In any project there’s always one last thing that happens that feels like it will upset the whole deal. For me that one thing happened today.
I had made arrangements with the cable provider to have the connection to the house made this afternoon. While the house won’t officially be ours until the closing next week the builder didn’t have any problems with our making this hook up early. Sibylle’s studio is very dependent upon email and the Internet so having that service in place on day one is crucial to us.
The cable installer arrived and checked out things inside and then went outside to get started. I watched as he made a lap around the house, and then a second lap. He came back inside and said, “We may have a problem.”
Oh crap.
Typically, it seems, the builder provides a raw end of coaxial cable and telephone wire to the outside of the house, usually near the electrical service for the house. The electrical service comes with a code approved electrical ground, and both the telephone and cable installers want to piggy-back on this ground to ensure their connections to the house are, well, grounded.
The raw end of the cable (or telephone wire) goes into the house and leads to whatever wiring box is provided. The installed puts a small service box on the exterior of the house, finishes the raw end of the appropriate cable or wire, and attaches the service lead to the house there. Inside the installer finishes the other end of the the cable or wire that leads to the outside, and connects it to a switch or junction that distributes the signal to all the cable or telephone jacks in the house.
Our builder did not provide this raw end to the outside of the house. He is willing to run a length of cable from the wiring box in the unfinished portion of the lower level to the nearest exterior wall. Unfortunately that wall is on the opposite side of the house from the cable source, and is no where near the electrice service on the house.
Our options are limited.
The end of the lower level nearest the source for the cable and telephone is completely finished. It also is a concrete wall – so there’s no easy way to get a wire through downstairs.
It would be possible, but perhaps difficult, to fish a wire up through an interior wall to the attic and then across to the backside of the garage, which is where the electrical service is located. This would be my preferred solution, but I suspect it’ll come with a price tag, and may not be feasible.
Or, (and this is what the builder is proposing) we run a wire from the wiring box to the nearest exterior wall, and then the cable or telephone people would have to bury their cables across the entire back yard in order to make the connection.
What I absolutely do not want is an ugly black wire stapled to the entire width of the back of the house, and up the east side just because the builder didn’t provide the typical exterior connection.
Crap indeed.
