Getting Organised

How you get organised will depend on what resources you have. You will already have difficulties with a mixed set of volunteers or lack of volunteers. It will make a big difference if you have some really practical people, especially farmers. You may have easy access to trailers, storage, diggers or you may not. This gives every village a different challenge.

Kitting Up

You are the stage where you have a general plan as to what sections of your area you wish to get on with, you have a fair idea of the route and the sorts of terrain and obstacles along the way. You are ready to get organised and be ready to put something in the ground

1 Quantities

You need to get some duct and some chambers to start work. This will all come from Melling, but you might have your own supplier of alkathene duct, scaffold poles, other stuff. You have to decide how much to get. B4RN will be guiding you at this stage and won’t let you get too carried away. Your whole project might eventually need something of the order of 100 drums. You need to calculate roughly how much you need for your first sector. And you’ll want some more so that you can take advantage of any other opportunities that arise. To give you a vague idea, you might want something like 12 drums to start with and another 8 every couple of months after that.

The usual length 16 mm comes in 1000 m and and 7 mm is 3000 m (but a different supplier gave 1200 m and 4000 m). A 7 mm drum is about half as heavy again as a 16 mm drum. With an axle bar, 2 fit people can lift a 16 mm drum a short height, a 7 mm drum can also be lifted but it takes 2 stronger people (the 4000 m drum is almost too heavy to lift this way). The usual 7 mm and 16 mm drums are similar in size.

Do not rely on the Spreadsheet for quantities, you can use it as a check, but make your own calculations.

2 Stock taking

Stock taking sounds easy if your main items are just two sizes of duct and two sizes of chamber. Eventually your drums may be spread around your area and it will be more difficult to keep track. Some drums will move without you knowing. Contractors can also confuse the issue, especially those who have reel carriers on their moleploughs. And if you have a contractor who is doing work for other areas drums may disappear entirely (…this also means that some might appear. It can be useful if you run out, to have access to neighbours’ drums)

Eventually you will have several part-used drums spread around your area and want to use the one with the right sort of length of duct on it (especially drums with short lengths on). A length shorter than 50 metres might be difficult to use anywhere. You can use these to protect sections of 7mm and give them to houseowners for the same purpose.

Lengths of say 150 metres or less might be more useful if you take them off the drum – you then have a coil you can transport easily.

You might want to have a particular volunteer in charge of stocks.

Be aware that B4RN can run out of things, this may affect your stock levels. (This applies to all items – duct, routers, joints, core fibre, everything)

3 Collecting

An ordinary large car with a large trailer might be able to collect up to about 6 drums. Chambers can go inside a large car, but the large concrete chamber lids are better on a trailer. You might get 6 small chambers in a car, but struggle to fit more than 1 large in. A single drum can be loaded onto the typical farmers Toyota pick-up vehicle.

Large chamber sections are particularly bulky

7mm and 16mm drums are different sizes, watch out for them crushing each other in transit.

4 Multi-core

You should have made some decisions about how much multi-core to use. (as little as possible maybe)

The majority of your drums will be single 7 s and 16 s. Multi-core drums are much larger. Transportation of these will be an issue.

5 Store it

  • Once you have obtained it, you must store it. There should be no trouble finding a farmer with a spare barn but warn him that it might be used for a few months. It depends how easily you can move drums around within your area, but you ideally want them near where the centre of work is, so you might want to move to a different barn or two after a while.
  • Drums can also be stored in the corner of a field for a month or two if necessary and you might as well pick a shady corner. In fact, once your project gets underway it can be useful to have them somewhere where the town can see them, for publicity.
  • A drum of duct is not actually worth stealing, but it’s possible someone might think it contains copper or something. The small chambers are the most ‘stealable’ item – tuck them away
  • If you are using someone’s barn, keep it tidy, there will be a temptation to spread out over time. And when you finally move out make sure you take everything.
  • Watch out when you reel drums around, a full drum can be very full, and the duct can be damaged if you roll it over uneven ground.

