BT box on outside of house. Can I have it inside?

[Tony L]

The concrete was poured this week & my builder has just started laying trench blocks today.

 

Before we knocked the old house down, I took the BT copper wire off the apex of the roof & fed it into the our static caravan, which is our temp accomodation. A friend who knows more about this than me came & installed the wall box in the van.  I’m fairly sure he installed two boxes, so our telephone wire that’s outside goes into one box, under the van & this feeds into another box by the skirting board inside, & we plug our router into this box.

 

I asked my builder to put some conduit across the garden & through the wall below ground level, thinking I’d have both telecom boxes, as described above, in the corner of a room at the front of the house where I’m intending to build a cupboard – so they’d be hidden.  He tells me, I must have the BT box on the outside of the house (above GL of course), so BT can maintain it.

 

This may be the preference of Openreach or whomever, although they may be happy to have their box out of the weather; my preference is to not have their ugly box on show.  Should I go with my plan, or the builder’s plan? 

[QualitySelfBuild]

I was told by my Openreach surveyor that they won't allow ducting straight into the house in case dangerous gases enter from the street through it.

 

With everything moving from copper to fibre there needs to be a box where they house the splice from external fibre to an internal fibre which is usually put outside for ease of access. 

 

In my case the duct from the street comes up into the detached garage and then back underground and up into the house which was enough to satisfy Openreach

[Conor]

No, which is why we went with virgin. We're ICF with 100mm EWI... I wasn't having somebody attempt to fit a box and ruin my lovely render.

[PNAmble]

We have the openreach box outside in a kiosk with all other external services, so that we only have one two ducts (power and data) into the airtight house.  The Openreach box is the grey one.  The openreach cable then goes into the plant room when it connects to the other OpenReach box.  From there it connects into my data cabinet.  A cat6 cable then comes back out into the kiosk (through the same duct) to a mini switch which feeds all external data requirements. Eg EVC, CcTV, Access Points.   

we had to use openreach provided ducting from the pavement to the kiosk. Provided FoC by Openreach. 
 

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

I obviously don’t know what type and size of house you are building. 
but I would not take the cable inside to a cupboard unless this is going to be a dedicated service cupboard that all your cat 6 cables go back to. 
I’ve just had all my internet data stuff installed in the house and we are very low tech, but we still had something like 13 cat 6 cables feeding back into this area. 
 

much easier to get it all put in the dedicated plant room or where the consumer unit goes. 

[PNAmble]

4 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

much easier to get it all put in the dedicated plant room or where the consumer unit goes

Totally agree.  Somethings are best hard wired.  Also don’t rely on the providers router wifi. These are always rubbish.  Hardwired dedicated access points are much more reliable.  As it’s a new build it’s easy to do it.
 

We went cat6a which was probably overkill and they are a bugger to terminate and bend.  

[Tony L]

Thanks, everybody.  So the answer to my problem is: the detached garage.  Why didn't I think of that?

 

Virgin isn't an option down my road & I have Virgin at my workplace (my own small business) & at my mum's (which I look after), so I know I wouldn't choose them even if I could.

 

So the next thing I need to decide is: do I let the builder put the copper telephone wire in the same 110mm conduit he's using to run SWA from the garage to the house?  I'm planning to have my elec meter on the back of the garage, out of sight.  The meter will be about 20m from the consumer unit, in my utility room.  I'm concerned the elec will cause interference on the copper telephone line.  I suppose a separate run, at least 1m away, would be best, but I don't really know what I'm doing, which is why I'm here.

[PNAmble]

14 minutes ago, Tony L said:

Thanks, everybody.  So the answer to my problem is: the detached garage.  Why didn't I think of that?

 

Virgin isn't an option down my road & I have Virgin at my workplace (my own small business) & at my mum's (which I look after), so I know I wouldn't choose them even if I could.

 

So the next thing I need to decide is: do I let the builder put the copper telephone wire in the same 110mm conduit he's using to run SWA from the garage to the house?  I'm planning to have my elec meter on the back of the garage, out of sight.  The meter will be about 20m from the consumer unit, in my utility room.  I'm concerned the elec will cause interference on the copper telephone line.  I suppose a separate run, at least 1m away, would be best, but I don't really know what I'm doing, which is why I'm here.

 
 

have you spoken to openreach and registered ?   You’ll want a separate duct otherwise when OpenReach come to upgrade you next year to fibre you’ll have to dig another conduit.  You also need to put the ‘detectable services tape’ along it as well. So that when it’s fibre not copper you’ll be able to find it.  
 

 

[Russell griffiths]

Separate duct, just put a pull through rope in it, I would use the rigid duct not flexible twin wall, it’s a pig for getting squashed and damaged in the smaller sizes. 

[Tony L]

My partner spoke to Openreach a couple of months ago, because we'd stopped using the line that was on the house about 2 years ago & we wanted it reconnected.  She didn't mention the new house - it didn't seem relevant; we just wanted a phone line that worked so we could ditch the 4G router we'd been using & have reliable internet again.  I'm not convinced anybody will be laying fibre to the houses in our road any time soon - the houses are quite far apart.

 

I wish I'd thought of this sooner.  The run goes across the driveway & just a few weeks ago, we dug a new ditch & moved the services for the caravan into it, then made good so the muck away trucks, etc could drive over it.  Never mind - it's only a small mistake.