A few weeks ago Virgin installed their XXL service to our property.
They turned up on time and all seemed to go reasonably well until I noticed the mess they'd made of the front lawn. I should have paid more attention to their laying of the cable. They laid is directly down the middle of the lawn - despite a full and unplanted border being within 10 feet of the line they took. In other words, they could have gone down the border and left no mess at all.
However - that isn't my biggest issue.
I have taken up turf from the surrounding area in order to build a new area for bedding plants in the garden. In doing so I was horrified to discover that the cable was laid no more than 3" below the surface.
Furthermore, it was completely unprotected. There is conduit evident at the point it exists the garden to connect to the house, but it looks to me as though they've almost deliberately placed just a small section of conduit on that section to make it 'appear' as if the rest of the cable underground would be protected too.
I've taken photographs - what do you think?
Don't be mislead into thinking that the spade trench you see in the picture of exposed soil/cable is the one they made. It isn't - that is a new and deeper trench below the existing one that I have made in order to try to get the cable down to below 'spade depth'.
My questions are:
1. Should the cable be conduit protected throughout?
2. Is 2-3" really adequate depth for the cable?
3. Is it reasonable to have expected them to have laid the cable down the border no more than 8-10ft from the lawn trench they dug?
Picture 1 - showing conduit into house, but it ceases just below ground level
Picture 2 - showing the nice mess they made down the lawn despite the border to the left of it
Picture 3 - the exposed cable, unprotected. Note the still turfed area and the depth of the cable. The trench below it is the new one I've dug to try to get it deeper.