6 Re-Locate it

At some point you will need to move stuff around your village. You may be using the same method you used to get drums from Melling, or for short distances you may be able to use something like a sheep trailer or a tractor with a spike.

If you are short of transport options, you might be able to have a couple of drums near your working section and a couple of weeks later roll them along the road to the next section.

7 Prepare your stocks

When you get a new drum, its ends are often unsealed or badly sealed.

(You might find one of the ends sticks out and hits the ground when you roll it– cut it shorter) Add tape. Both ends are accessible.

The lid frames on both sizes of chambers are not attached, sort them out as soon as you have time, it is better not to leave it until you are about to put the chamber in the ground.

The frame for the small chamber lid comes with 3 screws ready to screw it to the ring. These screws do not work very well, it is easy to find that you haven’t actually attached it in all 3 places.

The metal frame on the large chamber needs a hole drilled on each side and find your own screws to fix it to a chamber section. These should be galvanised screws (a nail would work).

You can’t easily predict the exact slots you need to cut out of a chamber, sometimes until the last moment, but if you prepare a small chamber with 3 slots roughly evenly spaced then that will cover pretty much all eventualities (not exactly evenly, uneven gives you more choice). Don’t screw the lid down until the chamber is in the ground. Screwing the lid down is necessary, they sometimes get brim full of water and can pop off creating a booby trap. The lid screws can easily get lost.

You could prepare some of your large chamber sections as well with a slot in all four sides. Slots in chambers should be quite big to enable the duct to cope with settlement that will occur round the chamber.

8 Tools

You need cutters and tape with you at all times. And a spade available during all digging operations

Full tool list

  • - spade, some people like a trenching spade which is heavy but good for levering, there is a lot to be said for the lightest spade you can find
  • - pick, (or adze)
  • - long iron bar (you need this for getting under walls)
  • - when doing manual work in a group there will be a lot of tool sharing, so everyone doesn’t have to fetch lots of tools
  • - Sometimes you wish you had a rake, a brush, a trowel, a sledgehammer
  • - For chambers you need a saw and a hammer, a cross head and a large ordinary screwdriver
  • - You might need the saw for roots as well, so not your best saw
  • - Gloves, many pairs
  • - Manhole lifter
  • - Duct cutters
  • - Plenty of Black tape, several coloured tapes
  • - 7 mm and 16 mm joins
  • - Scanner – we bought our own second-hand for £100
  • - Notebook and pen
  • - Surveyors wheel
  • - Short odd bits of duct for marking out
  • - General useful tools – Stanley knife, pliers, cutters, mole grips, string
  • - Consider – marker tape, marker spray
  • - Having a few metres of 16 and some odd bits of outer duct
  • - Camera – you will want to send us some photos

If you are working with a diggerman or moleplougher, he will probably have some tools with him. What he might also have with him is a set of water-pipe connectors of common sizes.

You might want to buy a pair of the 20 mm, 25 mm and 32 mm connectors at the beginning of the project and have them available at every dig day, replenish when necessary. You should be able to find a spare metre of those size pipes at any friendly farm, get some.

Temporary chamber: Bury completely. Include a large lump of metal so you can find it with a metal detector. .Take a photo.

9 Ducts

Multi-core is a lot stronger than single core because it has an extra layer of plastic and the ducts are tightly packed and protect each other. Once duct has been successfully fibred being stronger doesn’t make much difference, it is still no match for a digger inadvertently going through it.

