Low Voltage Insight: From Copper to Fiber

Chuck Bowser explores essential cabling concepts from fiber optic compatibility to future-proofing residential installations and proper grounding techniques. He addresses practical concerns for industry professionals while celebrating new RCDD certifications within the Let's Talk Cabling community.

• APC fiber patch cords should never be connected to UPC fiber adapter panels due to misaligned end faces and potential permanent damage
• Future-proofing residential cabling typically means installing Cat6A despite its higher cost (66% more than Cat6) for its longevity and performance benefits
• The average structured cabling plant lifespan is 7-10 years in commercial settings and 10-15 years in residential environments
• Primary bonding busbars should be located near entrance facilities with secondary bonding busbars mounted high in telecom rooms
• For lightning protection, modern installations should use gas tube protectors backed by solid-state protectors rather than obsolete carbon blocks

If you want to contribute equipment to the podcast studio or help with installations like conduit saddle bends, reach out to Chuck directly. New videos on grounding, J-hooks, and ladder rack installations coming soon.

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction & Setup
• 8:37 New RCDDs & Podcast Studio Updates
• 14:43 APC vs UPC Fiber Connectors
• 18:43 Future-Proofing Residential Cabling
• 21:21 Grounding Bar Installation Guidelines
• 23:16 Lightning Protection Systems Explained

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Wednesday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing Live after hours with your favorite RCDD. Eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing Live after hours with your favorite RCDD. And you know that's me, you know I'm your favorite RCDD. While I talk to you tonight about installation, design, certification, project management, estimation, career path, whatever crosses your mind, put your questions in the chat box. I got four questions tonight. I'm pretty sure those four questions will fill the I almost said class will fill up the evening. But just in case, go ahead and put your questions in the chat box Now.

Speaker 2: 1:18

We always got to start off with what are you drinking? What are you drinking? Go ahead and put that in the chat box. What are you drinking? What are you drinking? Go ahead and put that in the chat box. I'm drinking a ginger ale, zevia, as usual, in my tumbler cup filled with ice and water. Tell us in the chat box what are you drinking? Kaylin's drinking water, and it's a good thing, because I need it, because I tell you what I tried to.

Speaker 2: 1:48

I just tried to do this live stream tonight up on the top of the hill in the new podcast studio. I tried, but the problem was. It wasn't working, so I had to come down here and reset everything last minute. Oops, I hate when that happens. I hate when that happens. So there we go. So if you see a little sweat on my brows cause I'm still cooling off, cause I don't have the AC running up there yet, I hate when that happens. So there we go. So if you see a little sweat on my brows, it's because I'm still cooling off, because I don't have the AC running up there yet. I got a portable AC up there but I didn't turn it on because I got a fan going in there. I'm one of the big industrial fans and I love that fan. It moves air around. But it sucks when you're trying to have a microphone in front of it. I and have a microphone in front of it, so I got on a little early. My good friend George Humphrey and the TikTok. He got on and we said it's a little buggy so I had to pack everything up and come on down here. So there you go, there you go. That's probably more information than you needed to know.

Speaker 2: 2:37

Acronym challenge. Acronym challenge DVD. What does DVD stand for? Go ahead and tell us. In the chat box. Somebody says it's 8 am in Oz we're having Foster's beer for breakfast. Oz, you mean? Australia? Oh cool, you're watching all the way from Australia. That's pretty stinking Cool. I'll tell you what. Send me direct, message me your emailing address and I will send you a sticker for being the furthest person to watch tonight's show Australia. That's wicked cool. Anyway, acronym challenge DVD. What does that mean? Come on, somebody's got to know the meaning of this thing, right? Dvd? You know that's my acronym challenge. It's not digital video disc, like a lot of people seem to think. It is. Okay, what does DVD? Oh, I got to turn on the chat box over here so I can see people responding to me. There we go, sean. Water in my Milwaukee cup, hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, no, wait a minute. My Tumblr this is my other Tumblr. It's a Milwaukee cup too. I have a Milwaukee Tumbler 2. I tried so, just so you know, sean, I tried to do the broadcast up in the new podcast too, so you can see my pack out kit, my mod box and a whole bunch of other stuff, so, but I was having some connectivity issues because it wasn't working. So, dvd, what does what does it stand for? Acronym Challenge Okay, I'll give you a few more seconds, by the way you'll type back in.

