Customer Call Before Christmas
Hi, this is John Dale from GlobileNet. This is another customer interactive story. This was Parveen that gave us a call just before Christmas last year.
The Customer’s Needs
He had a need to get two things done, really. One was the NBN was in the wrong place. Two, he had bought an EV and the switchboard was on the opposite side of the house. And three, he needed some extra power points in the garage, and it was a difficult wire because it was a two-storey house.
Initial Site Visit
So I’d gone to visit him. I had a really good look around. I actually dropped some downlights to have a look in the ceiling, see what the situation was. It was a little bit fortunate in that the ceiling was constructed with steel and timber, not just a solid timber truss, which typically you would have to drill through; it would be very messy or could be very messy depending on the existing wire.
Planning and Quoting
So I’d mapped out where we thought everything could go. I gave him a quote, and Parveen accepted that quote. And then we moved into, obviously, the doing phase.
Discovering the I-Beam
Now, this is an interesting one because when we went in to the switchboard – and there’s a small roof just above the switchboard, it wasn’t two-storey in that section – when we tried to penetrate through into the ceiling of the adjacent room, which gave us access to the garage, there was a mighty big steel beam (what we call an I-beam), supporting the house from front to back. Well, at least it looked like it was going front to back, which obviously is very difficult to penetrate and drill through. And you don’t want to be drilling something like that without getting information from somebody.
Seeking Builder’s Advice
So after attempting to look above and below with our cameras and whatever, I decided that I would abort on that day. And I’d spoken to Parveen about seeking some builder’s advice. I belong into a network group with a lot of associated trades people, and those people are who I can go to for advice as well as other things.
Green Light to Proceed
So the advice coming back, both from Parveen’s builder and my builder, was that there would not be any structural deficit by penetrating the steel RSJ (rolled steel joist, a.k.a. I-beam) as long as it was a relatively small hole. So we rescheduled the work with Parveen. I told him what the result was with talking to our engineers. His builder also agreed that that shouldn’t be a problem. So I resumed a couple of days later.
Drilling Through the Beam
We actually drilled the steel beam with typical hole saws, a nice new hole saw; actually went through the steel relatively easily. And I needed two holes, actually, because I wanted to run the NBN line, which was on the same side as the switchboard, separately to the three-phase EV charger cable, which was an orange circular four-millimetre cable in this case.
Ceiling Access and Cabling
We penetrated through into the ceiling beyond us. Then it became the normal job because we could pull quite easily all the way across the ceiling using the existing downlight. So it didn’t actually create any damage up until we got to the corridor or where the wall adjoined the garage.
Making Access Holes
Now, I’d spoken to Parveen prior to do anything, and I’d always speak to my customers prior to having to make an access hole to make sure he was okay with it.
Running the NBN Cable
We did need to make an access hole to get up and over into the wall cavity of the garage, which we did. And we had to do the same for the NBN cable. So the NBN cable was an armoured two-core cable or four-core cable, I think it was, that we ran more or less in parallel with the circular cable, but we kept them apart, both from a mechanical protection point of view, because there is no electromagnetic induction into a fibre cable.
Final Installation
We installed the EV charger on the wall, put the optical cable down the wall in the location that we needed it. We then moved the NBN modem from the switchboard wall to the garage where we were going to located. Did a little test, made sure it came up before we got too excited with ourselves, made sure it worked and it did. Then we mounted the NBN kit back onto the wall, secured the connection between the NBN incoming lines and tested and got the EV charger working.
Customer Satisfaction
Parveen was delighted, not only because we did a good job for him, but also because we were cautious. We were conservative. I kept him informed along the way. So he was very happy to give us a five-star review and said “it was an amazing job. It was professional, reliable, and trustworthy.” And that’s what you’re going to find with us if you care to engage with GlobileNet. So please give us a call. This is John Dale.
