In before the plasterer. First-fix data & TV cabling For Nottingham builders

The job

First fix, before the boards go on

An extension shell with the rafters exposed and the blockwork bare is when to ring me. At first fix I run the cable through the studs and joists, drop it to a marked back box position in every room that will ever have a telly or a desk, and take coax to wherever the Sky box or aerial feed is going. Everything runs back to one spot where the router will live, coiled, labelled and left where the plasterer can’t bury it.

I was a builder before I was a cable engineer. I know what a programme looks like, I’ll be on site when I say, and I won’t be in the electrician’s way. I do the data side, not the electrics.

What I offer trade

• Packages. A fixed scope for a typical extension, loft conversion or plot: so many data points, so many coax points, one central spot. Priced once, repeated across your jobs.
• Day rate. For bigger sites, or when the scope is still moving.
• Second fix. Faceplates on, cables terminated at a patch panel or switch, every point tested with a cable tester and labelled by hand, on a return visit once the decorators are done. If you want the switch or cabinet supplying, ask when you message.
• Retro-fit on refurbs. Floorboards up, cables under, boards back. The photos on this page show it.

Where the cable goes

Stud walls get the bundle through the studs before the board goes on. Blockwork gets the cable clipped down the block in one line to a back box at the socket position, the way the breeze-block wall in the photos was done. A loft conversion gets its feed to a surface box on the truss, cables tied off. Where a stud wall is already boarded, one rectangular cut above the skirting gets the plate in, made good after.

In one log cabin, the ethernet faceplate sits next to the Openreach master socket and the power socket, so the desk has everything in one place. For the same job in a shop, office or unit, with a patch panel and numbered ports, see business network cabling. For the coax side, see TV, aerial and satellite cabling.

For homeowners with a builder on site

You don’t have to be a builder to use this. If you’ve got a builder doing your extension, put me in touch and I’ll slot the first fix into their programme. It’s the difference between an ethernet socket in every room and a booster in the hall. If the walls are already plastered, that’s a different job and the ethernet sockets page covers it.

One of my reviews was left by Midland Lofts And-Joinery, a loft and joinery firm, about a job at home: every PC and Xbox hardwired after nearly two years of slow internet and a string of Sky engineers. The review says the only regret was not hiring me eighteen months earlier. Trade or not, it’s the same cable, and it goes in more easily before the plaster.

What it costs

No price list, because a two-bedroom extension with four data points and a plot with fourteen aren’t the same job. Trade jobs are priced per plot or per phase, packages are a set scope at a set figure, and day rate is there for the open-ended ones. Send me the drawings or a sketch with the router position marked, plus your boarding date, and I’ll come back with a figure before anything starts. How pricing works explains the four ways I price.