Speaker 2: 4:05

I want to say congratulations to the two newest RCDDs from the let's Talk Cabling family. First one is Shane O'Neill, rcdd Tech. He's a fan of the show. He's been listening for many years. I met him at a Bixie conference. I've even taught him in my day job at his location. I don't know if he wants me to say where he works, but I've actually taught him. So Shane knows me, knows the podcast, he got his RCDD and he said thank you to me for helping him. Rob Hurst, rcdd CTSI. He shot me a message this week saying, after listening to the show for a number of years, he decided to pursue his RCDD. So while I didn't actually mentor him, I inspired him to get his new RCDD. So two brand spanking new RCDDs this week. Congratulations, gentlemen.

Speaker 2: 4:53

Now my next question to you is what are you going to do to pay it forward? To pay for it? Dvds, so it stands for digital versatile disc, disc Digital Versatile Disc. There we go. So I mentioned that I tried to kick off tonight's show up in the podcast studio so that way you could see the work boxes I put in and the pull box I put in and I put up some other stuff too. But I haven't run a cable from the shop up to here, so I was trying to do Wi-Fi and it just wasn't strong enough. So five minutes left, I had to come running back down here and keep in the studio. So my goal is to get this podcast to you. You'll be running soon, real soon.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Speaking of the podcast, I want to thank some studio sponsors. There are several people who are donating equipment. First one, harger Lightning Protection. Okay, harger, adam Cash, great guy, met him at a Bixie conference. He sent me some bus bars, some two-hole long barrel connectors, some number six and a crimper and a couple ground rods and uh. So thank you, adam, for sending that stuff. I already made one video of installing the ground rod. I'm going to make other videos on installing the bus bar, installing the two old connectors, all that other stuff. Second, I want to thank David Lamphere from RCDD. I can't forget that. David Lamphere from RCDD, david Lamphere, rcdd from Invent, they are sending me a whole bunch of green J-hooks, green J-hooks. So thank you for that, invent. And then special note, special sponsor this week Scott Hammond from Hammond Manufacturing. They're sending me some ladder rack, some accessories, some dropouts, some ladder rack feet, wall mount kits, the whole entire thing to build out the ladder rack for the podcast studio. So I'm really looking forward to that.

Speaker 2: 6:51

Now, if you would like to donate equipment to the podcast studio and have me make videos on how to install it, use it, terminate it, get in contact with me. Or if you know somebody who's like man Chuck really should do a video on such and such, contact them. Say, hey, I listen to his podcast. Maybe you should donate some stuff to him so he can do a video on it. I'm fine with that too, right? Some things I would really like to do 66 blocks oh my gosh, that's a good one, hunter, that is a good one. I'm going to buy me some 66 blocks and make a video out of that, because there's 89D blocks, b blocks you can wire it up like a premise technician or a splicer. I can talk about the split 50s or the M150s man. I could do a 30-minute video on 66 blocks 31-minute one, lol. So yeah, so definitely.

Speaker 2: 7:39

I want to do an episode or two on POE equipment POE devices because that's a new hot thing. I was talking to Tyler Andrews from POE Texas and he was telling me that they've got this film that you can put on glass and you hook it up to your POE equipment and when you turn it on it makes it opaque. You can't see through it. Man, that's perfect for a studio, right? Maybe?

Speaker 2: 8:00

Av systems I love to jam out the music while I'm working, right? And security systems. I've got to put a security system around my podcast studio. So you know, if you know a manufacturer who might donate the system and the cameras and the cable and everything, have them. Get in touch with me, right? Also, if you live in Central Florida, if you live in Central Florida, anywhere between the triangle of Tampa, orlando and Ocala, I'm putting in conduit in my podcast studio. I'm real good putting in conduit. You know stub ups and stub outs. I am not so good at doing saddle bends, so I need someone to come up here to the podcast studio to show me how to do those bends, those saddle bends. I'm not good at those, but I can do stub up and stuff out. So that's the show. Coming up is the conduit. Then I'm going to put up the walls, the three-quarter-inch AC-grade plywood and then I'm going to put in the anti-static flooring that I've had for about a year and a half and so lots of stuff going on with the podcast studio, getting real excited about putting it in and looking forward to doing all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 9:03

So let's get to the questions. Guys, we're 10 minutes after. I haven't got to the first question yet. Question number one, and I feel bad because I lost this person's name. The question came to me on TikTok, I believe, or maybe even Instagram, and I usually take a screen snapshot of it and save it on my phone to do the show with. But this person asked me. He said Chuck, can I plug an APC fiber optic patch cord into a UPC fiber adapter panel? Just to repeat that APC fiber patch cord, can I plug it into a UPC fiber adapter panel? And the quick answer to that is no, no, you don't want to. You have all kinds of problems if you do.

