wall fishing

[fishman]

I am a dish sub-contractor in eastern nc, and I was wondering If anyone out there(other contactor) is paying for wall fishes,or letting installers charge the customer, the company I work for wont pay or let us charge. I have heard conflicting stories about what E* will allow

 

[Mike500]

I am an independent istaller and master electrician. By word of mouth, I get almost all of my business from referals by local dealers. Basically, I do lamost all "wall fish" and premium installs. I just finished an install of six in wall receivers in a two story home. The install took a total of two eight hour days. Everything was in wall on both floors. The dish was mounted on the roof with a roof service entrance. The only exposed wire was the ground wire from the dish to the inderside of the gable.

This install was in western North Carolina. The system was purchased at a big box Consumer Electronics store. The job came down through three levels as a sub contractor.

 

[Liquidforce88]

Standard Install does not include wall fishes. If your company does not allow you to charge then you can't charge. I am in the same situation with one company I do installs for. I don't do any wall fishes for those installs.

 

[xcableguy]

It amazes me that an installer won't do a wall fish unless he gets paid for it. Sure, sometimes it is harder, but more often then not, I can run a wire thru an attic or crawl and wall fish it quicker than wrapping a wire around the outside of a house. Plus it looks better.

 

[bcshields]

I just finished an install of six in wall receivers in a two story home. The install took a total of two eight hour days. Everything was in wall on both floors. The dish was mounted on the roof with a roof service entrance. The only exposed wire was the ground wire from the dish to the inderside of the gable.

The sad part is that people expect this kind of labor for free, and get pissed off when they are told otherwise.

I had a tough exterior wall that needed fishing yesterday, and I was uncomfortable doing it, being new and all... I let the customer do it, since he worked in construction.

 

[Mike500]

Yeah,

My specialty is running a wall fish through the insulation to place outlets on exterior walls, including ones from the attic to the first floor or a basement through the exterior wall.

There are practically no dealers here, who do wall fishes. And, forget free ones.

 

[Barry Erick]

If it is not included in Dishes contract, I don't think an installer should do it for free. Where there is an existing wire that can be used as a pull, that can be a different dotry, but a new fish should be chargeable or left to the customer.

 

[cdru]

It amazes me that an installer won't do a wall fish unless he gets paid for it. Sure, sometimes it is harder, but more often then not, I can run a wire thru an attic or crawl and wall fish it quicker than wrapping a wire around the outside of a house. Plus it looks better.

Right. So you would happily get paid to spend 2 days (like the guy a few posts up) at a jobsite doing 6 wall fishes on a 2 story building. All for a couple of hundred dollars, from which you must pay for cable, connectors, tools, insurances, vehicle, etc. If so, I hope you live around me cause I have a lot of wiring I'd love for you to do for "free" because it should come with the install.

 

[tonyp56]

I use to run CAT5 cable and wall fishing was apart of the price that my company charged the customer. If we had ran CAT5 cable like satellite or cable companies do RG6 we would have had a lot of unhappy customers. I never fully understood why it is so scary to fish a wire through the wall. I got to run CAT5 cable throughout a school one time for instance, I had over 100 different cables to run, and I had several concrete walls, but when I was done you couldn't see any wires, except from a wall plate! (And not all walls were exterior walls)
When I got my second DirecTV system a few years back (used their mover program) it came with a professional install so I said what the heck, I could do this but hey it's free, and I was surprised at how crappy it was. (This installer wasn't very professional; he came to my house in a CAR. It was crappy because the dish was on my roof, the wires ran along the front of my house, he didn't ground anything, he drilled three holes for one wire then handed me the drill and told me to do it, it was crappy) Anyways, I ended up re-doing the whole thing from where the dish was, to how the RG6 cable ran into my house!

Of course, it isn't the installers fault, you guys only do what you get paid for, and I don't blame you for not doing extra. But I think DirecTV, Voom, and Dish would be better off to pay their installers to do a better install.

 

[bweiteka]

Dish does pay well for installs, it's the subs doing the work that get hosed!

