If I get a Sky+ box do I really need to pay Sky to install it?

[choufleur]

Sky are quoting £179 to supply and install a sky+ box. We have normal sky already. do we really need to get a sky+ box from sky? I can buy one on ebay for about half that price.

Cheers

[jorange5]

Sky + requires 2 cables to the dish. If you have normal Sky you will only have 1 cable. So, yes, you do need an engineer.

[Sam100]

I think you need to have a sky+ subscription as well in order for it to work. If you have one of the premium channels (sport or movies) i think it is free, otherwise its +£10 a month. Not sure how you do this if you don't get them to install it.

When you have sky+ there is an extra wire coming in from the satellite - so guess you would need somebody to install that unless you know how to do it yourself.

Be aware that a 2nd hand box may be knackered (not sure if that is what you have found on ebay) - we had one for 3.5 years that burnt out from all the use - the hard disk goes in the end. But we had this old one moved into another room and now use it as a freeview box (it just doesn't record anymore). Hope this helps a bit. There are some good techie sites on the web - put in sky+ installation and see - found one here

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

Do you really have an extra wire coming in??
I thought that was only for sky HD.
You can pay someone else to do it, when we moved house we paid sky £80 to come and move us, but the guy who did it said if we ever want skyHD then just call him and he'll do it for a lot cheaper.
Also I'm sure SKy only ask for £30 installation, it even says so here

[Divvy]

Why not ring them and say you are thinking of leaving them, and get one for free!

[chipkid]

you definitely need another cable coming in I'm afraid. They will make a dreadful mess putting it in IME!!!

[SlightlyMadScreachingSirens]

You need one wire for each stream one for sky and one for +.

Try phoning a local areials/satelitte engineer. Sky sub-contract to local engineers hal the time anyway.

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

I'd prefer a locla engineer tbh, the last two times I had sky supposedly coming out I was told between 8am and 1pm, no-one here still at 1pm, called got transferred to a cowboy, he said be here in half hour.
2hours later, no cowboy.

Went slightly dolally on phone at sky, rearranged it, again, 8am-1pm, fella not here by 1:30, we went out, got home from school run at 4pm and he turned up!!! Had the cheek to say he called the house phone at 3 and no-one was in

Then all he did was put a wire through a hole that was already in the wall, we were charged £80 by sky, then had to call them out again to get the satellite realigned, thankfully no charge cos of the previous £80, but really anbnoyed me, and all the person at sky could say was 'well, the subcontractors.......'

[Naetha]

We did the whole "going to cancel sky and move to Virgin" thing and got a reduced price sky HD box installed for free.

Also found their customer service excellent tbh