I'm in the process of pulling new phone cable for my house and tied the old cable to the new cable with electrical tape. Unfortunately the two became separated and now I need to push the new cable through the 1/4" or so hole in the wall and out the house. I know the holes aren't aligned, so I'm hoping there is an easier way to do this that doesn't involve "cut the drywall" The jack that it came from was a surface mount jack, so there is no box in the wall, just a hole in the drywall.
I know that there is fishtape, but for some reason I thought the head on fishtape was larger than the diameter of phone cable. The holes are almost exactly the diameter of the phone cable, if not smaller, whoever did the fishing of the wires did a really good job. The hole is small enough so that looking through it is hopeless - no eyeballing this job.
just use a length of stiff wire instead of a fish tape; a 14AWG single copper conductor will work, or even better would be some smaller yet stiff steel wire (aka "mechanic's wire")
Make your life easy, go buy a low voltage type remodel "box" (low voltage ones are open back), cut the appropriate sized opening in the wall for the "box" and then just reach into the wall cavity to find your wire. A regular wall plate type jack looks better than surface mount anyway. Should cost you all of $5 and make life a lot easier.
Well I appreciate both answers, yours and Nate's. Question 2, at some point I have to push it through into the crawlspace, I'm presuming it will break again, so my question is how can I connect the two cables securely yet not add to their diameter?
In a pinch a straightened wire coat hanger can work pretty well. And it has the benefit of being free.
OP: how far is it that you need to thread this telephone wire? Straight through a normally-constructed wall? Is the construction brick or something else difficult? Normally the original telephone installer would have used an "installer's bit" (what else?) to go through the entire structure and then to pull the wire through. This means that the path really should be quite straight but not necessarily perpendicular to the walls and once you figure out what the original path is, threading the new wire becomes much easier. Normally I'd just put a piece of coat hanger wire perhaps 18" long onto the end of the wire like a needle on a thread (but _firmly attached_ using minimal taping without looping)and poke around a bit to figure out the path and then push it on through.
Strip about 3" of the outer jacket of each cable. Take the wires and bend in a U on each side. Interlock the Us and twist the U tail back around each side. Wrap the joint lightly with electrical tape. The finished joint should be about the same diameter as the overall cable and the joint should be plenty strong.
Stick a hooked wire through from BOTH sides, and then move one of the wires in a circle till they hook up, and pull. Cut up coat hanger will work fine. It'll take a few tries. You can enlarge the interior hole some- just put the surface-mount jack over it.
Yet another of many reasons I HATE through-the-wall installs. Basement and fished through walls to open-back boxes, or even basement and diagnal hole drilled through baseboard right under the surface-mount block, is the correct way to go, IMHO. Of course, on a new house, a proper home-run prewire is the only way to go.
I like the idea of a coat hanger, but I haven't owned a metal coat hanger in years - they simply don't sell them anymore and I don't have anything that needs to be drycleaned.
Well I appreciate all the responses, they help. I have gone ahead and picked up a low voltage box and wall mount kit, to replace the aging surface box. Once I cut a hole in the drywall for the box, I should be able to easily see the hole in the siding.
Another BTW: What gauge is phone wire typically, and do normal wire strippers work on it? Picking up some new cable the package read 22 gauge, but I've seen 24 and 26 too. Seems like none of my strippers work on anything below 18, even though they claim to. I bring this up because I also picked up some fork connectors for the bolts - smallest I could find was 22-18awg which doesn't mean much to me other than its 22 guage wire, with 18 gauge jacketing???
Unless you are planning to use DSL, I would think the existing cable would last for years. Any peculiar reason you would want to change the phone cable?
I get the feeling that you won't have much success in fishing a route that spans more than one stud. (let us know how you did it)
You might consider just abandoning the run and put the phone cable in the crawl space. You can mount phone jacks on the baseboard at floor level and you only need a 3/8 hole in the floor that the jack will cover when you are done.
The last option is to buy a base phone that comes with 2 or 3 cordless extension phones. I have an AT&T phone I love. It came with one extra handset.
I'm afraid I have to agree with that sentiment. He's "gilding a turd" with his attempts to solve a simple problem and keeps asking questions which make him sound like he shouldn't be allowed out of his crib unattended.
The part about not owning any wire coat hangers and sounding like he hasn't got a clue how to get one from a someone else is a good tip off.
My guess is that your real dislike is for a house "wrapped" in wire. Stapling wire along exterior siding is, after all, the ONLY reason for a "thought-the-wall" installation.
I don't believe I have any wire coat hangers. They tend to put nasty creases in shirts. I'm pretty sure I could get my hands on one though, or more likely just grab a 36" length of 70S-2 TIG filler rod from my shop.
If the original work was done as "old work", that is, added AFTER the house was built, I can't imagine any wireman not having a drill bit long enough that the two holes WOULD line up. I RARELY drill-in from both sides, then fish for the wire.
Now that you've lost the pull (old) wire, it might just as well never have been there to begin with. You can try to reuse the original holes or you could much more easily drill another two.
Many old holes drilled for added phone cable were 1/4-inch in diameter. That nicely accommodated the old "quad wire" (R/G/Y/Bk) (D-Station wire, light olive gray). The new stuff, particularly the 4-pair Cat 5e rarely makes it easily through those old holes. I regularly "ream out" the holes with my
1/4-inch x 12-inch bit and see if I can shove through the new piece of four pair. After a couple of failures, I simply get out the 5/16-inch x 12-inch bit and "hog out" the existing holes or drill new ones, caulking-up the old ones.
As for a coat hangar-type pull/lead wire: Go just about ANYWHERE and snatch a utility locating flag. The straighter the wire, the better. I use more NEW locating flags for fishing telephone cable than I do for actual cable locates.
I generally imbed about an inch of fish wire into the end of the cable to be inserted into the hole. The stiff wire easily/eventually finds the other hole and, with careful straightening of the cable as you ROTATE and push the cable gently, it usually will follow the locating flag wire/leader through the opposite hole.
You have either the two ends flimsily connected *OR* are pulling too hard. Obviously, you don't want them to separate.
One pair of either cable should be sufficient for even a long pull - with no significant obstructions or angles to traverse. While in the comfort of your favorite chair, with your favorite beverage nearby, PRACTICE making a loop of the end of one pair then create a loop on the OTHER end of the other cable, threading its loop THROUGH that of the first cable. Try to pull them apart. Make them so they don't.
Once you have a connection scheme figured out, practice vinyl taping across the joint so that pulling in EITHER direction will NOT cause a snag against ANYTHING.
This is an acquired skill that is probably not promptly mastered. It is certainly NOT easy to describe in this medium.
24, usually. 26 is ridiculously too small.
Old "JK" wire is 20-gauge
That depends on the stripper. (Duh = 7.6)
Investing in a good, appropriately sized wire stripper is money well spent. I suspect they are not very expensive.
Most buried service wire (BSW/drop) is 22-gauge. Although it wouldn't hurt a bit, 22 would be overkill, more expensive and possibly not as data capable (rated on jacket). 24 is fine inside the premise. Good luck.
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