 

[fishman]

I dont have a problem doing the wall fishes, but doing 3 or 4 on one job does take extra time and I feel there should be some compensation. I still run into new houses where for whatever reason the builder did not run any cable outlets, or there is only one to the living room. The customer doesn't want any holes drilled through their new floor which is understandable, but they dont want to pay for the extra work.

 

[fishman]

I would even be happy to do one for free but get paid for any additional

 

[Mike500]

Fishman,


You are not a charity. Get paid for it, or don't do it alt all.

Do you even think that these customers work for free? They get paid on their job.

 

[Khandurian]

Dish does pay well for installs, it's the subs doing the work that get hosed!

Ok,this guy hit the nail on the head.... Here in florida.... no, we dont get paid for wall fishes, but if we do a wall fish, its mandatory that it gets put on the work order that we wall fished... why? cause the owner gets paid for it... but the contractor does NOT....

This was the BIGGEST reason why I quit doing dish installs.... If you have to go through an attick to run wires... it is NOT a STANDARD install... If you have to wrap wires from one end of the house all the way around to the other end, (cause there is NO attic...) it is NOT a STANDARD install...(let me clarify the housewrap... if its longer than 100 feet)

The reason the customers expect it done for free.. is cause for years... the cable companies dont charge the customer for wall fishes, but they do pay the contractor for doing it.... So, since the customer never gets charged for it, they expect the same when they switch to satellite....

Which is why you constantly hear those "my install was a nightmare".... it was a nightmare, cause YOU the CONSUMER was, and is, under a false pretense that you dont have to pay to have new wires ran in your home...

It amazes me, how many people actually THINK that the cable, and even phone lines, BELONG to the actuall company that provides the service... It doesnt... its YOUR cable... its YOUR house.... unfortunatly, this probably will fall upon deaf ears...

Khandurian.....

 

[Liquidforce88]

It amazes me that an installer won't do a wall fish unless he gets paid for it. Sure, sometimes it is harder, but more often then not, I can run a wire thru an attic or crawl and wall fish it quicker than wrapping a wire around the outside of a house. Plus it looks better.

I never said I wrap a house. Install comes from Dish make penitration into basment and comes up through floor. Wall fishes require me to take a big risk at drilling into something. I am not going to take that risk for free. If I drill into 1 wire, my out of pocket (insurance deductable)would be the same as three quad installs.

 

[Mike500]

Having been a master electrician for many many years, I know where the line voltage wires are place and where exactly to drill holes. I do a lot of looking and measuring, before I even start drilling. There are so many things that you can drill into to ruin your day.

I don't know how they expect anyone with only a few hours of classroom training and a few weeks of on the job training can expect to know how to do the job correctly.

Just a thought from someone with over 30 years plus of experience.

 

[xcableguy]

Right. So you would happily get paid to spend 2 days (like the guy a few posts up) at a jobsite doing 6 wall fishes on a 2 story building. All for a couple of hundred dollars, from which you must pay for cable, connectors, tools, insurances, vehicle, etc. If so, I hope you live around me cause I have a lot of wiring I'd love for you to do for "free" because it should come with the install.

I installed a 2-story house on a slab Saturday which required 5 lines. 2 wires downstairs, 3 upstairs. Because the house was on a slab, i ran the 2 lines downstairs around (underneath the siding) and had to take them in thru the exterior walls. I wall fished all 3 lines upstairs, one of them was an exterior wall fish. The job was a 522/322 with 1 mirror. This job took me about 3.5 hours to complete (that's including my usual 30 minutes of customer education). Now if I would have chose to wrap all 5 lines, it would have added at least an hour to the job (probably more), PLUS it would have required A LOT more cable. So you can go ahead and not do wall fishes for free. I'll knock a job out in 2/3 time doing wall fishes as I would have worrying about not getting paid. Geesh, it just amazes me.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Dish does pay well for installs, it's the subs doing the work that get hosed!

Precisely!

 

[fishman]

what about phone lines for a 322/522, do you run them for free?

 

[drod]

As far as the 'professional installation' that dish gives you for the new customer promotions it doesn't include more than 5' of phone lines and the lines are already in the boxes. Anything outside of that is installers discretion.