Phone Wiring Problems
During my reno I wired up every room for 2 lines of phone service (altho I have only one active line). Last snowstorm I started losing dialtone room by room. I now have tone only in the top back two rooms of the house. I suspect this is water-related. But I’m not sure who to…
During my reno I wired up every room for 2 lines of phone service (altho I have only one active line).
Last snowstorm I started losing dialtone room by room. I now have tone only in the top back two rooms of the house.
I suspect this is water-related. But I’m not sure who to call. I had an electrician on the block look at it, but he doesn’t have the right test equipment. He suggested I call Verizon.
I’m worried about that as they may say since I have tone in some of the house it’s not they’re problem. I don’t mind paying Verizon to fix whatever the problem is, but I hate to pay them for a call and still end up with nothing fixed.
Should I call Verizon or someone else?
I had a mix of telephone company-installed phones and user-installed (me) phones in my house. Before we started a major renovation, I called Verizon and added INSIDE insurance to my phone plan (about $5.00/month). This meant that if anything did not work after the renovation was finished, Verizon would fix it free. Fortunately, everything was working post-renovation, and I did not need to call them. Then, I canceled the insurance.
OK, Alex came over and very quickly and professionally diagnosed the problem, altho the repair took a while, because this was shall we say an ‘interesting’ wiring job. Hopefully he will stop back and give all the right technical lingo.
I was right, it was weather-related.
I have a big Verizon box on my rear wall that serves a few houses, but it seems that most of the houses no longer have Verizon service. So there were a bunch of ‘punch blocks’ (?) available in the box. Therefore, what my electrician did during the reno was to distribute the dialtone to each punch block, and then run a phone wire from each punch block into the house. A very non-standard way of doing things according to Alex.
Unfortunately the same electrician did not use the waterproof gel connectors that he should have. So, during the snow, some water found its way into the box and into the non-waterproof connectors, shorting out some of the connections. That’s why some jacks worked and others didn’t.
Alex clipped off the bad connectors, installed the appropriate new connectors, and everything is working fine.
He knows a lot about a lot, see his other posts and definitely give him a call if you need something.
since you have dialtone in your house it can’t be verizon’s line. they will check that the line into your house is working any work beyond that will be some ridiculous hourly rate (over $100 per hour). the fact that there is a second pair wired is irrelevant (if the jacks were previously working) as are is fact that they are the back rooms, because we have no idea how the wiring was run.
don’t know why this would be water related since they all use the same pair, unless they are all run parallel and not in series. still, water being a cause would certainly not be on my top list of guesses unless there was a specific reason. i would first make sure its not the phones themselves (from a voltage spike).
should not be had to diagnose. could be a jack or a connection along the way. it would help to have a phone that you can splice into the wires and a testing meter and tone generator, but surely it can be one without. disconnect all your other phones and use one that works, sometimes the electronics inside a cheap phone can be an issue (i doubt it in this case but you never know).
if you ran the wires then the diagnosis would be all the much easier. maybe its a bad punchdown inside the jacks. maybe its the jacks themselves. maybe its the cord you are using to plug them in. maybe it was a weak connection and the voltage coming into your house isn’t quite what it was before. these are the reasons the repair guys have the 3 main tools i mentioned.
btw, telephone guys use a toner and tracer to troubleshoot. Something like this-
http://www.amazon.com/Precision-262-Probe-Cable-Tracer/dp/B0002XMYCW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1268838172&sr=1-4
Maybe alex has these in his bag o tricks.
^^^
true – oldstyle landline telephones and wiring are quaint. You can port your landline # to wireless, if you want.
If you call verizon they’ll tell you they’re responsible up to the demarc, and if it’s the inside wiring it’s not their problem and they can charge. If you don’t get it sorted out by Alex or someone, you can probably call verizon and have them check. I think there’s a decent chance that even if it’s your internal wiring they won’t hit you with the service charge. They’re probably happy if they can keep you as a customer, rather than losing you to cable phone service or (non-verizon) wireless provider.
If all the rooms have home runs to a common place (in the basement or at the demarc) then you should be able to troubleshoot by doing a continuity test between the demarc and the jacks that aren’t working.
Telephone wiring is very quaint. 🙂
Alex & Denton,
I’m interested in hearing what the issue was too. I install cabling professionally but I can’t think of a single reason that dial tone would be lost from room to room. Interested in what was the issue.
denton – Please post what he finds (or anyother info.) A neighbor of mine has a similar problem & Verizon hasn’t been able to trace what’s wrong.
Alex, yes, jack to jack, CAT5, there are no splices that I am aware of.
I’m in the South Slope, denton at speakeasy dot net, love to have you over.