RJ45 jack installed into drop-ceiling tile?

[JazzyJoel]

A new "installer" low balled the building management, they promosed a 1 day install we have now endured 5 days of install, they are not following any NEC guide lines, no permit either... Reasons why im inquiring about wall plate location: They have drilled a hole into the drop ceiling tile, punched a RJ45 wall plate terminal then crammed the plate-jack between the tile and the tile-track, there is no box to protect the wiring, no support of the cat5 wire, it is in a NON-Plenum space... However the installer did not use plenum rated cable either... the jack plate is just crammed between the tile and the track no screws, rivets or other means of securing..... there are 36 offices in the building all of which are now wired the same way !!! not to mention the tile is located 8' off the floor the only way to access the T-1 line is through this rj45 jack on the ceiling tile!!!! looking for code section the deals with this, so i can have a talk with the installer...

Thank You,
Joel

 

[GoldDigger]

A new "installer" low balled the building management, they promosed a 1 day install we have now endured 5 days of install, they are not following any NEC guide lines, no permit either... Reasons why im inquiring about wall plate location: They have drilled a hole into the drop ceiling tile, punched a RJ45 wall plate terminal then crammed the plate-jack between the tile and the tile-track, there is no box to protect the wiring, no support of the cat5 wire, it is in a NON-Plenum space... However the installer did not use plenum rated cable either... the jack plate is just crammed between the tile and the track no screws, rivets or other means of securing..... there are 36 offices in the building all of which are now wired the same way !!! not to mention the tile is located 8' off the floor the only way to access the T-1 line is through this rj45 jack on the ceiling tile!!!! looking for code section the deals with this, so i can have a talk with the installer...

Thank You,
Joel

I would have hoped that the specifications included something about accessibility of the jacks and the lack of dangling network cables in every office.
But you may still have some recourse to the NEC, specifically those sections covering data wiring systems (not communications in the sense that NEC uses it BTW.)
And there are some restrictions on the wiring methods that can be used in environmental air spaces (not plenums), but I get the impression that that does not apply to your dropped ceiling either.

Wiring that lies unsupported on top of removable tiles is a bad idea, but is also common practice.

 

[JazzyJoel]

cutting corners

cutting corners

about 30 of the 36 units use this network for VOIP so that should fall under 800 and 900 right? but there is nothing about primary jack locations/ specifications?

 

[GoldDigger]

about 30 of the 36 units use this network for VOIP so that should fall under 800 and 900 right? but there is nothing about primary jack locations/ specifications?

I have seen, and agree with the argument that "communications" involves copper connections to a telephone or other utility, not the internal PBX VOIP wiring or even the data circuits for VOIP directly to a provider (like residential VOIP via cable company, for example.)

Communications Circuit. The circuit that extends voice, audio, video, data, interactive services, telegraph (except radio), outside wiring for fire alarm and burglar alarm from the communications utility to the customer?s communications equipment up to and including terminal equipment such as a telephone, fax machine, or answering machine.

So 800 would arguably not apply.

Neither would 830. Now 840 [2011] would seem to fit the situation perfectly if it were not limited to optical networks.

720 and 725 maybe?

900????

 

[Sierrasparky]

I would say that falls under workmanship too.

 

[Sierrasparky]

Oh what a hack , should be thrown off the job, keep the boxes of wire, Just boot the job.

 

[JazzyJoel]

dude is still here after 5 days

dude is still here after 5 days

This guy is cutting more corners

Background:
my company was asked to bid on the following:

36 office units longest run was 175'
total estimated cable was 5,000 feet
they wanted CAT5e terminated at each unit
we bid office units to have an in wall (2) keystone (1) CAT5e Rj45 (1) BLANK
PBX closet to be handled by Primary Utility supplier (SONIC.net), they requested it be left with a 10' tail

our bid came to just around $4,500.00 (Discounted given landlord requested Bid, and we just upgraded a club from CAT5 to CAT5e so we had an abundance of CAT5e
)

All of our installations have our Field technicians

• Document that cabling systems are defect-free and TIA-570B compliant (fluke CIQ100)
• Qualify cabling systems to support voice, VoIP, 10/100/1000 Ethernet

updates:

36 office units
mixed commercial use space

16 office units have a warehouse space as well as office.

30 of the units rely on the cat5e to provide VOIP networking

the guy promised a 1 day turn around, then shut down our office for 2 days (Saturday to Sunday night)
Our drop used to be just a straight run of cat5e from the floor through a hole in the drop tile home-run to the PBX room

now it runs to a standard RJ-45 cover-plate with no box, it is literally crammed in-between tile and frame (no screws, nada) which is 8' from the floor...
Thought that it was only our office as a temporary solution to get our office on-line, after checking other vacant offices and then the hall way I found the following:

The drop supply is literally tossed into the above ceiling tiles, and is NOT plenum rated, nor is it secured...