Speaker 2: 9:51

Now, for those who may not know, apc and UPC the PC and APC and UPC stands for physical contact. They used to stand for polished connector, but we don't do very many polished connectors anymore nowadays, so now it's mechanical or fusion splice. So they changed it to physical contact. So APC is an angle physical contact connector, which means the end face has about an 8-degree angle to it Okay, 8-degree angle to it and it's used a lot for cable TV. I'll explain that here in just a minute, right? So it's got the 8-degree end face. Upc has a flat, flat face, 90 degree face and it's actually got a little bit of a bevel to it. So you can't really put them together.

Speaker 2: 10:30

What happens? Well, number one you're going to have mismatched alignments with these connectors. Again, the APC's got that 8 degree angled in face and the UPC has that slight, the 90 degree, the slight dome to it. That's going to, you're not going to. If you even get physical contact, it's going to be poor physical contact. And what's that going to really result into for you? Increased insertion loss because of those misalignments, because you know air is attenuated or light, so those cores aren't actually touching each other. So you're going to have a higher typical loss, far beyond what's allowed by acceptable limits. You're also going to have high return loss or reflections. Again that UPC connector, it's really designed for losses of negative 55 dB. An APC, it's designed for losses of negative 65 dB, so there's a 10 dB difference there and that mismatch can cause reflections and those reflections are going to disrupt the data transmission, especially with high speed, and that's what you're using fiber for, right High speed data or analog systems.

Speaker 2: 11:35

You're also taking the chance on damaging those end faces Because you know FOA, fiber Optic Association. They have some great free training out there and I think it was FOA where I saw this. But when you make two fiber optic connectors together, there's 2.2 pounds of pressure holding together. Now, 2.2 pounds of pressure doesn't sound like a lot, but when you divide it out by the surface area that's actually touching, that's 40,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. So now you've got them put together pretty hard and that's going to lead to not just damage, permanent damage, permanent damage. And if you need any other reason, it's a violation per the standards, the 568 standards and also the IEC 617-55-3-1. Yeah, so it's a violation of those Best practice.

Speaker 2: 12:27

Always use an APC to an APC, a UPC to a UPC. I remember a customer sent me a picture because our fiber stuff is not working right and so we're having problems. And when I looked at the picture, I realized pretty quickly that they had an APC plugged into a UPC. How did I know that? How did I know that? Because an APC connector is green, upc is blue. So they had a green adapter panel and a blue fiber optic patch cord sticking into that. So there you go.

Speaker 2: 13:03

Recommendations coming on from TikTok, from OlopsZ2888. Recommendations for CECs to maintain Big C, rcd, big C courses are pricey. You're absolutely spot on, correct about that, and you know I really need to collect, because I've got a lot of resources and collect and put them in a document so I can send them out to people. So I'm just going to do these off the top of my head. Okay, first one Cable Installation and Maintenance Magazine. Go to cableinstallcom.

Speaker 2: 13:34

At the very top there will be a thing that says Webcasts. Click on Webcasts At any given time. They have between five and ten webinars right there that you can watch each of them one hour in length, free, by the way, free, free. Okay, another free one. A lot of the manufacturers have free training. Let me think of one right now. Who's the Corning has one almost weekly. I did not know that I don't have to get that link from you, hunter. When we get into the RC Study Group, bright Talk, often we'll have free one-hour classes for CECs. Brother P Touch the living people. They've got a couple free webinars. Leviton has a few. I even got four classes for CECs. You know, fire stopping, cca, cabling codes versus standards and bonding and grounding. So there's lots of ways that you can get your CECs. Make sure that you utilize those. I'll create that list so that way I have that All right. So there you go.

Speaker 2: 14:42

So next question this one comes to me from Chuck on TikTok Not from me but from somebody else named Chuck on TikTok, and it was actually a comment to a post that I did, because I did a post about cabling in residential environments. Residential environments are more tricky than doing cabling in a commercial office environment because in a commercial office building a lot of times you've got drop tile ceilings. You just lift up the ceiling tile, run the cables. Winner, winner, chicken dinner, rock on, good to go, easy peasy, lemon squeezy. But in a house a lot of the times the ceiling is, you know, solid, right. So I'm not saying you can't do it, but it's more difficult to do cabling in residential.

