Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => Telephony Wiring + Equipment => Topic started by: Weaver on October 12, 2019, 02:02:17 AM

Title: BT OR boxes in soft ground
Post by: Weaver on October 12, 2019, 02:02:17 AM
I was talking recently to Burakkucat about the BT OR boxes that are in the ground and I was worrying about what happens where the ground is peat or mud or something soft. People round here love driving huge lorries over such boxes, I think it’s safe to assume.

I’m wondering about what happens if weight is placed on the box, causing it so move up and down in the surrounding soft material, because that way then the required length into the box changes and the cable entering/exiting could get put under tension presumably, or could get bent if there is anything hard outside. Perhaps it doesn’t matter quite so much though, if there is a lot of excess length inside the box as a just-in-case and so that extra cable can move if needed, to take up any strain imposed on the cable from outside. However, you don’t want the cable moving in and out through the entrance into the box.

In the past, when I myself have had this kind of situation, I have put cables inside plastic pipe to completely isolate and protect them. I have also put large thick tiles or paving slabs over the top to spread load and prevent point loads or impacts. Sometimes such tiles have been placed on top of a pair of blocks on either side of the pipe, where the blocks are of a height that is greater than the diameter of the pipe, so the tile pushes down on the tops of the blocks first, not on the pipe itself, and the whole arrangement is like a bridge over the pipe. I have done this even where the cable in question is armoured electricity cable even though that is supposed to be tough enough to stand all kinds of abuse. That and for protecting lesser cables or pipes alike. That’s the kind of thing I have done where cables or pipes cross gateways.

If we were to find one such BT OR box that is being run over by vehicles all the time and is suffering distress, if we put a huge paving slab over the top of it, then BTOR will perhaps hate us and curse our names, because they won’t be able to spot the box so easily. I suppose I should write BT OR on the slab.  ;D

With a kind of urban mind-set, you might think that the men in suits could imagine that in every situation such boxes get either put in hard footways or in hard roadways, not in random places in muddy soupy gloop or in springy peat - but that’s probably totally unfair.