There is a good case for twin-core (if you can transport it easily) because there are many cases where there are only two spurs in a certain direction. You only have one cable to organise and it is already colour-coded as it consists of a red and a green 7mm. It is not easy to peel back the outer plastic. Because of that there is a temptation to make joints alongside each other when they would be better offset. (To peel back the outer layer you need to cut down the centre on both sides using a Stanley knife without cutting the inner duct, or yourself)

10 Increasing Duct protection has its own page here

11 Fittings

  • Joints work well. Practice at home, all the joints come on and off easily when clean.
  • In muddy situations you may not be able to get the 7 mm cover back on, in which case tape round the join.
  • The original transparent 7 mm joints are better than those grey ones.
  • 7 mm end caps can easily pull off, so do not use them anywhere where the duct is still being moved around. They can get knocked off even in the chamber. A properly taped joint is just as good as an end-cap.
  • 16 mm end caps are not as good as tape
  • There is a new style of 7 mm end cap that is apparently okay.
  • The black tape is really good. The coloured tapes are not good, and often useless in wet conditions.
  • De-burring of joints. It used to be recommended that you de-burred duct when you cut it before making any joins. Some people believe that it is unnecessary. The B4RN staff rarely do it.
  • A properly connected joint does not cause a problem. A joint on a bend can cause the fibre to get stuck. There used to be the rule that you shouldn't join, this has been compounded by others thinking that a joint is a weak point in the system, like an electrical joint would be. Once the fibre is in the duct the joint is irrelevant (and is actually a strong point in the system since the fibre is surrounded by a larger lump of plastic at that point).
  • If joints were a problem then blowing fibre into a house through the gas block, where the diameter suddenly steps down from 7 mm to 5 mm would be a problem.
  • A 7 mm join is easy to make because it has a transparent section, so you see if it connects properly. You do not have to take the outer plastic sleeve off to make the connection, you should be able to see enough through the plastic sleeve to be sure the joint is good. If the lighting is not good, you may have to take the sleeve off to make sure.
  • A 16 mm join is more difficult, the second side often doesn’t feel quite right, you will often do that side twice, or take the joint off and start again.
  • If in doubt re-do a connection or get someone else to do it.

12 Making Joints

Practice with the connectors at home. They all come apart easily (at home anyway), you can keep practicing. Start with the 7mm because you can easily see if it is done properly. Start without the outer sleeve, then try it with the sleeve on (to take it apart, you will have to take the sleeve off).

Never put a join on a bend.


Someone got fed-up and went home doing this bunch. They seemed to have trouble getting the outer covers on - you don't need to take them off. You need to have practised though.

Do not put a join on a bend, that's where the fibre might stick.



Do not have all the joins together, offset them

B4RN 4 Halton

nice off-set joints but also notice the cable-tie (not quite tightened) to link the 2 ducts so that they support each other.

Also note the coding of the ducts, 1 back band, 2 black bands so that you connect them up the right way round.

And finally, casing the whole section in black outer ducting

13 Chambers

We have already said how you might prepare your chambers beforehand, but you will be preparing some in the field.

Cut all the holes in the chamber that you will need (if there are ducts that are not being laid at the same time as the chamber, then cut the hole where you think the duct will arrive. If you are unsure, it does no harm to cut a couple of holes in likely looking places. Stuff plastic or something down on the outside of the chamber to make it easier to locate the hole when you do lay that duct.)

With small chambers the duct (especially the 16) should enter as a spiral round the chamber, rather than aiming for the centre. And if you want to get it perfect, the 16s that join onto each other should spiral in opposite directions to each other.

You must decide at what height to bring the duct into the chamber. At the same sort of height as the plough depth maybe. If you bring it in at the very bottom of the chamber you still need to cut a slot for it, or it will get kinked as the chamber settles.

14 Metre readings

All the ducts are marked with a stamp every metre, so you can measure a certain length of duct. (Fibre also has metre readings - even the really thin house fibre) You will spend part of your life looking for these readings. Sometimes they are difficult to read, but most of the time they somehow just hide. There is other writing on the duct, if in doubt it's the number that changes along the duct, the serial number will stay the same.

If you lose track of your colour coding, or forgot to do it, after you have buried your ducts then you can rescue the situation from the metre readings on the sticky-out end bits of duct. You can also get accurate numbers for the length laid - for billing purposes maybe. This does not work if you have joined the duct along the way of course.

