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The Problem Of Unused Cabling
Makarand writes "Technological advances constantly render functional cable obsolete by
demanding data transfers at higher rates which older cabling cannot
support. New cables that support higher data rates are laid right over older wires.
The old wires are simply left in place and abandoned. This interesting article talks about the
problems
caused by abandoned cabling. According to an estimate several billion feet of
abandoned cable lies unused in the plenum spaces of buildings that allow air to circulate
creating a fire hazard. Also, very few firms currently worry about removing cabling when they
move out of a building."
I've used old cabling to fish through the new cabling. I'm lazy like that.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
The standard practice is to recover assets when leaving a building. Just like a company takes it's servers, desktop computers, chairs, and desks, it also takes the relatively expensive network hook up equipment. This generally means the patch panels and the network racks. One rack, 6 or 7ft high, entirely populated with patch panels could easily have cost $4,000.
Now, in some cases, people are jerks and do not take the time to cut the wires as close to the patch panels as possible. I have seen some cut where the wires enter the room (ussually through the ceiling). This makes re-using the wires impossible since there isn't enough left to do the hookups.
Any place with a decent set of fire codes, and people who are actually following them, shouldn't be worrying. FT-5/Plenum cable is simply not a danger.
Now, if residential "wood burns faster so who cares" FT-1 vinyl cable is used, you get what you pay for. That being said, if the fire inspector ever sees that stuff, you'll probably be looking at a really juicy fine.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
He was saying that for the company/person leaving it is zero cost. Businesses do not care about the company moving into the building afterwards and why would they? For you all know a competitor is moving in. If it's mislabelled then you can just rip everything out and start over. Why waste the money analyzing when you can spend less pulling it out and putting new stuff in?
The real fire hazard is due to the insulation on the cables burning or melting and emitting all sorts of poisonous fumes. Older cables are very bad for this. I shudder at the thought of a serious fire in some of the buildings described by posters- if the whole floor void (and presumably the risers) are chock full of all that plastic.
*Some* modern cables are rated LSZH or LS0H- meaning "Low Smoke Zero Halogen" which shows that cable firms are considering this issue.
Actually, "plenum spaces" are supposed to have plenum cable, according to fire code. Plenum cable doesn't burn, it just smolders.
If that's what you meant by "inflammable," sorry. The word is "nonflammable."
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Labour costs aside. I'd guess that (data) cabling is a pretty unattractive source of metals. Tons plastic would have to be burned to get to a useful amount of metal. Burning plastic produces all sorts of nasty compounds, which would have to be scrubbed from the emissions significantly boosting the costs.
The right cabling makes perfect feedline for HF radio applications. I removed well over 300 feet of Twinax from the building I work in, and I could take all I wanted for free. [I now feed a 40-meter dipole with it]. The loss characteristics are about the same is RG-8.
All you amateur radio operators/SWL'ers, offer to remove the stuff for free.
One caveat, it is really dirty work, depending upon the building.
The full quote is "abandoned cable lies in the plenum spaces of buildings that allow air to circulate creating a fire hazard" and there should be a comma before creating. The plenum spaces allow the air to circulate, the cables create the fire hazard (because they're potentially flammable and the resulting toxic fumes spread through aforementioned plenum spaces).
As soon as this issue appears on the radar screens of fire marshalls, it will be dealt with. Restricting air flow in the plenums and having materials which emit toxic fumes during combustion in suspended ceilings would get most firemen wound up.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
We also take all of the locks with us, and the security system.
This is simply an example of how businesses and individuals work quite differently in an area where people assume things are much the same. Businesses rent the space, not usually the facilities (ie phone, security, etc), so most of the phone equipment, including those lines they're cutting, were put in by the business, and are taken from place to place. For many people it's just not worth the effort to take the lines completely out, so cutting them is far more common, especially since re-using the line would be almost out of the question in the new building (though the new tenant of the old building could re-use the line if you don't cut it too close).
We don't rent space expecting cat-5 cable to be in place, we rent it knowing that it will be easy for our people to put cat-5 in. We don't expect the phone line to be routed to the room we have designated for the phone equipment, or that the security will be up to our requirements.
If it was a home bought and sold by an individual, you have to leave most of those things in place because the buyer expects them to be there. However, if you spell it out in the contract, you can still cut away the phone and cable for whatever reason, though, as an individual, you also expect those things to be in the place you're moving to (which, again, companies don't expect to find when they move into a new business space).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
> The problem I faced was, what about when you have to do both? (Run a distance on one floor, then go up to another floor and run a fair distance in another air space.) Either way you are breaking code somewhere.
If you don't want to break code, you split the cable at the turns, and use plenum for the floor runs and a section of riser cable for the floor change. Yes, it's inconvenient, but building codes are rarely written with convenience in mind. So, in a word, you don't use one long cable for that whole run.
Virg
One of the problems is germs and other "unhealthy" materials. Ductwork can be one of the biggest sources of illness in the workplace.
A day or two before Mohter's day in 1984 the At&t central office serving the then sole call center for FTD was busy removing old cabling. The were pulling wires along a metal trough when one of them stripped and started a fire. The whole central office was shut down for at least a few days due to the blaze and FTD couldn't get any more orders in for Mother's Day, the biggest day of the year for flower deliveries(yes bigger than Valentine's day). FTD got a second call center shortly after that. I can't find a web page about this incident so anyone with more details or a link, please reply. I believe this was somewhere near Chicago.
If you're after the metals, it's far more effective to granulate the cable, and then screen the output. No burning involved, and in many cases, the plastic coating can also be recycled. This is reasonably common practice, and it works pretty well.
It's called a vampire tap, and I don't think it would have a significant effect on the signal carrying capacity of the cable.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
There was no cabling from our suite to the phone room. We had to install about 250 feet of plenum-rated phone wiring.
Wow, that sucks. Wonder why they didn't have any cable installed?
What did we do? Sawed it off at the entrance to our suite. Why? Because the building management wouldn't either compensate us for the price of installing the cable nor allow us to remove it. We paid for it, it's not theirs, so.. get out the hacksaw.
Golly, do you think that the previous tenant might have done the same thing?
Sorry, but that sort of scorched earth infrastructure policy is just stupid. Unless you were you actually planning on taking the cables with you to your next location and re-using them you should just leave them alone for the next person.
If you put down new carpet or painted the walls, would your rip it all out and trash the place when you left, just out of spite?
It surprises me that landlords over there do not take the same view, though it is possible that there is some liability question under US law of which I am unaware.
It really depends on the particulars of the tennant and building owner.
With smaller spaces the company moving in or the building owner will often pay a departing tennant to leave network and phone cabling in place along with things like furniture and phone switches. In sublease situations it's not uncommon for the master tennant to require the subleasing tennant to leave things like walls and wiring alone.
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