[n3ntj]

I see my neighbor outside her house today and a new Slimline is installed. I then see her standing near the dish and a large arc occurs between the dish and LNB. Apparently Ironwood had just left and, after a short few minutes of investigation, I find:

1.) None of the coax lines are connected to a ground terminal block. The old coax lines (4) are now jumpered to the new LNBs with short coax jumpers.

2.) Nothing of the install is grounded.

3.) The Ironwood guy drilled a hole into the home to mount the new dish and nicked the 240 volt clothes dryer line on the inside of the dish install. The neighbor's daughter had just started a load of laundry.

The dish was put up in a pouring rain as Hanna was blowing through. The Ironwood installer was there for 10 minutes. No idea how he also had enough time to install new IRD's (HR-21 and H-21), set them up, check signal strengths, and answer any customer questions.

I told the neighbor to call D* immediately. What sort of liability does D* and/or Ironwood have for repair and if a fire started?

Gotta love Ironwood!

 

[ccr1958]

dang....everybody..including the installer
is very lucky not to have been seriouly injured...
good everyone is ok...

 

[n3ntj]

dang....everybody..including the installer
is very lucky not to have been seriouly injured...
good everyone is ok...

If the installer had a DVM (and knew how to use it!), he may have noticed the dish was live electrically. No idea how he didn't get shocked.

 

[EXTACAMO]

What is going on? Between the post about the installer running cable down the dryer vent and now this WTF! Is money the only thing that matters? :nono2:

 

[webby_s]

Yes glad to hear everyone is ok, first and foremost... Now this guy (installer) drilled into the live 240 that goes to the dryer!? That's just wrong on all fronts and all of this in the middle of a tropical storm! WTF was he thinking. As a new customer I would have been willing to wait a day or so for the storm to pass, that's for sure. They called D* right away didn't they? Or maybe even the install company!? That's what I would do... Call both!

 

[n3ntj]

I'll have to get back to you what D* said. I'll ask her tomorrow. I think she mentioned that she didn't have a number for Ironwood.

Personally, I think the work that Ironwood does is criminal.

 

[DTVTech4U]

i smell a new arse in the unemployment line come monday.

 

[captswifty]

I realize that we hear the worst-of-the-worst install horror stories here, but I have to think there are a slew of other customers experiencing these problems that never find the forum and have no idea what to do.

I might be beating a dead horse, but DirecTV should set up an install hotline, specifically for customers to call in the first 48-96 hours after a problem install, and have it staffed with people that are trained to handle this sort of situation. Put the number right on the form that the installer has the customer sign to make sure they get it. The standard 800 number is staffed by more than capable people, but this is a serious enough situation that it deserves special attention.

DirecTV appears to be interested in improving the quality of the installs (which they should, because the HSPs are the only face to face contact they have with the customers), and this would be a relatively low cost way to start turning things around.

I realize that for every horror story, there are thousands of good installs that happen every day, done by professionals that care about the work they do (even if they are paid less than most people think they should and I thank each and every one of them for doing the job they do). However, bad installs can cost DirecTV hundreds of dollars in credits, lost customers, and negative association.

DirecTV, are you listening?

 

[RobertE]

Witholding judgement until the rest of the story can be told.

A good number of things just don't add up:

A HR2x takes 7 minutes to cold boot.

If he drilled through the 240 dryer line, why didn't the breaker/fuse pop?

If he only nicked the 240 line, how did the current get from the 240 line to the dish? The jacket on coax is non-conductive.

If it was a lag bolt was driven into the 240 line, then again, why didn't the breaker/fuse pop?

Not taking away from the seriousness of hitting a live electrical line, or what n3ntj is saying, but we are missing some vital info, IMHO.

 

[djwww98]

Witholding judgement until the rest of the story can be told.

A good number of things just don't add up:

A HR2x takes 7 minutes to cold boot.

If he drilled through the 240 dryer line, why didn't the breaker/fuse pop?

If he only nicked the 240 line, how did the current get from the 240 line to the dish? The jacket on coax is non-conductive.

If it was a lag bolt was driven into the 240 line, then again, why didn't the breaker/fuse pop?

Not taking away from the seriousness of hitting a live electrical line, or what n3ntj is saying, but we are missing some vital info, IMHO.

And to add another point that doesn't add up... An arc from the lnb to the dish? What is that; 18 inches? 240 volts is not even close to enough voltage to induce an arc across that much distance. Just not gonna happen. (At least the way described).
Not defending anything... If done as described, installer should be immediately fired before he hurts himself or someone else.

 

[Grentz]

If he nicked the line with one of the bolts, he would have felt it.

Turning on the dryer has no effect as the line is ALWAYS live to the dryer.

Also from a bit of googling and past knowledge, it is something around 30,000 Volts/centimeter for how far electricity can jump in air.

 

[gen2rx7]

One of the guys at my shop drove a lag bolt into 240 once. He did all the outside work. Plumbing mast, aligning dish, running cables, connecting to the ground block, etc... Nothing happened. When he hooked up his ground wire. All the wire smoked and lnb pretty much exploded. He left behind burn marks along the house where the cable used to be. Luckely he didn't get hurt, or anyone else.

My company also had to pay for the damages.

They should call D* and start a damage claim immediately!!