We have also used metre readings to determine which duct was which when we dug down to a fault which we knew was in one of a bunch of ducts - We had fibre in most of them so we needed to cut the right one. (Side note - you can usually tell if a duct has fibre in it by rattling it, but you are not always certain)

That's a metre reading on a 16 mm duct "0007" metres. They do not always start at zero, it may be 9981 or something and rise to 0000

15 Getting duct off a drum by hand, reeler, vehicle

Taking duct off a drum

The next stage might be to get some duct ready to be put in the ground.

This either comes off the drum on site or is taken off the drum at your storage facility.

Taking 100m off a drum doesn’t take long and goes easily inside a car. 300m or more is possible, but time to think of an alternative maybe.

To take duct off a drum – lean the drum over against a wall, take a single loop off (read the metre marker stamped on the duct) and tape the first loop, then take the required length off in similar loops (read the metre numbers). Cut the duct. Tape this whole reel of duct together. Tape up the 2 cut ends well. Tape the end left on the drum to the drum somehow to stop it knotting itself. (When taping coils turn the last inch of the tape over on itself – the person who has to take the tape off will thank you, and it will probably be you) A coil of 16 from near the centre of a drum is a lot harder to work with than that from the outer layers, because it has twice as many coils. Duct, especially the 16 is easier to work with in warm weather. As you take each length off the drum you might want to colour code both ends with coloured tape.

If you are taking off more than about 50 metres, then maybe tape that lot together before continuing to take the rest off the drum. This will help when you roll it out. For example if you had taped up the coil somewhere near the mid-point then you can lay out in both directions from a point near the middle of your field.

Using a Reeler

The alternative to taking duct off the drum in loops, is to transport it to the field you are working in and use a reeler. If you have lots of duct to spread out, then this might be the best option, if you can move a drum and a reeler easily.

Reeler are made so you can reel out lengths of duct across a field, it is a stand to raise the drum above the ground, with an axle. A full drum of duct is pretty heavy so have a long axle so that 4 people can lift the drum. We had ours made locally. We ended up with three of them. It takes a bit of ingenuity to work with a reeler on your own because you can't lift the drum onto the axle stands. You have to slowly jack the drum up on both sides.

When B4RN changed suppliers for their drums, the newer drums were bigger, and some people found their reelers were too small. Ours happened to be okay. Some people used a saw to cut the diameter of the drum down.

You can reel some very long lengths off a drum. Ensure the reeler is level, it is worth spending time doing this. Spacers on the axle each side of the drum would be good. Double spacers would be even better. One person keeps the drum rotating, another person walks off with the duct end. If you have a third person, he sets off walking holding the duct 50 metres or more behind the other person. Communicate. It's easier if you can keep the movement going and not stop the drum. The person turning the drum needs gloves

.

When you have finished taking duct off a drum (whether taking it off by hand or when reeling) and cut the duct, make sure the cut end doesn’t get slightly lost and tuck itself under another coil on the drum, effectively knotting itself. If you are still using the drum keep the loose end well away from the drum so this doesn’t happen. When you have finished with the drum, tape the end tightly onto the other coils on the drum so it can’t move when transported.

Taping the loose end on to the drum is also important if you are working with a reel carrier on your plough. The drums on reel-carriers often bounce a lot and many coils may have slack in them, so they can wrap up somewhat.

Waiting to do the next section - back when we were scared to join the stuff. Cut and Join!

drum leant over to take off duct in coils

coils colour-coded ready to be taken by car to site

Typical spur coil which will wait for the main line to be dug in before we give it much more thought.

Ingleton's reeler

Beware of drums being a bit warped. The axle should be twice this length, so you can use 8 hands if necessary

One person can manage if you have two reelers.

A tractor with a spike is a good reeler, especially with a heavy multi-core drum like this one. You want the drum close to horizontal to reduce friction - but without the possibility of the drum coming off the axle.

One of those where you wish you could join in. They appear to be attempting to feed two 16s into an outer duct direct from the reelers. You're thinking - Wouldn't that be easier if the reelers were away over to the right. That then separates the two activities - getting the duct off the drums and getting it into the outer duct, rather than combining the 2 problems.

