Gardens

Once you get to someone's property boundary your job is done. Well that's the principle, but you need to check that the householder has the necessary information to finish the installation.. You have to issue guidelines and keep a watchful eye over the proceedings – try at least to get the owner to explain his plan before he does it and inspect the finished result. This saves a lot of disappointment on fibre blowing day when you find he has put the backplate on upside-down or has his orange duct sticking out of it.

Before you got duct to his boundary you probably met the owner. You know if he's interested. You can probably only easily reach part of his boundary with the spur duct, and you will have to discuss the point where he would ideally like you to get to. There will often be a wall or a fence at the boundary, sometimes you will help getting through this obstacle.

You will end up getting very involved in some peoples installation, just because some people haven’t got a clue and they need help. If you had a volunteer who could be responsible for this job it would be very useful.

Gardens

Guidelines - this is the handout we eventually issued, but by the time we knew enough to write it, it was a bit late.

The policy of Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN), is that volunteers take the duct up to the boundary of a property and that the householder is responsible for getting the duct from the boundary and across their land up to the wall of the building to which the connection is to be made. Your local B4RN volunteers should leave a coil of duct at the boundary. The duct is 7mm in diameter (about the size of a pencil). In some cases, it is not necessary to wait for ducting to reach you, you can be supplied with ducting so that you can complete the route across your property and a join can be made later at the boundary.

Whether householders employ someone, or they do this job themselves, there are a few simple rules:

Where duct must be taken under a boundary wall it is good practice to slide the duct through a short length of metal or plastic tube.
Between the boundary and the house, the duct must be buried, but can follow any route so long as any curves are of a radius no tighter than that of a dinner plate.
The route that the householder chooses will be inﬂuenced by the place they wish the broadband router to be ﬁtted inside their house. It will sometimes be better to complete the house connection before starting the garden phase.
Where the duct crosses a garden, it needs to be buried to a depth that will avoid the duct being damaged in the future by digging or other ground work. A trench depth of about a foot might be sufﬁcient. (Additional protection may be necessary under a track used by vehicles. Metal tube is useful in these circumstances.)
It is particularly important to keep dirt and water from getting into the 7mm duct. The volunteers will have left the duct with its end taped up. There may not be enough duct to reach across the property, in which case contact your volunteer, who will join an extra length on for you. Or there may be far too much duct to work with, in which case you may cut some off, so long as you ensure a waterproof seal is maintained.
When the 7mm duct is installed up to the wall of the house the installer should allow it to emerge from the ground in a smooth curve so that it can be ﬁxed up the wall face.
Before the duct comes up out of the ground up the house wall, it has to be joined to a black duct of the same diameter. (The orange duct biodegrades in daylight). Ask your volunteer about this, as you will need a join piece and a length of black duct.
Another part of the householder’s responsibility is to get the duct through the house wall. There are more guidance notes on this aspect.
Discuss the intended route with your B4RN volunteer, before any work is begun.

There will be a huge difference between a garden that has ducts leading to other properties and one that is just the responsibility of the owner.

The physical work will be similar, but it's going to have to be a top job, and need a few volunteers.

concrete and forget

okay, it doesn't look promising, but in soft soil there is a technique where you can press down on the protective ducting with a spade and it goes down nicely.

Caton

some very neat and very long trenching

drilling through a garden wall

this was dug by hand!

You can see the plan. And it should work really well

that looks a good plan, using 16mm as a shield. Wait until its got fibre, then concrete it in.

Once the project gets focused on a particular short section your DIY man comes into his own. You are also within range of electrical machines and toolsheds.

Plastic sheets to collect the soil leads to a very tidy job with hardly any extra effort.

Touch of concrete and a nice job. Mark the point where the black and orange join

Getting under paths

The householder is often left with the job of getting under a concrete or tarmac path in his garden.

Dig down each side and then get as much soil out as possible with a spade under the path before moving on to hand tools. Tunnel further, getting as much as you can out with a trowel. Now you are at the difficult bit, the metre or so of path you can't get at. You can try various methods

Knock a bar through
Knock a metal pipe through
Use water - steadily advance a garden hose inside a metal pipe
Drill under with a power drill attachment.
Winkle a hole through with a curly drain rod end

Avoiding kinking 7 mm in outer ducting

It is common to use up off-cuts of 16 mm by giving them out to householders who wish to protect the 7 mm across their garden. They might also use ducting of their own. This route can be quite convoluted and is in danger of kinking the inner duct without you knowing,. If you pass the 7mm through after the outer ducting has been laid you can check that the 7 flows smoothly.