Speaker 2: 15:25

So the whole video was about if you're going to do cabling, future-proof it for future-proof it. If you think you need Cat 5E, do Cat 6. If you can do Cat 6, do Cat 6A. So that's what that video was about. So he said Cat 6A is twice the price of Cat 6. And with the tariffs it's only going to get worse.

Speaker 2: 15:45

Single-mode fiber is the only future-proof solution and I hear you about the price difference between Cat6A and Cat6. And you know I actually had to do some research on this because it's been a while. It's been a while since I have priced cabling through distribution. So I had to reach out to some people. I reached out to Graybar and I reached out to my friends at Cable Connections, my good buddy David, and I got some list pricing for Cat6 and Cat6A and he said Cat6 was about $300 for 1,000 feet. And this is just list pricing. You get better pricing if you buy a bunch and it also depends on whether it's platinum or ros rate. But anyways, generic Cat6, $300.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Cat6a $499. That's not double the price Now. It is a significant increase. It's 66%. It's a 66% increase. So it's a good bit, but it's not quite double right. But here's the thing. It's not like you're doubling everything. You're not doubling the cable and the labor, because it takes the same amount of labor to pull a Cat6 cable, to terminate a Cat6 cable, to test a Cat6 cable, as it does to pull, terminate, test a Cat6A cable. Somebody says termination is to take into consideration. That really depends on the manufacturer's jacks. Some of the Cat6A jacks are really good. They're just as easy to do as Cat6, right? So theoretically those are all pretty much going to be the same. The only difference is going to be the cost of the cabling, and because of the difficulty of doing cabling in a house, I say go for Cat6A.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Now here's the thing you said single-mode fiber. I get it, man. Single-mode fiber is so good that we don't have the equipment to tell us what is the maximum bandwidth we can send on a single-mode fiber. It's the best cable we have. It is the best. But here's the thing Again. I was talking about residential cabling, residential future-proofing, not commercial building. When you think about Ethernet in homes, what are people typically running their cables for their TV, their wireless router, their nest device? Right, guess what? They typically don't have fiber optic connectors on the back of them. But Chaka, you can get transceivers. Okay, that's another added cost, another added cost. And though they go bad, they go bad. So really, you know, single-mole fiber, yeah, it's the best, but it's not always the answer.

Speaker 2: 18:15

For those who may not know what future-proofing means, it's not just about bandwidth or about speed, right, if you look at the Bixby documentation, the TIA, future-proofing is about putting in a cable that works with all of the stuff out there today and any upcoming technologies and applications. Do you know what kind of Internet, what kind of wireless routers, what kind of connectivity you're going to have on your laptops seven years from today? Probably not, Probably not. And by future proofing you're avoiding having to do a major infrastructure overhaul. And I've said this many times the average lifespan of a structured cable plant is seven to ten years. Seven to ten years. Cable plant is 7 to 10 years 7 to 10 years. In a residential environment it's probably going to be a little longer 10 to 15 years, because it's so hard to pull cable. So what you do is you want to maximize your long-term value by putting in the best cable you can put in before today. That makes sense. Don't do Cat 8 in your house. That Cat 8, there's still a lot of controversy with cat 8. Cat 6a is going to be the best for your house.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Okay, now, like I said, future, future, proven single fiber. Yes, single mode has a lot of bandwidth. It supports long distances, well beyond 1.2 miles. Somebody show mea house where you're gonna run 1.2 miles of single mode fiber inside of that house. And don't forget fiber optic cabling is immune to EMI. Immune to EMI.

Speaker 2: 19:55

What about installing the pathway versus the infrastructure? That's a great point, hunter. So you'd have to do that during the construction. I've seen lots of people talk about Smurf tubing. You can put conduit in, you can put interduct in. Having a house built, yes, run the conduit system during construction so that way you can easily swap it out. So there you go. There you go.

Speaker 2: 20:23

So when it comes to transceivers and media converters, you know they're just they break down, they just break down and they add complexity to your job, to your install. So why do you even do it? So for residential cabling, cat 6A still makes sense. It just does. Most devices have some type of a AP8C or an RJ45, and fiber is still an overkill. Until you start getting into the enterprise. You know, enterprise single-mode fiber, perfect for health care, perfect for schools, perfect for industrial right, cat6a can still do 10 gig up to 100 meters, and that's far beyond what most people have going in their house right now. Okay, far beyond what's going on most people's house. Let's go to the next question. All righty where it is it there's?