This is from F4RN - they say this works really well. It's the sort of axle stands you might be able to borrow from a farmer. The secret may be in the double axle which enables the drum to rotate more freely, and it must always need a person at the drum.

on rollers

Levelling up a reeler makes it a lot less work. If duct is being pulled out, it is easiest if the operation keeps moving and the guy at the reeler doesn't get much chance to hoick the drum away from the sides.

The Welsh group MYFI say this

"We have recently found that applying Polywater http://www.millsltd.com/polywater-prelube-5000-cable-blowing-lubricant-0-25-litre.html to the wood of the drum where it turns on the bar has made a massive difference to the effort involved in pulling off duct. In fact we now do the same when blowing large fibre and it has made such a difference that we no longer need to turn the drum manually, the blowing machine has sufficient strength to pull the fibre straight off the drum! "

16 Laying Out

If rolling out duct from a cut coil, un-tape it, separate the taped first coil, put that on the ground, walk backwards with the coil bundle unrolling it as you go with an up and down flapping motion to keep the duct loose. Sort out minor tangles as they occur, don't let them become super-tangles.

You need to know where the dig line will be. It's okay laying out across an open field, but if there is the odd tree or telegraph pole in the way you need to know which side the driver will be going. When you are going across a side slope, even the driver may not know which side of an obstacle your tractor or digger will be able to physically get to. Be prepared to have to reroute your laid-out ducting at the time.

When dragging long lengths of loose ducting over grass keep a sharp eye that loops are not getting tight and might suddenly kink. You may have to walk backwards. Have any loose ends as free as possible, not in spare coiled bits or taped loops - because you may at some stage be dragging this lot from a long way away where you can't really see it. This occurs during moleploughing when you haven't enough slack and you have to pull it all towards you from the far end.

If anyone kinks the duct they must speak up and should feel they can speak up. This means you need a working environment which enables people to admit to things without getting yelled at. Getting laughed at is very much part of work-force bonding.

If you do end up with a right proper kink in a duct, then it must be cut and joined. If this join will be in the middle of a moleplough run, then you have to stop the moleploughing at the join point and set off laying the second section and make the join after. We have managed to inadvertently (but successfully) moleplough with a 7mm join in the duct, but a 16mm will not work. It is possible to overlap the two ducts, tape them together and feed them through the plough marking the point for the join later – you should push down on the ducts as the join passes through the plough.

With a trenching operation you can just make the join and carry on as normal, possibly leaving a marker at that point after it is laid, or at least memorise the location.

You may have been told that you should leave a marker at every joint you make – this is not possible in many situations, you may not be able to leave orange markers sticking out of a farmer’s field for a few months. Knowing where the 16mm joins are is more important than the 7mm.

A very minor kink may be straightened by hand - but it would be good to know what size fibre count it is going to be carrying if it is a 16mm.

If you are lucky enough to have a moleplough with a duct carrier, then you might have the right duct on the plough not to have to roll anything out, but otherwise you could use the plough as a reeler by letting it travel the intended route reeling some duct out at the same time. Similarly, if you can mount the reeler on some other sort of vehicle then you can reel out the duct by letting that drive away slowly while you hold the duct end.

You now have duct strewn over a field near the line you wish to dig. Walk backwards and forwards a couple of times to bundle them together loosely. If they seem unwieldy then a tiny bit of tape can be used to hold them together – this tape needs to be able to be easily broken especially if moleploughing because the ducts will very soon want to be a metre or more adrift of each other. Someone suggested using a collar of the purple outer ducting to bundle the ducts together, the volunteers sliding the collar along as they help the plough.

You will occasionally tread on the duct by accident, this is extremely unlikely to damage the duct. A quadbike driving over duct on grass is unlikely to damage it. A car driving over it on gravel will ruin it.

Before digging/ploughing the duct needs to be to one side of the line of digging so it is not in the way. Consider which side is best.

For moleploughing this would normally be the downhill side.

Laying out for a complicated set of spurs or laying out when your vehicle is feeding some but not all of the ducts from reel carriers can take a bit of thinking through to make it efficient, and to stop running over your own duct.

