Sky Q install - installation engineers - dont want to do the job

[Godfrey]

@Kmcleod   Sky engineers are supplied with SDS plus cordless drills and SDS plus masonry drill bits. 

I have personally just installed two granite gate posts and drilled 10mm holes into them using my SDS plus drill in order to attach the hinges. As you already have a bracket installed on your side wall to support your sky dish, a very similar method must have been used to drill the four holes required when the dish was originally installed. 

If a hole had been drilled in your wall to tether the engineers ladder using an eye bolt, a plastic plug would have been tapped into the hole that was left when that eye bolt was removed, thus, this tightly filled hole is unlikely to present a source of damp penetration different from the four holes that are presently being used to mount a sky dish onto your side wall. 

Godfrey.

[Kmcleod]

@Godfrey 

Sky engineers are supplied with SDS plus cordless drills and SDS plus masonry drill bits.  - they may be now, but six years ago when it was installed - I had to give the installation engineer the right masonary bits to drill the mounting holes.

I have personally just installed two granite gate posts and drilled 10mm holes into them using my SDS plus drill in order to attach the hinges. As you already have a bracket installed on your side wall to support your sky dish, a very similar method must have been used to drill the four holes required when the dish was originally installed. 

If a hole had been drilled in your wall to tether the engineers ladder using an eye bolt, a plastic plug would have been tapped into the hole that was left when that eye bolt was removed, thus, this tightly filled hole is unlikely to present a source of damp penetration different from the four holes that are presently being used to mount a sky dish onto your side wall. The engineer didnt drill a tether hole five years ago, he didnt need one. plus, the plastic plug doesnt prevent damp penetration - it actually encourages it with capillary action between the plug and stone, thats why on stone houses the standing advice is that if the hole isnt being filled with a fixing, to remove the plug and fill with the appropriate grout for the stonework, in our case, thats a lime mortar.

[Godfrey]

@Kmcleod   Alas, if you filled the ladder tether hole with lime mortar and you subsequently had a signal strength / quality problem involving the dish or its LNB then that visiting Sky engineer would initially just be a standard Sky engineer who will expect to be able to remove a plug that had been inserted in order to allow them to insert an eye bolt to allow them to tether their ladder.

Godfrey.

[Kmcleod]

@Godfrey 

You are missing the point - THERE NEVER WAS A LADDER TETHER HOLE

So I never had to fill it in - the lime mortar statement is standard advice on care of stone buildings from any of the historic buildings organisations in the uk

[Godfrey]

For several years Sky have made it very clear to their engineers that if they failed to tether their ladders before climbing up them, then they would be very likely to loose their jobs.  Searching this forum reveals numerous messages about the requirement to tether ladders dating back to around October 2020.

Whenever Openreach engineers climb the pole that is half way down my front drive they tether their ladder to that pole and then wear a harness that allows them to use a personal sliding tether attached to the top rung of their ladder, in order to restrict how far they can drop should their feet slip off any rung of that ladder. 

Godfrey.

[Doc5907]

@Kmcleod 

Any possibility of something like this.....

[oj01]

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@Kmcleod wrote:

Hi thanks for the notes

To be honest, I'd happily stay with Sky +, the change to Sky Q is being forced upon me, because Sky are 'end of lifeing' the Sky+ service.

I've been with Sky since 1998, and its been pretty dependable, (apart from when we went from a panasonic box to an amstrad one (yuk)), but other than that, no major complaints.

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Sky+HD end of life is no different to the end of life for Sky Q. That's when they turn off the satellite. 

The only recent changes affecting this are Sky's movement over to streamed content such as Sky Sports+, replacing the old Red Button feeds and the fact that if your Sky+HD Box fails it's no longer possible to pair your viewing card to a replacement box.

Other than that, your Sky+HD will continue to operate as it currently does.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Kmcleod wrote:

does anyone else think the installation department are out of control and law unto themselves ?

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Quite the opposite: it sounds like they followed their mandated safe working policy exactly as they should have done.

Going ahead with the installation, on the other hand, would indeed require them to be literally 'out of control' by their own employer.