Speaker 2: 21:10

question number three. This comes from romelio cherno from tiktok and he says does the nec book tell us where we should be installing grounding bars in the IDFs? The NEC, no, no, the NEC doesn't tell you where to install it. It's not a design specification. I've said this on more than one occasion In 90.1, if you want to go look it up. It says it is not a design specification. It doesn't tell you what products to use. It doesn't tell you should you use a quarter inch thick by four inch tall, by however wide bus bar or a little bonding strip. It doesn't tell you should you use a quarter inch thick by four inch tall by however wide bus bar or a little bonding strip. It doesn't tell you, it just says it's got to be a listed product, listed product. So there are some things you do want to know. When you install bus bars. Refer to the ANSI 607 bonding and grounding standard, for example, the primary bonding bus bar. In that standard it's going to tell it's going to be quarter inch thick by four inches tall by however wide. It needs to be isolated from its mount. It's going to be electro-tinted and played. You're going to scratch and use antioxidant for reduced contact resistance. Best place typically for the primary bonding bus bar is going to be near the entrance facility, because you got to bond the lightning protection system, you got to bond the armor jacket to the outside plant cable, you got to connect to the, the grounding electrode outside of the building. So you want to put that right there near that. Now, each telecom room, or idf as you said, independent distribution frame, that's an old acronym, the new acronym is tr telecom room you should have. You need to have at least one secondary bonding bus bar, at least one. You can have more, but you need to have at least one Quarter inch thick by two inches tall, by however wide. It needs to be Electro-template. You're going to scratch it and use antioxidant for reduced contact resistance. The best place to mount the secondary bonding bus bar is going to be up high, near the runways, typically because you want to keep your conductors as short and as straight as possible. Short and straight as possible. Question number four this comes from Low Volt Lou. He says, hey, chuck, I'm wiring up a telecom room and I keep hearing mixed opinions. He says, hey, chuck, I'm wiring up a telecom room and I keep hearing mixed opinions. Should I use a carbon block gas tube or solid-state primary protector for my telecom entrance protection. Which one's right for the job.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Let me take you on a little trip down memory lane. I did a job once in Tampa, florida. You know the humid, stormy summer of central Florida back in the old days when I used to do work out in the field. In case you didn't know, this Florida is the lightning capital of the United States. The lightning capital of the United States. Yeah, we get anywhere between 80 and 100 thunderstorm days a year, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:04

So we were upgrading a client's outdated, outdated pots cabling plant, right, and we came across the surge protectors and they used. They had these old carbon block protectors and these carbon block protectors were scorched from a lightning event nearby. You see, lightning doesn't actually have to hit the gable, it just has to hit the ground near the cable, near the cable right, because when the ground, the ground is conductive and when it's wet it's even more conductive, right. So one of the junior techs asked me at the time. He asked me you know, why do we even use those kinds of protectors anymore? And the question is we shouldn't be, we really really shouldn't be, we really really shouldn't be In the great land of the USA. Do you let anyone have a go at structured cabling? That depends on where you are. There's areas that almost every state. You have to have a business license or a low voltage or limited energy license and they can hire anybody they want. They don't have to be certified and then you can teach them certified. Does that answer your question handy down under? So let's go back to those lightning protections. There's three types Carbon blocks the carbon blocks are the original, the old school.

Speaker 2: 25:15

You literally have two carbon elements with an air gap between them and then when that voltage spikes, the arc jumps from one across to the other and it sends that energy to the ground. Now carbon blocks are set to trigger between 300 and 1,000 volts it just kind of depends and they're pretty slow to respond. It usually takes more than 15 nanoseconds for a carbon block to respond. 15 nanoseconds for a carbon block to respond 15 nanoseconds may sound like a long time, until you're getting hit with 2.5 gigawatts of power, as Doc Brown would say. Then it's an eternity An eternity. Also, if you get in an area of country that gets a lot of lightning strikes, you'll start getting noise on your POTS lines because they're going through carbon blocks, okay, and they're one-shot devices. Once they've been triggered, you got to take them out and go get a new one. So they're obsolete. Don't use them, not in modern telecommunications.

