House Assessment Training - getting our ducts in a row 🦆🦆🦆





On July 27th at Gravel House, Crook, Pete Simm and the 'Dig and Fit' volunteer team met with B4RN's Sarah Pollitt and Elaine Barker (connections coordinator) for training in how to assess properties for B4RN. 
Big thanks to Pete, Sarah and Elaine for organising the training and the sunshine!  

Also a special thank you to Pete and Mary Simm for arranging for their house and 3 of their neighbours properties to be available to the volunteers to practise doing assessments with the B4RN staff.  
The 4 properties were all different and required extra expertise of B4RN to complete the assessments and we learnt a lot!

  Doing Site assessments....

The aim of the site assessments is to prepare the house owner to get their properties ready to connect to the core fibre as the contractor come past. 

The main things that need to be assessed by the dig and fit team with the house owner before the arrival of the broadband are:
  1. where the route for the ducts that will connect the core fibre to the house should be placed (e.g. across the garden and drive to the house) 
  2. recording location of drains, water, electric and gas (a free line search online is recommended)
  3. where the grey connection box should be placed on the outside of the property
  4. where the router should be placed inside the house
  5. tips on wifi set-up inside the house (e.g. wifi mesh system) to enable best usage of the broadband
B4RN's Sarah and Elaine shared methods and examples on how to choose routes that are safe, which minimise disturbance and are efficient to dig through out the training day. B4RN experts will be on hand for advise on special situations and problem solving for our site assessments.

Example grey connection box which will be attached to the outside of each property

Drains, water and electric - volunteers with B4RN's Sarah assessing where the ducting is to be routed across Pete and Mary's garden.

For each property in the project this information will be captured on a site assessment and customer consent form, signed by the customer and submitted to B4RN before digging and fitting begins.

The form holds pictures of the interior and exterior site plan and assessment, and a description of the work to be carried out by B4RN volunteers, community dig group, the homeowner, B4RN stand and B4RN contractors.

Next week is Dig training! 



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