Last month a rat chewed through a drop line in a crawlspace near Austin and it took me 3 hours to fix

I was working a new install outside Austin last month and the signal kept dropping out. Crawled under this house (miserable, 90 degrees) and found a rat had gnawed right through the RG6 about 2 feet from the ground block. Had to replace a 50 foot section and re-terminate both ends because the damage went further than I thought. Customer was watching the World Series that night so I was sweating bullets. Anyone else deal with rodent damage worse than you expected after a quick look?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_max22d ago

Pulling extra cable before making the cut is the move. In my experience, that damage is always worse than it looks at first glance, especially if the rat has been chewing in multiple spots inside the insulation. Checked a line once and found the gnawing had traveled a good 12 feet back through the attic before I finally found where the chewed part ended.

uma68522d ago

Funny you mention that, I had a similar thing happen near Georgetown last summer. Thought it was just a chewed line, but when I started pulling the cable the damage went about 15 feet back through the attic. Ended up having to run a whole new drop from the tap because the rat had been nesting and gnawing at the sheath in spots I couldn't see. I learned to always pull a good 10 feet extra cable past the damage before cutting, just to be safe.