Speaker 2: 26:10

Now, the next one up is the gas tube protectors. Now, these ones they're modern upgrades to the carbon blocks. They fill them with an inert gas and when that gas gets hit with that voltage surge, it ionizes, makes that gas become conductive and then it's going to safely divert that energy to a ground. They also have wider gaps than carbon blocks do, which translates into higher reliability for that type of fuse. Now, the advantage of the gas tube protectors are they trigger quicker 10 to 15 nanoseconds, okay and they have higher surge handling, which is going to be great for lightning-prone areas Hello, central Florida. They also present less wear and tear on the connected equipment. And the best thing about the carbon blocks they're resettable. Once that voltage dissipates, it resets itself and goes back to working. The downside they're slower to activate than solid state, right, and that slight delay could cause a voltage spike. And since most of today's environment is solid state equipment, that's going to cause you some problems. But they're still widely used and they're still accepted to use.

Speaker 2: 27:21

Now, the best of the best is going to be solid-state protectors. They trigger in about three to five nanoseconds, right. They use this semiconductor material. What it does is it clamps that voltage energy and it shunts it. They usually trigger between 150 and 300 volts. They're highly precise and they're very good for sensitive electronics. The downside to that is they have lower surge handling capability. They can degrade over a period of time with repeated hits and probably the biggest downside to it is they're expensive.

Speaker 1: 27:57

They are expensive.

Speaker 2: 27:58

You know I used to tell people the solid-state protectors were red in color. I recently came across a job site where the solid-state protectors were black but they said solid-state on it. So you know me, I don't do what the code says. I do higher than the standards. I usually do the best practices or the manufacturer requirements. So the Bixie it's aza manual and the 607 standard both emphasize that you really want to make sure that you have proper primary protection because it is a life safety issue. Best practice gas tube protector combined with a solid state secondary protector. That combo is going to give you a lot of protection for high protection, for higher protection than a gas tube will and faster clamping and precision than the solid-state. So you get kind of like the best of both worlds. Here's the thing you need to know Whatever lightning protection system you buy, it's got to be listed to be compliant with UL 497, ul 497. And it's got to be bonded to a ground bonded to a ground. So always use gas tube protectors, back them up with the solid state protectors. Don't ever use the carbon blocks. They are old, old stuff, right? So there you go.

Speaker 2: 29:13

Let's go back over to the chat box and see what we've got here. I have a grounding question. Should we always locate the primary bonding bus part near the main electrical entrance or near the telecom entrance if they are far from each other? So you always want to keep your conductors as short as possible. So actually, what the standards actually tells us is you know you really want to try to keep the grounding electrode within 30 feet of where the primary bonding bus bar is. So that usually means the grounding electrode is usually going to be in a different spot. Now the Bixie best practice tells us that we should we're allowed by, we're permitted by the AHJ, the authority-having jurisdiction. We should run a bonding conductor from the primary bonding bus bar to the electrical distribution panel. We're permitted by code and that's going to equalize out the potential for those two.

Speaker 2: 30:01

All righty, sean looks familiar sticker and all Alrighty, I am a PE who manages Division 2728. How do you deal with weak, low-voltage trade partners, for example, project management foreman, who do not do any progress? Walks, take notes, communicate, coordinate or look at the schedule Help. Walks, take notes, communicate, coordinate or look at the schedule Help. So I need to know a little more information about this. What do you have in the contract? Do you have in the contract that they've got to do weekly walkthroughs? Do they have to communicate with you? I'm going to have to put some thought into that one, anthony, because I've never been one of those types of people. So I'm going to put some thought into Anthony and I'm going to answer that question on next week's. In fact, let me take a screen snapshot so I don't forget, because that's going to be a great question for next week.

Speaker 2: 30:53

I'm already two minutes over and Mama's out there cooking dinner. Oh my gosh, it smells so delicious. Oh, my stomach is gurgling right now. So, all righty, are there any other certifications than Big C? That sets the bar for me to send to my techs, other than manufacturer certification? Yes, there are. Foa Fiber Optic Association they have copper and fiber installations. Light Brigade they just came out with copper and fiber certifications. Those are the two big ones I know off the top of my head. So check them out and they can help you there. So let me see. All right, if nobody has any questions there, let's go ahead and turn this thing off and I'm going to go eat me some dinner.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Thanks for listening to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's talk cabling empowering the industry, one connection at a time.