Sky Installation: Whos responsibility?

sarah_elton

QTPie wrote: »

So there is NO WAY for us to get two feeds.
QT

That's shocking. My flat had one feed from the communal dish. I phoned the dish contractor, and he came round and installed a second feed so I could get Sky Plus. I would have been royally peeved if he'd refused and there was no way to get it! :eek:

QTPie

sarah_elton wrote: »

That's shocking. My flat had one feed from the communal dish. I phoned the dish contractor, and he came round and installed a second feed so I could get Sky Plus. I would have been royally peeved if he'd refused and there was no way to get it! :eek:

We had a specialist sky installer/contractor around and they checked everything out. To get two feeds, the dish needs to receive two feeds and send it to the houses (which is why Sky Plus dishes are different to standard Sky Dishes - the receiver is different). Our communal dish only receives and relays one single feed. The "box under our stairs" could output two feeds, but the communal dish is only providing one feed. So the problem is with the communal dish.

Pain in the...
QT

littlemissmoney

QTPie wrote: »

We had a specialist sky installer/contractor around and they checked everything out. To get two feeds, the dish needs to receive two feeds and send it to the houses (which is why Sky Plus dishes are different to standard Sky Dishes - the receiver is different). Our communal dish only receives and relays one single feed. The "box under our stairs" could output two feeds, but the communal dish is only providing one feed. So the problem is with the communal dish.

Pain in the...
QT

New communal dish?

QTPie

littlemissmoney wrote: »

New communal dish?

Doing that would be hell... Development are managed by Peverrel - who are a major waste of time (hard to contact, take ages to do anything, couldn't arrange a p*ss up in a brewery if their lives depended on it :rolleyes: ). Anything communal has to go through them. Also the development is pretty big: about 24 flats and maybe 40 houses. Changing the communal dish wouldn't be cheap and may wouldn't support it... Plus we don't have a residents' committee to organise people and drum up support.

We are just living with it until we move, hopefully soon. Next house will be somewhere that we can do what we like... :cool:

QT

pinkshoes

I would argue that it came under the builder's guarentee, as they supplied it with 2 feeds, one of which does not work. As you didn't have Sky, you wouldn't have known this, but it also proves that they didn't bother checking it prior to releasing the house.

I would go down the route of contacting the builder again, and ask for proof and documentation showing that both the feeds were tested and working.

JimmyDeemo

Well pinkshoes i'm going to contact the electrician that installed the dishes. The customer service department on the builder are pretty much adament that even if they were working when the property was turned over, its out the two year warrenty and therefore not their problem. So what i'm going to do is ask the electrician to see if he would have tested thim first.

Forgive me about me saying they could install a dish, i will double check my lease before doing that.

I never sad or wrote down anything about having two feeds. The conversation pretty much went along the lines of;
him - Can we get sky?
me - Yes, feeds were fitted when the flat was built, but i have never tried them. So i'll leave that between you and sky.

To be honest i assumed Sky had installed the communal equipment, but after investigation that wasn't the case.

QT, i must admit our management company are useless. However i can only go through them in this instance.

QTPie

JimmyDeemo wrote: »

Forgive me about me saying they could install a dish, i will double check my lease before doing that.

No problem at all - just don't want you or your tenants to get into trouble for putting another dish up...

JimmyDeemo wrote: »

I never sad or wrote down anything about having two feeds. The conversation pretty much went along the lines of;
him - Can we get sky?
me - Yes, feeds were fitted when the flat was built, but i have never tried them. So i'll leave that between you and sky.

I think that you are doing a great thing and checking out everything thoroughly (some landlords really wouldn't bother). But you seem to be a good landlord - I hope that you are rewarded for that (by having good, long term tenants).

I wouldn't hold my breath about getting the builders/developers to take any repsonsibility (once somewhere is built, they try to completely wipe their hands of it as quickly as possible). The best hope is for it to be tied down to a communal responsibility that can be fixed under the communcal maintenance contract.

Will be interesting to see if anyone else in the building dos manage to receive two feeds.

JimmyDeemo wrote: »

To be honest i assumed Sky had installed the communal equipment, but after investigation that wasn't the case.

I think that most communal dishes are generally installed by people other than Sky (Sky does - or franchises out - domestic dishes mainly). I am guessing that it is generally much cheaper for developers to get communal set-ups installed by contractors rather than go through Sky.

JimmyDeemo wrote: »

QT, i must admit our management company are useless. However i can only go through them in this instance.

I think 99% of management companies are pretty useless. From dealing with ours a few times, I feel your pain.

Good luck with it
QT

silvercar

Normal sky dishes have space for 4 feeds, so you could have 2 sky+ boxes or 1 sky+ box and 2 ordinary. Comunal dishes have the capacity for greater feeds, but I doubt they provide enough capacity for everyone to have two feeds.

My guess would be that they provide internal wiring for 2 feeds but only connect one feed. So each flat can receive Sky. When people then request Sky+ they get one of the extra feeds. I would guess (and I'm only guessing) that the second feed was never connected or that it was unconnected (at the dish end) and given to another flat.

JimmyDeemo

Sounds like you have hit the nail on the head silvercar, i have just received an e-mail from a previous flat owner who says he took the panel off (the one with two connections) and there was only one wire connected. I'm going to confirm this with the electrician later on.

Now then this would lead to another question. I have spoken to my tenants and they have said that if one one feed was there in the first place then that’s fine. But they asked if they could get the work done for the Sky+ (i.e. two feeds), i said yes but then said I’d have to check who to contact for the work.

They could contact the electrician but with the communal areas maintained by the management company, doesn't this have issues with whose jurisdiction the equipment falls upon.

QT, thanks for saying I sound like a good landlord and incidentally i would be like this with anyone but it’s my only property and the tenant is my friend from Uni.

silvercar

Another guess, while I'm on a roll, the management company will have a maintenance contract with a communication company for the maintenance of the dish and associated equipment.

They are the best people to contact, not least because they will now which flats are using the 2 feeds and which have an unconnected feed that could be commandered.