Sorry all, this might be a bit lengthy. I recently purchased a new home and set Comcast to come out between 8 and 10AM to install my internet and TV. I then lined up a uHual rental and a number of other appointments for 12PM as I figured I'd have more than enough time between the installer getting here and completing the hook ups and getting my other stuff done. At 1015 we had nobody here and no call. A quick call to Comcast and we were advised he was running late, be here in a half hour...No big deal. The guy showed up, seemed nice enough, I gave him a quick run down of what was up...we already had our cable modem and a cable tv box that we brought from our apartment across town. We wanted another box to be able to watch cable in a 2nd room. Seems straight forward enough.
The prior owners had Directv and they had also done some remodeling of the house which left the wiring for the rooms somewhat of a mess. Being that this the house is new to me I didn't know where/how the wiring was run for the different rooms, so I followed the installer around for the first few minutes to just get a rough idea so I would know for future reference. I got the idea pretty quick on where everything was and how it was run, and he seemed to have it understood as well. So I let him be and proceeded to go about doing all the other stuff that needed to be done. That was my first mistake.
In our garage where the wires come into the home there are 3 wires that are clearly cut off and go nowhere. A single wire runs through the suspended ceiling to the front corner of the house where there are 4 wires which run to different rooms. The installer, even with his little tool that he could put on the wall in each room and then test the other end of the wires on seemed to be having trouble figuring out which wire went to which room. After a bit he says he has it figured out though and that he just needs to find the feeding wire from outside. Apparently he wasn't able to find it and decided to run a new wire.
Now at this point we haven't moved in, I brought 1 tv over so that we could plug in and make sure that everything was working. So the guy gets done installing, says everything is good to go. I check the internet and it connects on my phone and works great. Flip the TV on in the living room and the TV is great, just like at the apartment. I was starting to run late for my later appointments, so didn't think to bring the TV into the 2nd room to check the 2nd TV hook up, since the guy said he found them and it was good to go. There is my 2nd mistake. After moving all day yesterday, we got back to the house at 1030PM and fell into bed. Flipped the TV on to catch the late night news...and nothing. WTF. This morning I get up, and decide to do some investigating. I go into the garage where the feed wire comes from outside and see a splitter, 1 of the OUTs on the splitter is connected to the line that goes over to the front corner of the house, the 2nd OUT is connected to a coax that goes 6 feet across the garage and dead ends at a DirecTv SWIM device....REALLY? So I take the splitter down from where it is in the garage and put a connector in to connect the feed line to the line that runs across the suspended ceiling to the front of the house. Use the splitter to connect the living room line and then through trial and error found the bedroom line. (side note there are 2 lines left up there that I can not for the life of my figure out where they go, there are also some older coax cables up there that are cut off that are probably from when the house was built in 96). Now I have television in the 2 rooms that I wanted. HOWEVER, the little cable box that I had installed is showing Status Code 580 on all stations above the first 10 or 20. I think a quick call to Comcast will fix this issue.
Third mistake is that I didn't take the time to walk out around the side of the house and see the new line he ran for service. This guy left a 5 foot piece of cable cut off and hanging out of the box on the outside of the house. The new cable he ran is basically laying on the ground. with a random clip that is only partially screwed in here and there.
I really want to call Comcast and make an issue out of this, I'm very unhappy that I had to go behind the installer and fix the wiring. I mean it was completely obvious to me what wires were of no use and which were the ones to be used. I don't understand how this idiot could possible be confused and oblivious enough to hook up a wire that ran 6 feet away into a Directv SWIM and not see an issue. Then the unbelievable way this guy ran the new feed wire. I have had multiple installs at other properties I have owned and never seen such a terrible job. Directv, Dish and Time Warner Cable have always been great, this is just ridiculous. What do you guys (and gals) think? Would you just fix the stuff yourself or would you be calling Comcast?
The prior owners had Directv and they had also done some remodeling of the house which left the wiring for the rooms somewhat of a mess. Being that this the house is new to me I didn't know where/how the wiring was run for the different rooms, so I followed the installer around for the first few minutes to just get a rough idea so I would know for future reference. I got the idea pretty quick on where everything was and how it was run, and he seemed to have it understood as well. So I let him be and proceeded to go about doing all the other stuff that needed to be done. That was my first mistake.
In our garage where the wires come into the home there are 3 wires that are clearly cut off and go nowhere. A single wire runs through the suspended ceiling to the front corner of the house where there are 4 wires which run to different rooms. The installer, even with his little tool that he could put on the wall in each room and then test the other end of the wires on seemed to be having trouble figuring out which wire went to which room. After a bit he says he has it figured out though and that he just needs to find the feeding wire from outside. Apparently he wasn't able to find it and decided to run a new wire.
Now at this point we haven't moved in, I brought 1 tv over so that we could plug in and make sure that everything was working. So the guy gets done installing, says everything is good to go. I check the internet and it connects on my phone and works great. Flip the TV on in the living room and the TV is great, just like at the apartment. I was starting to run late for my later appointments, so didn't think to bring the TV into the 2nd room to check the 2nd TV hook up, since the guy said he found them and it was good to go. There is my 2nd mistake. After moving all day yesterday, we got back to the house at 1030PM and fell into bed. Flipped the TV on to catch the late night news...and nothing. WTF. This morning I get up, and decide to do some investigating. I go into the garage where the feed wire comes from outside and see a splitter, 1 of the OUTs on the splitter is connected to the line that goes over to the front corner of the house, the 2nd OUT is connected to a coax that goes 6 feet across the garage and dead ends at a DirecTv SWIM device....REALLY? So I take the splitter down from where it is in the garage and put a connector in to connect the feed line to the line that runs across the suspended ceiling to the front of the house. Use the splitter to connect the living room line and then through trial and error found the bedroom line. (side note there are 2 lines left up there that I can not for the life of my figure out where they go, there are also some older coax cables up there that are cut off that are probably from when the house was built in 96). Now I have television in the 2 rooms that I wanted. HOWEVER, the little cable box that I had installed is showing Status Code 580 on all stations above the first 10 or 20. I think a quick call to Comcast will fix this issue.
Third mistake is that I didn't take the time to walk out around the side of the house and see the new line he ran for service. This guy left a 5 foot piece of cable cut off and hanging out of the box on the outside of the house. The new cable he ran is basically laying on the ground. with a random clip that is only partially screwed in here and there.
I really want to call Comcast and make an issue out of this, I'm very unhappy that I had to go behind the installer and fix the wiring. I mean it was completely obvious to me what wires were of no use and which were the ones to be used. I don't understand how this idiot could possible be confused and oblivious enough to hook up a wire that ran 6 feet away into a Directv SWIM and not see an issue. Then the unbelievable way this guy ran the new feed wire. I have had multiple installs at other properties I have owned and never seen such a terrible job. Directv, Dish and Time Warner Cable have always been great, this is just ridiculous. What do you guys (and gals) think? Would you just fix the stuff yourself or would you be calling Comcast?
