How can to rewire a phone jack?

Question

I need to have my phone jacks rewire. I just moved into my house that seems to have had two different line, but I only have one.

Answer 1

No need to re-wire. Just connect your phone to the line that provides a dial tone. The second line will be dead.

Answer 2

I had the same thing in my house. Half the jacks didn't work because they were wired for the second line. Here's what I figured out. Your house might be completely different, so this might be useless advice, but it might be worth checking into before paying someone to do a simple job.

You will want the yellow and black lines of your telephone jacks all connected to the incoming phone line. Go to the place where the phone line comes into your house, which is probably near the fuse box. You will find a black phenolic plastic block with four posts on it, or since you had two lines, you should find two. Half of the jack wires are connected to one block, and the other half are connected to the other block. All you have to do is move all the wires to the working block. The trick is to figure out which block is the working one... trial and error will do it, or if you have a spare jack, wire it up, and connect it to try it out.

One word of caution: do it quickly or wear insulated gloves, because if the phone rings while you're doing this, it can give you a bit of a jolt-- it won't kill you or send you to the hospital, but it's a bit nasty sensation.

Answer 3

Go to one of the jacks that is working. See what wires are tied down. If the jack has a red and a green wire, that is used for line one. Look at what wires from the wall go to those two wires. Some time house wire has red/green and some times it will use white/blue. If the jack does not have a red/green, then it may be using white/blue as well. But in short. Goto the jack that works, look at how it's wired and then wire the rest the same way. The voltage on a phone line is low, but ring voltage can hurt so be careful.

Answer 4

The talk path on a land line is usually over the red & green pair. If you find this doesn't work try the yellow & black pair. No need to rewire, you have more than enough wires.

Answer 5

If you mean that Line1 is wired to Line2 and vice-versa, the best thing to do is call the phone company, and the phone guy will come out and switch the lines in the junction box.

In the mean time, open one of the wall jacks and try swapping red for yellow, and green for black, and see what happens. If you don't have all 4 of these colors, then wait for the phone company to fix it.

Answer 6

Check:
http://www.fix-your-phone-line.com

Answer 7

No, you do not have to turn off your electricity, unless you have one of those combo phone/power recepticals. If you are worried, you can unplug your phone line at the NID; the grey box on the side of your house.