Stupid cabling job.

[sjatkn]

We are in the process of having a lot of windows replaced at the school at the moment and today I got a call from the foreman asking me to come down and inspect some phone cables that run through the bridge between two buildings. In the middle of the bridge we find a DP box, so we open it up thinking that we could split the cables and pull them back each way to get them out of the way. What do we find?

Just a loop of cable! I can just see a pair of cabling techs working from both ends of the cable and meeting in the middle, swearing at each other and then wondering what they should do with the slack, "I know we could just stuff it in this box, nobody will ever know".

[MatthewL]

Question is what you going to do to fix it and make it look good?

[sjatkn]

The window fitters are going to hide it behind some MDF panels. The new windows fit in a different way to the old and a considerable amount of making good is needed with a lot of space to fill.

[cobra427col]

At my old school - a demolition team were ripping the ceiling down in a part of the school that was being refurb'ed- and they hacked through every cat5 they saw... Next day I was asked to help out the cctv/alarm guy sort a camera that had gone dead at the back of the building.. (you know whats coming dont you).

 

I asked him to change the colour of the cable so that at least (hoping) someone would question it if any more work was being done. "yeah the purple is cctv - dont cut it"

 

So I go on holiday for a few days and return to the cowboys installing the new network cables - I couldn't believe it. They'd seen the purple one and followed suit for the rest.

 

(foot note - not there now so not bothered)

[X-13]

They'd seen the purple one and followed suit for the rest.

 

So, all the network cables are purple? That's cool.

[sted]

dosent purple denote something like smokeless?

[plexer]

low smoke zero halogen?

 

Cat5e UTP Solid Cable 305m Purple LSZH sheath

 

allthough it's not just the purple that conforms to this.

 

Ben

[sted]

low smoke zero halogen?

 

Cat5e UTP Solid Cable 305m Purple LSZH sheath

 

allthough it's not just the purple that conforms to this.

 

Ben

 

fair enough it was from memory that certain cat 5 colours denote say smokeless/exterior grade etc

[rad]

We have purple, it looks cool compared to grey

[CAM]

I ran bright yellow through my parents' house, they weren't impressed...

[Edu-IT]

The window fitters are going to hide it behind some MDF panels. The new windows fit in a different way to the old and a considerable amount of making good is needed with a lot of space to fill.

Just as long as you can get to it!

 

Lots of schools seem to be having new windows and doors lately, LA replacement program?

[Pyroman]

Our network is all on Purple, fire alarms system on red, all electrics are white. nice and simple and put in by proper cablers not sparkys that wrench cables about :-)

[sidewinder]

Just as long as you can get to it!

 

This was my thought too. I curse whoever decided to run loads of our cables behind wood panels. Great idea at the time, pain in the arse to fault find or run more

[sjatkn]

I'm off to check out the full state of the phone cabling as the window fitters have found many more unknown cables running across the outside of the bridge. I suspect there may be a few hundred pounds to spend on running a proper phone multicore or a few thousand on replacing the existing phone system with VOIP. I'd like to do the latter, but we don't have any spare cash (as far as I know).