There may be complex situations where spurs are going off in all directions which means you are feeding into the plough from both sides. You’ll need a few volunteers for that one. And a plan.

Walking backwards to lay duct. Holding the duct loosely in your arms and flapping it enables the strands to untangle.

Where there are lots of ducts, the laying out needs to be very carefully planned. This run involved about 25 ducts, bunches of which had to be picked up at various points. And the moleplough tube had to re-designed to cope with this number. Helpers were essential.

With less ducts you can manage with less helpers, but the lines need to be organised tidily. You don't want too much or too little spare duct. Have the duct at the end loose so that the ducts can be pulled back across the grass if it gets tight.

Laying out ducting can be a long task. Here it has been laid out the day before, but that means it needs to be tucked out of harms way overnight and spread out to its proper position on the day.

Rolling Drums along to lay duct.

From time to time someone has the bright idea of rolling out duct by simply undoing the duct and rolling the drum along the ground letting the duct trail over the ground behind you. This does not work too well - the diameter of the drum is a lot more than the diameter of the duct on the drum therefore you might only lay out half the length you wanted. However that has got the job half-done.

If you zigzag around a bit then you can get a lot more laid out, you can make this method sort of work. And the fuller the drum the better.

Laying out can lead to logistical nightmares. This group seem to have about 7X7mms and a 16mm. The 7 spurs are probably going to different points along the route. You don't want anyone treading on it. You don't want to get a tangle. And you probably haven't got 8 volunteers. And you won't have 8 you can trust. And you will want to motivate everyone by giving them a job of some sort. And some rambling club will start wandering down that path. And you will just get organised starting to unwind that lot and some well meaning person turns up with a tray of tea. By that time 2 volunteers have had to go home, and 1 new one turns up and you have to explain what your plan is again. The landowner will turn up and so you have to give him some attention and listen again to that story about his grandfather again.

17 Colour Coding

If you are reeling out lots of 7s then you may wish to colour-code them with tape so that you know which is which. If you started all your coding with some universal system, then it would make things easier. (Right from the start of the project decide (GREY) Green, Red, Earth, Yellow is 1, 2, 3, 4 for example). Do not use end caps or labels, they will come off. If you have no coloured tape with you, you could add the same number of bands of black tape at either end.

Remember that if you shorten a colour-coded duct you will have to re-colour it. This can happen when you haven’t got that colour tape on you. Cut the coloured section of duct off and tape that piece of duct onto the shortened duct.

The coloured tape we have been using is not too good in the wet, you may have to improvise by sticking it on with your black tape. If you lose your coding somehow, you may be able to reconstruct it from the metre numbers on the duct. This can be quite time consuming - consider the alternative of not coding the ducts.

Over Kellet managed very well just using multiple bands of tape to signify numbers.

If B4RN come across unmarked ducts, they blow compressed air down all the ducts in turn until they find the right one, this takes at most 15 seconds per duct. Even if the ducts are marked they check with air anyway.

Balance the effort of you keeping tabs of which is which of 2 ducts across several fields with B4RN trying each one with compressed air.

At some stage you might want to write some notes as to what your colours mean. Once you have given some householders their spur ducts, they can cut the end off or bury it and you won't be able to tell your red property from your blue. And if all your colours have reached the chamber then it could be time for the plant labels. A plant label has the name of the house and its spur reference number – the house name should be as it appears on the Spreadsheet. Plant label written on with waterproof permanent marker, tied on with nylon tie.

There will be variation questions back and forth to B4RN when dealing with houses that are known by more than one name (there are more of those than you would think)


From Over Kellet

They use Green for Tens and Blue for Units based on the spreadsheet numbering. Thus Yonder Cottage OK304(S16) is one Green and six Blue bands.

You might be tempted to add Yellow is 5, and you would like to see it done in the rain. but it's looking good. (And don't forget when you shorten number 19 you have to relabel it - Over Kellet is so organised they never have to)