Sky/Finlay installation problem

paultf

Upgraded to Sky HD on Tuesday. Finlay engineer installed the HD box in the living room and moved the Sky+ box upstairs.

He had a look at the location of the dish: on the chimney. First he said Finlay don't go up on roofs anymore; then he said it was too windy (which it was); lastly he said he would install a second dish on the side of the house for the Sky+ (I said no).

Do Finlay engineers not go up on roofs? Its just that I don't want a dish on the side of my house. Over the years I have had 2 engineers (at different times) go up on the roof without any problems.

In the end the engineer left me with a Sky+ box which he said would still record and work OK. It doesn't. He told me because I got a new HD box (so its under warranty) that at a later stage I could re-book with Sky to get someone to install the second cable for Sky+ off the dish on the chimney.

I just got the impression he wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Re-arranged with Sky for an engineer to come yesterday to finish the job off. Nobody arrived. Same story today. Wasted 2 days waiting. Made numerous calls, where Sky rang Finlay and they in turn said: "Finlay can't contact engineer but will ring you back with an ETA". They never did.

Rang Sky again this afternoon. Sky said they would follow the case up and a manager would ring me tomorrow to let me know the progress. The last phone call I had with Sky was they couldn't get in touch with the Finlay's Irish office.

I rang Finlay. Got through straight away. Re-arranged for Monday. Asked about going up on roof. She said she would get an experienced engineer but mentioned health and safety issues.

Very frustrating week with Sky/Finlay. Anyone had this problem before?

Do you think Finlay will go up on roof? Asked Sky and they said they should.

homelink

The Installer will only go on the roof if it's safe to do so.The H&S policies are so strict now that the installer cannot leave his roof ladder and the ladder must be able to reach the dish position.If he can't reach the dish from his ladder then he shouldn't even attempt to service that dish as he could lose his job (or much worse). From what I read, he offered you a new dish and you chose not to take that offer.(No amount of TV is worth someone's life).

St Senan

Sky use Main contractors who in turn use sub contractors who use sub/sub contractors.
A lot of these sub/sub contractors are under paid and pressure to get as many installs done in a day to justify their time and expencences and they might not have the proper equipment eg, Roofing ladders, a ladder mate/stabilizer or they might not carry any insurance to do a chimney job. Did you not consider going through your local shop/independant Installer

Wizard007

In fairness, no one wants two dishes on their house, but yeah safety has to be taken into consideration and dish access. Having said that, someone did put the dish up there originally and an installer should have the right ladders for any situation etc with him.

Go to a local independant, he'd be under less pressure to knock so many installs in per day. Make sure he has public liability.

paultf

homelink wrote: »

The Installer will only go on the roof if it's safe to do so.The H&S policies are so strict now that the installer cannot leave his roof ladder and the ladder must be able to reach the dish position.If he can't reach the dish from his ladder then he shouldn't even attempt to service that dish as he could lose his job (or much worse). From what I read, he offered you a new dish and you chose not to take that offer.(No amount of TV is worth someone's life).

I agree: "No amount of TV is worth someone's life". I wouldn't want to endanger anyone.

The engineer on the day though offered to put a 2nd dish on the house and somehow run the necessary cables into my bedroom for the Sky+ box. A bit messy?

And he wanted to leave the first dish on the chimney and use that to run the HD box in the living room.

I don't want 2 dishes on my house. Plus, if I can get away with it, I don't want one on the side of my house. The one on the chimney is hidden and makes my house look better IMO.

In my original post I was just wondering if engineers (incl. Finlay) go up on the roof. When I booked the HD with Sky, the agent asked me where the dish was located and told her it was on the chimney.

The first engineer I had that installed my dish was independent and did a great job. No problems about getting up on the roof. The second engineer was organised by the Sky. He had no problem in getting up on the roof.

Anyways, I hope Finlay can finish this job off on Monday.

Thanks for your comments.

Wizard007

Let us know how you get on. Best of luck

NDJ4

Hi Guys,

Just wondering if anyone can offer advice about sky installation please. I have had enough of chorus mmds and their price increase they sent me today is the final straw...

I just had a couple of questions about sky's standard installation and general install practices. Assuming the installer won't go up on the roof the dish would have to be installed at the back of the house which is fine by me. Will they do this? It would mean running cables down the back wall, through the dining room to the sitting room - how do they normally do this? Would they use trunking to hide wires or tack wires to skirting board? Same question for phone line connection - do they generally do a tidy job or is it rough and ready?

Maybe I am best to do the prep work myself and remove skirting boards etc. if I want a tidy job? My main concern is that my next door neighbour got a dish installed on the side of his house and they tacked the cable to the front of his house right across the middle of the house. it looks horrendous :eek:.

Any help greatly appreciated thanks. Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else, i did have a look and couldn't find any info. Also just came across boards recently and am taking the plunge with first post. Will do my best to help out anywhere i can!

paultf

NDJ4 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

Just wondering if anyone can offer advice about sky installation please. I have had enough of chorus mmds and their price increase they sent me today is the final straw...

