danger of getting covered up. They don't want to pay us (or the EC) to renail boxes at the correct depth. Sick of the way this one is going, I tell the supervisor (not the superintendent) that the owner will be responsible for buying all extension rings and any boxes that get covered up. Lobby framing not done. Keystones on the way finally.

Day 14 (June 8th, Wednesday): Big time goof-up: the canopy (not yet built, and not on the original prints I received) is NOT free-standing as we were told, but ties into the face of the building with 9" thick structural steel - right across our wire path. All of that cable, some 7 CCTV, 4 CATV, and about 10 Cat5e/Cat6 has been secured, firestopped, cut to final length and some of it terminated - and it's now destined for the dumpster because it's all too short to saddle around the beams. Cat6 jacks finally arrive at 1pm - they are the toolless type - GAH! :facepalm:.

Day 15 - still haven't resolved who's paying for all that cable to be repulled, we pull back what cable we need to for the steel guys to get their beams into the building. Pending backcharge #5.

By the way, I should also mention that during the 2nd week, this building that was "ready", dryed-in with framing done (ya right!), got not only a new roof but a new roof deck. Something is very wrong when you get rained on in a building that already has cable in it. At least the 2nd floor was well-lit and ventilated for a few days. :rollseyes:

Jack