Pull satellite cable using existing cable

nialldinho · 02-06-2020 03:45PM #1

Hi

I have Virgin Media broadband wired down from the attic to sitting room wall. The wall is the joining wall in a semi detached house.

I also have a Sky dish on rear wall coming in through downstairs wall at the back. I now want to move the Sky box to the front room. Would I Be able to bring the cables in at the back across the attic and use the existing Virgin cables to pull it down?

Is this a difficult job?

Thanks!

02-06-2020 03:59PM

It should be doable yes.
Go up to the attic and see can you spot where they come up.
depending on the construction of the house the might be in wavin pipe or just going into the wall via a hole in the timber.
give them a pull and see if they are loose .
If they are tape on another bit of something (single core cable if possible) and pull it up to the attic then attach what ever you want and pull them down. Maybe pull in a spare pull wire for future use.
Get one person to feed them from the attic and someone else to pull firm (not hard) from below.

Black_Knight · 02-06-2020 04:04PM

nialldinho wrote: »

Hi

I have Virgin Media broadband wired down from the attic to sitting room wall. The wall is the joining wall in a semi detached house.

I also have a Sky dish on rear wall coming in through downstairs wall at the back. I now want to move the Sky box to the front room. Would I Be able to bring the cables in at the back across the attic and use the existing Virgin cables to pull it down?

Is this a difficult job?

Thanks!

If you're happy risking losing the VM cables you could give it a go, but it's rarely trivial. If you do, try make the join as streamlined as possible, as the channel the VM cable is taking through your wall may not be much wider than the VM cable itself. Things can easily get caught in timbers and joints.

One thing to clear up, your VM cable is downstairs, and you want to bring another cable down to it. You'd either need to pull the sky cable up from your front room, or have a lot of slack on the VM cable in the attic to pull it down.

Be sure to attached an additional string to the VM cable so you can pull it back up/down.

nialldinho · 02-06-2020 04:36PM

Thanks guys.

And if I didn’t fancy doing it myself what sort of tradesperson should I be looking up to ask?!

Explosive_Cornflake · 02-06-2020 04:41PM

TBH, I'd be looking to route it a new way. I know in my house there's next to no chance of being able to pull one cable with another.

02-06-2020 05:26PM

Explosive_Cornflake wrote: »

TBH, I'd be looking to route it a new way. I know in my house there's next to no chance of being able to pull one cable with another.

Every house is different.
You don't know until you try !

nialldinho · 02-06-2020 05:58PM

Explosive_Cornflake wrote: »

TBH, I'd be looking to route it a new way. I know in my house there's next to no chance of being able to pull one cable with another.

The original installer wouldn’t do it for me. His only alternative was go over the roof and down the front. That would have been fine but the cable would have to go around a chimney breast to get to where the TV is and he didn’t offer any good way around that!

02-06-2020 10:26PM

nialldinho wrote: »

The original installer wouldn’t do it for me. His only alternative was go over the roof and down the front. That would have been fine but the cable would have to go around a chimney breast to get to where the TV is and he didn’t offer any good way around that!

They won't do it because they are absolute savages and are paid by the install.
The quality of their work is embarrassing.
Cables clipped along skirts and around doorframes etc .
The lad installing my fiber said he wasn't allowed in the attic because of insurance.
I had to do it myself and he terminated it.

championc · 02-06-2020 10:57PM

It sounds like my house - a buried conduit running from the sitting room to the attic.

It's likely that the conduit will be in two 3m sections meaning they are joined.

I fed a Cat5 cable from the bottom up the conduit and I got up a decent amount. I did the same from the top and measured the amount in got in. It turned out that the upstairs bedroom wall was plastered, with a 1" gap between the two lengths of conduit. I dug it out and violla !!!

So leaving the existing cable there, you should be able to feed a second cable down side by side. Once you get a pull chord in, you'll be sorted.

I use this all the time.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321555558731

dclifford · 02-06-2020 11:07PM

Not sure if you plan to still use the VM cable, its not clear from the OP.

Have you thought about using the VM cable, from the attic down, as your sky cable? Cut the VM cable in the attic and join the sky cable to it. Set it up and check the signal strength. You wont lose anything by trying.
If that doesn't work, try pull the cable as you were planning.

nialldinho · 02-06-2020 11:29PM

dclifford wrote: »

Not sure if you plan to still use the VM cable, its not clear from the OP.

Have you thought about using the VM cable, from the attic down, as your sky cable? Cut the VM cable in the attic and join the sky cable to it. Set it up and check the signal strength. You wont lose anything by trying.
If that doesn't work, try pull the cable as you were planning.

Sorry yes I do need to keep the virgin media cable active

Calahonda52 · 03-06-2020 09:47PM

nialldinho wrote: »

The original installer wouldn’t do it for me. His only alternative was go over the roof and down the front. That would have been fine but the cable would have to go around a chimney breast to get to where the TV is and he didn’t offer any good way around that!

what about a white conduit in the corner of the CB up into the attic..
I think the risk of a world of hurt with the pulling is too high

Alun · 03-06-2020 09:52PM

That's what I did. If you paint the conduit in the same colour as the wall as well you hardly notice it in the corner.

awec · 03-06-2020 11:16PM

Sky use a double coax while Virgin use a single. You want to keep the Virgin cable active, so you're going to be trying to fit 3 coax cables into the run. It may be tight.

nialldinho · 03-06-2020 11:34PM

Alun wrote: »

That's what I did. If you paint the conduit in the same colour as the wall as well you hardly notice it in the corner.

What does this actually involve?

Is it just something on the outside of the chimney breast all the way up into the attic? So down through ceiling on first floor and then through ceiling on ground floor?

awec · 03-06-2020 11:40PM

Another option, which is a bit left field but maybe you were already considering it, is Sky's multiroom package on their Sky Q offering uses WiFi to connect their boxes rather than a cable.

This is what we ended up doing in our house. The dish had to go out the back, and we have the main box in our sitting room at the back of the house, and then just a minibox in the sitting room at the front.

Of course, this option means handing over more money to Sky every month...

nialldinho · 03-06-2020 11:44PM

awec wrote: »

Another option, which is a bit left field but maybe you were already considering it, is Sky's multiroom package on their Sky Q offering uses WiFi to connect their boxes rather than a cable.

This is what we ended up doing in our house. The dish had to go out the back, and we have the main box in our sitting room at the back of the house, and then just a minibox in the sitting room at the front.

Of course, this option means handing over more money to Sky every month...

That’s actually our current setup! Sky Q is in the kitchen. For the first few months it wasn’t even connected to a tv! I’d like to have the UHD option in the sitting room now though

LenWoods · 06-06-2020 09:01AM

[
Virgin media uses RG6 cable looks like coaxial cable but is not the same Quality
RG6 is silver shielded from radio interference where coaxial cable isint; and that affects the signal Quality or wifi strength, I've re-installed virgin media and sky in to every room of my house.
I used Belden 1694A RG6 to re-install my system
And webro WF100 for the sattelite
See thread:
https://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/80864-living-room-project/#comments

Pull satellite cable using existing cable

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