 

[DaaQ]

It was stated that this was done during a TROPICAL STORM. I think there is lightning associated with those things.

One other point to make, we are getting ka lnb's with jumpers attached to it, they are dtv approved, but they are of unequal length.

 

[Johnnie5000]

And to add another point that doesn't add up... An arc from the lnb to the dish? What is that; 18 inches? 240 volts is not even close to enough voltage to induce an arc across that much distance. Just not gonna happen. (At least the way described).
Not defending anything... If done as described, installer should be immediately fired before he hurts himself or someone else.

And another, the lnb is mostly plastic, especially the part facing the dish... how would it arc like that?

 

[JoeF]

Actually, it does add up. First, it's not 220, it's 110 in each leg. The lag bolt only hit one of the 3 wires (there are 2 hots + 1 grd). If he hit 2 wires, a hot and grd, the breaker would have popped. If he hit both hots, he would have had a "phase buck" (BIG arc and spark). He didn't get zapped because he never provided a path to ground. I don't believe that the arc jumped from the LNB to the dish. I'm guessing that something moved and the arc jumped from the mount to the cable (cable is grounded).

 

[BattleZone]

What is going on? Between the post about the installer running cable down the dryer vent and now this WTF! Is money the only thing that matters? :nono2:

That's just wrong on all fronts and all of this in the middle of a tropical storm! WTF was he thinking. As a new customer I would have been willing to wait a day or so for the storm to pass, that's for sure.

Keep in mind a few things, folks:

- Most areas of the country currently have a 4-5 week backlog. If your appointment is skipped or rescheduled, it could be a month before you see another installer. Customers that have waited 4-5 weeks do NOT want to reschedule and most want their TV *RIGHT NOW*, no matter what.

- Because of the backlogs, most installers are working 16+ hour days, 6-7 days a week. They are still being WAY overbooked every day, and are under incredible pressure to GET JOBS IN. HSPs often threaten to backcharge techs who refuse to do jobs, creating an environment where most techs feel they have little choice in the matter.

- Installers only make money when they complete jobs. If a job isn't completed for any reason, the installer eats all the expense of his time, labor to site-survey the house, and gas/mileage to get to and from that customer.

I'm not suggesting that the installer didn't do anything wrong; he did, and a damage claim needs to be made here, as well as the installation fixed. Calling DirecTV is the best way to proceed.

 

[TBoneit]

Is the installer to blame? It isn't like the location of the wires is obvious when lagging into the side of a house. This could have happened with a 110 outlet or lighting feed too.

The one sure way to mostly avoid that problem is only do roof mounts. If drilling into the side of the house to run the wire inside then four steps need to be done.
1. Go inside and look for outlets.
2. Cross your fingers.
3. Pray.
4. Drill.

Who knows where they really ran the wires in the wall?

That's why all my wires go into the basement and then up through the floor or through the convenient wiring chases left behind when the heating was changed from hot air to hot water baseboard.

 

[Grentz]

Thats why IMO installers should also carry utility finders (they can sense wires/etc.), but they are a bit pricey.

 

[n3ntj]

The lag bolt penetrated and partially broke the neutral conductor on the 240 Volt line. If he had hit either of the two hot conductors, he probably would have been zapped right then and there. A breaker did trip, and when the neighbor went to turn on the breaker (not knowing why it was suddenly off), the arc occured. I didn't see the arc but I did see the brownish mark it left at the bottom of the dish near the arm for the LNB. Not sure exactly what occurred, but I am going by what the neighbor told me and what I saw for myself (of the dish and the inside of the house).

I saw the guy over there in the rain (it was heavy rain, not T-storms), and he left after approx. 10 minutes. Apparently, he simply put up the dish and reconnected the old coax to the LNBs. Due to the pouring rain, he apparently was in a hurry or had another appt to get to. He handed my neighbor two white IRD boxes (HR-21 and H-21) and she had to hook them up herself. I thought these guys were supposed to hook up the IRDs, run the setup, setup the remote to use the TV as well, and answer any client questions. The installer did none of these.

30,000 volts per centimeter? Not even close. I did some extensive research in college (I am an EE) and a spark will jump a much larger gap with much less voltage under the right humidity. Remember, it was raining during the install and arcing incident.

Update -

Another D* installer is outside right now and I walked over to see what he had to say about the previous install. He agrees it was wrong and we showed him the arc markings on the dish and the burnt Romex from within the wall behind where the bolt was drilled, as well as the burn marks on the wall.

He removed the dish, installed a new Slimline on a pole out in the yard and I had to babysit him to instruct him how to ground the dish. Since it was approx. 25' from the home's electrical service ground, I asked that he install a 8' ground rod and bond this new rod to the electrical service ground rod with 6 AWG. I printed out articles 810 and 820 of the 2005 NEC to give him a good read. He had to go to the store and buy these (apparently, Ironwood does not supply this equipment to their installers) after conferring with his boss and returned and installed these.

 

[msmith]

30,000 volts per centimeter? Not even close. I did some extensive research in college (I am an EE) and a spark will jump a much larger gap with much less voltage under the right humidity. Remember, it was raining during the install and arcing incident.

I'll back you up on the humidity. Tropical Storm Hanna was here and humidity was at least 99.5%