Phone wiring

Recently bought house. Phone jacks in almost every room. Ordered new connection from Verizon. Works only in one room. They say previous owners had atleast 3 lines. They had it wired that way. Asking for 95 for first line, and about 50 for each additional line to rewire!!!!

Anybody else encountered this before? Any solution / work around except wiring myself from inside using one- to-many jacks available in stores?

Thanks.

Reply to
thumor
Loading thread data ...

What did Verizon connect to? Did they install a new jack that you are connected to? There may be another connection for the existing wiring so that all the connections work.

If you can find a local phone service, you can probably get it done much cheaper than the phone company. In my case, thee is a guy that is retired from the phone company that does that sort of thing part time.

It is possible hte last owner had a cable connection too and negated the existing wiring tot he outside box.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Read a little and fix it yourself. Here's a start:

formatting link

Reply to
Meat Plow

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:52:06 -0000, thumor wrote Re Phone wiring:

How about one of those 4-handset wireless phones. Plug the base into the desired wall outlet and spread the other three handsets wherever. Like this:

formatting link

Reply to
Caesar Romano

sounds to me like the PO's of the house wired one line to the one room that is currently working, and the rest of the house was wired only to one of the other two lines. If you can find the point of connection you should be able to just move wires around and make everything work on one line. no need to call the phone co. in for an issue that appears to be only inside your house. DAGS for "residential phone wiring" and read a couple how-tos, you can do this.

good luck

nate

Reply to
N8N

All the interior phone lines terminate in the DMARC - the box on the back of the house that the telephone company's wires enter. Your existing wiring terminates in three places (for the three lines) but only one of those terminal-pairs has telephone company wires attached.

Simply remove the wires from the connectors that have no TELCO wires attached and move the wires to the live connectors.

Now:

--A = Telco

--a = Telco

--B =

--b =

--C =

--c =

New

--ABC = Telco

--abc = Telco

Where caps (ABC) represent red wires and lower-case (abc) represent green wires.

Reply to
HeyBub

Were all your phones working on the same number before Verizon?

Reply to
Terry

If the wiring is reasonably modern and orderly, then each of the lines probably went to an interface box in the garage or basement or wherever the wires enter the house from the street. The interface box is just a little plastic thingy stuck to the wall with a phone jack on it. Everything leading up to that phone jack belongs to Verizon. The wire that you plug into it and everything after that belongs to you. If you're lucky, then you'll find several interface boxes right next to each other with separate wires going into each one. All you'll need to do is to get a splitter (one male plug and multiple female jacks) and then plug that splitter into the working interface box and then plug all the wires into it. To determine which is the working interface box, just take a phone out to where the boxes are and try each one.

However, I would still go with the solution of getting a multi-handset cordless phone and plugging the base unit into the working jack.

Reply to
Nick Danger

Why??

Five minutes to rewire the NID, and all the jacks in the house work on a single line. What's the big deal?

Reply to
Doug Miller

Could be at the NID, could be at the wall blocks. In this place, when I moved in, half the wall blocks had Y and B hooked to the center pins. Former owner had 2 lines way back when, and didn't bother to rewire when he dropped down to one. For the sake of the next owner, nicer to keep the color codes consistent, and put all jacks on the correct pairs.

aem sends...

aem sends...

Reply to
aemeijers

Reactivating the "correct" line to a formerly-multi-line premise is a crap shoot under the best of circumstances.

The irony for me as an "insider" is that our systems KNOW which is the primary line and which is secondary (and so on), yet we routinely fire-up the SECONDARY (or other) line when only one line is reactivated.

If your home has a SNID (Standard Network Interface Device) AND you are handy with 24-gauge wire and needle-nosed pliers, the "fix" for this is simple:

Inside the "Customer Access" door of the SNID, verify the working line and move all the wires to THAT position and binding posts.

That goes without saying. :)

We're 99 and 60.

Forget all that crap. If you DON'T have a SNID, tell 'em you want all your stuff to work or they should install a SNID (NO charge) so that you can do the work yourself.

If you DO have a SNID, do the above procedure, relax and enjoy all your jacks.

Reply to
Jim Redelfs

If I had two other people here, I wouldn't want them to be able to listen to my line from their rooms. So of course, each of the three lines went to one room.

All you have to do is go down in the basement and remove two sets of interior wiring from their (dead) connections to the outside, and put them on top of the outside wire that has a dial tone. Then that outside set of wires will go to all 3 rooms and probably every other room. (Either it was line number one, or Verizon happened to pick the line that had only one room connected to it.)

You can use any corded telephone and if it has a modular plug on the end, get a surface mount box, plug it in to that, take the box cover off, and attach wires with alligator clips on each end to the red and blue screws. Use the other ends of the wire to search for the dial tone.

I don't understand this sentence, but see above.

Reply to
mm

this:

formatting link

-- Like this:

formatting link
Do Not Buy This Phone Set!!

Seriously - It's haunted or something. I bought that exact set at BJ's. I put the answering machine in the kitchen, a charger/handset in my bedroom and a charger/handset in each of the teenager's rooms.

Within hours, all 4 handsets ended up in the teenager's rooms. Sometimes all 4 handsets end up in one room. I'll go collect them, put them back in their chargers, and within hours all 4 handsets end up in the teenager's room, sometimes all 4 handsets in one room. It never stops. I swear it happens even when the teenagers aren't home.

It must be the handsets.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Corded phones have a distinct advantage in this regard.

Reply to
Jim Redelfs

(snip)

Chuckle. Teenagers are the best argument AGAINST cordless phones. Give them away, and go back to hard-mounted real phones- one on kitchen wall, with a short cord so they have to keep standing, and one in the master bedroom.

aem sends...

Reply to
aemeijers

this:

formatting link

Put hidden cameras in the teenagers' rooms and post the videos. Some people would like to see those walking handsets.

Reply to
Harry

posted for all of us...

Go to a major electrical supply - not the big box stores - and tell them you want a complete ARC FLASH SETUP. That will do you up fine.

Reply to
Tekkie®

*snort*

OK, in all seriousness. the max you can get from a phone wire is

60-100V and that is only when the phone is ringing. That IS theoretically enough to kill you but most likely will just give you a jolt. It won't arc-weld that little wire to anything metal nearby, or cause dramatic flashes of lightning. So just wear shoes and avoid touching bare copper when at all possible. If you feel that there is a good possibility that someone will call you while you are working and don't want to risk it just unplug the main connection in your NID and then the whole house will be dead so you can work without worry.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Yes. -48VDC

Your BARE fingers and hands.

We virtually NEVER turn off a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line prior to working on it.

Unless you are soaking wet and well grounded, you will never feel dial tone current.

On the other hand, if you are soaking wet and well grounded, and someone RINGS your line while you are handling the pair, you will get zapped with ~100VAC. Such risk is minimal and comes with the job.

Working on 22-24-gauge wire with insulated gloves - or ANY gloves for that matter - is almost impossible. Don't worry about it.

Reply to
Jim Redelfs

Rrrrriiinnngggg!!!!! -48VDC (high impedance) and 75VAC (low impedance)

Interestingly, rats chew on phone wires. Rat saliva is a good conductor. Whenever you call someone, you could be hurting a rat.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.