Called the local city building department they do not care/ cover commercial, residential low voltage wiring...
I will attempt to take a pic and post...

 

[don_resqcapt19]

In general data wiring installation fall under 725. Other than the cables laying on the tiles, I don't think there is much in the way of code violations in the installation as described. While there are issues, they don't appear to be code issues. They are design and specification issues.

 

[hbiss]

I agree with Don. Mostly a workmanship issue and I'm willing to bet the customer couldn't care less as long as it was the cheapest. This is the reason we don't do data jobs any more. You can't compete with the hacks and trunkslammers and the customers who only care about the cheapest price.

-Hal

 

[GoldDigger]

...we bid office units to have an in wall (2) keystone (1) CAT5e Rj45 (1) BLANK...

Ah, but did the hack commit to putting the in-wall jacks in a wall, or just using them?

 

[Nom Deplume]

Hold the money and don't pay them.

 

[JazzyJoel]

all in the building landlord hands now...

all in the building landlord hands now...

well electrician I contract with called me to explain that the landlord has a history of shady dealings IE owes money to multiple contractors that someone has called FD inspector to have the building checked out ... sooo karma is a bitch, dont cut corners or someone is going to get wise and ask questions ..... more details to follow....

Do it right the first time every-time!

 

[JazzyJoel]

pics

pics

here is a pic of this awesome quality install

 

[GoldDigger]

here is a pic of this awesome quality install

Hey, at least he put it in the corner so that it is properly supported on all two sides.
He could have just screwed it to the tile.

 

[__dan]

Bring back flogging:happyyes::happyyes::happyyes:

That's a flogging offense:happyyes::happyyes::happyyes:

 

[hbiss]

well electrician I contract with called me to explain that the landlord has a history of shady dealings IE owes money to multiple contractors that someone has called FD inspector to have the building checked out ... sooo karma is a bitch, dont cut corners or someone is going to get wise and ask questions ..... more details to follow....

If he finds anything it won't be that work... unfortunately.

-Hal

 

[hurk27]

It's unfortunate that people get away with work like this, and it can be very frustrating when it was not only a job that you bid but it was also done in the building that you rent from the same landlord.

But the real side of this that you are going to have to accept or move on.

You have to remember you are not the one paying for this work, and even as bad as it is there is not much that you can do other then maybe complain about the accessibility of the jack, or if there is a problem with the network like speed or data collisions or other problems with data losses, or threaten to move out, which might not go over too well? for one I have never heard of a landlord supplying the needs of a network most places require the renter to install or have installed their own system that meets their needs since it can vary from company to company?

Surprised to hear you installing a T-1 which is not very fast (1.544 Mbits) compared to the many options we have today at a much lower cost then a lease line?
But if I remember right T-1 uses RJ 48 cable (2-pair) and the pin out is different from regular Ethernet, so expect that it's not terminated correctly, but in realty cat-5 or cat-5e is a bit of an overkill, also T-1 is under the ANSI T1.403 (T1) standards and generally controlled by the Tel-co as it is a FCC regulated line as down time is a requirement to be kept low unlike cable or DSL, the Tel-co can get into trouble if a repair is not responded to within a certain time limit, so generally the Tel-co likes to keep the wiring to their own installers.


But my guess is even complaints might not have much effect on this landlord if he is this cheap or just doesn't realize how important it is to have data lines run correctly? I can only imagine how well the lines are terminated:blink:

 

[GoldDigger]

But if I remember right T-1 uses RJ 48 cable (2-pair) and the pin out is different from regular Ethernet, so expect that it's not terminated correctly, but in realty cat-5 or cat-5e is a bit of an overkill, also T-1 is under the ANSI T1.403 (T1) standards and generally controlled by the Telco as it is a FCC regulated line as down time is a requirement to be kept low unlike cable or DSL, the Tel-co can get into trouble if a repair is not responded to within a certain time limit, so generally the Telco likes to keep the wiring to their own installers.

In most data situations that I have seen that use a T-1, it goes directly to a T-1 modem, often provided by the phone company as part of the lease package. The modem in turn has Ethernet (10base-T or 100-base-T) output. Since the Ethernet jacks fed from it via switches or routers give access to the T-1 they are often referred to as "T-1 jacks".

CAT-4 would be fine for the actual T-1, but CAT-5 would be needed for the Ethernet side of the network.

 

[curt swartz]

Don't the jacks for telephone and computer connections have the same ADA access requirements as other electrical devices? If so you might be able to get them on that that.

 

[Sierrasparky]

Don't the jacks for telephone and computer connections have the same ADA access requirements as other electrical devices? If so you might be able to get them on that that.

I would think so