I just had a couple of questions about sky's standard installation and general install practices. Assuming the installer won't go up on the roof the dish would have to be installed at the back of the house which is fine by me. Will they do this? It would mean running cables down the back wall, through the dining room to the sitting room - how do they normally do this? Would they use trunking to hide wires or tack wires to skirting board? Same question for phone line connection - do they generally do a tidy job or is it rough and ready?

Maybe I am best to do the prep work myself and remove skirting boards etc. if I want a tidy job? My main concern is that my next door neighbour got a dish installed on the side of his house and they tacked the cable to the front of his house right across the middle of the house. it looks horrendous :eek:.

Any help greatly appreciated thanks. Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else, i did have a look and couldn't find any info. Also just came across boards recently and am taking the plunge with first post. Will do my best to help out anywhere i can!

In the end Sky/Finlay installed the extra cable needed for my Sky+. They got up on the roof (with dish on chimney). I was told if it was unsafe for the Sky subcontractor he wouldn't do it and that a local independent installer might do it instead! So if you really want your dish to go on your chimney mention it to Sky when booking (or go thru a local sky installer).

In my situation they drilled one hole upstairs and one downstairs, and used double cables (if that's the correct term) bacause I had HD downstairs & Sky+ upstairs - for each of these you need 2 cables: 1 for recording, 1 for viewing. They tacked the cables just above the skirting boards. Same for the phone cable. Did a tidy job.

I must say over the years I have had 3 different engineers at different times and they all did a good job. (I only had 1 bad experience and that was when I trying to get my HD upgraded and it toke 4 days to get it sorted in the end. My mistake was letting the engineer leave without having a definite plan/time when it would be fixed. I spent the rest of the week trying to sort the problem out over the phone with Sky in England. Nightmare!)

NDJ4

Thanks paultf,

Yeah i'm probably overthinking this a bit really. I'm not exactly houseproud its just the thought of plastic trunking kills me. I guess I could live with cables tacked over the skirting boards, i'm sure i wouldn't even see them after a while.

In terms of a local installer, do they charge much more than the standard sky setup fee? I can't believe its only 30 euro for installation and now that sky+ hd box is free i'm seriously tempted to pay the 15e sub. The wife isn't so sure tho... I've ordered a new 42inch philips 9664 so just think it deserves the best quality feed . What do you think of the HD signal? Reckon its worth the extra sub? I'm only going to opt for the standard packs for now the sports package is not in the budget after splashing out on the tv, am i wasting my money on the hd sub in this case?

paultf

NDJ4 wrote: »

Thanks paultf,

Yeah i'm probably overthinking this a bit really. I'm not exactly houseproud its just the thought of plastic trunking kills me. I guess I could live with cables tacked over the skirting boards, i'm sure i wouldn't even see them after a while.

In terms of a local installer, do they charge much more than the standard sky setup fee? I can't believe its only 30 euro for installation and now that sky+ hd box is free i'm seriously tempted to pay the 15e sub. The wife isn't so sure tho... I've ordered a new 42inch philips 9664 so just think it deserves the best quality feed . What do you think of the HD signal? Reckon its worth the extra sub? I'm only going to opt for the standard packs for now the sports package is not in the budget after splashing out on the tv, am i wasting my money on the hd sub in this case?

Not sure about the cost with a local installer but if I was to guess: whatever offer you get with Sky, you should get with a local installer. I am sure other folks on this forum would know more.

I was tempted by the offer from Sky for HD aswell. I only have HD a couple of weeks and I find it very good. I have Sky sports and movies which is good for the HD. I was watching the tennis in the Aussie Open this morning on eurosportHD which was fantastic. How many HD channels would you get without sports and movies? I think Sky have around 35 HD channels in total. If you subscribe to NatGeo and the other documentary channels you might get value for money for your HD.

Plus with Sky some channels aren't directly available so you have to 'tune' them in on FTA i.e. BBC3, BB4, ITV1, etc. The same applies for BBC HD and ITV HD - but there's not much content on ITV HD I think.

staker

If you subscribe to any of the 6 mixes without a premium pack on a HD sub, you'll receive all the basic HD channels- Nat Geo, MTVHD,Sky 1, stuff like that- outside of the sports and movies HD's

NDJ4

Thanks guys,

I'll probably opt for the sd channels for now, may revisit the hd option again in the future.

Just wondering about the hdmi feed from the sky hd stb, do sky provide a hdmi lead as part of the standard installation or is that extra? Also is there any difference in picture quality on the sd package via scart or hdmi? My guess is that the hdmi feed should be better but i'm new to all of this...

Thanks again for all the advice.

John mac

NDJ4 wrote: »

Thanks guys,

I'll probably opt for the sd channels for now, may revisit the hd option again in the future.

Just wondering about the hdmi feed from the sky hd stb, do sky provide a hdmi lead as part of the standard installation or is that extra? Also is there any difference in picture quality on the sd package via scart or hdmi? My guess is that the hdmi feed should be better but i'm new to all of this...

Thanks again for all the advice.

yes a hdmi lead comes with it.

( you will have BBCHD and ITVHd and Luxe HD )


This Presumes you have a HD ready tv.

you will have to connect up the optical for surround sound (if you are using an amp )