Why would you need to do any phone jack wiring? I can remember a few years ago calling a new phone order in to the phone company. The customer service person, explained to me the various charges. Then she outlined the extra charges for anything that would need to be done inside the home beyond the junction box. All I can remember was the $45 for the first fifteen minutes and $25 for each fifteen minute period after that.

I had already pre-wired the house, but that certainly scared me. I went back and checked all the wiring to make sure I did not need anything done inside the house. How hard could it be to warrant $120 per hour, and that was several years ago.

Phone jack wiring is not that difficult. The only complexity is that we now have more options. Wireless phones, internet phones and of course the old stand by, wired phone jacks. Check out the information below to see if you are up to this type of repair. Look at the evaluation section first to determine if it is worth it.

Fixing Phone Jack Wiring - Information

Did you call the phone company? You could save a lot. Assuming you called someone that had rates that would be somewhere on this planet, you could be looking at $50 to $75 for someone to come out. Could be more, fishing new wires for phones into an existing home can be time consuming.

Phone jack wiring is not that hard. The difficulty comes with getting the wires to where you want them. We are excluding installing new phone wires in your home, for this article.

Loose wires are the obvious simple solution. Check the connections. Does something change when you jiggle the wire? Yes, it could be that simple. Connections are very sensitive. Make sure you are getting a good connection at all critical locations before you mess with anything else.

Well, being without a phone is a definite problem. This is low voltage wiring so there is not a lot of danger.

Types of Phone Wiring

The older your home the better chance you have of finding different types of phone wiring. For home built in the last ten years the wiring is supposed to meet Cat 3 Standards. Cat 5 wire now being the preferred wire. The advantage to this type of wire is that it eliminates 'cross talking' (hearing another conversation over your line) and interference from radio frequencies.

Homes that are older than that might have the 'quad' wiring that was used for several decades. This wire had four conductors, not twisted as the new standard requires, they were red, green, yellow and black. Phone jacks and other phone devices that you purchased would be color coded to match this wire. The red and green wires would be the primary line and a second line could be hooked to the yellow and black wires.

In theory this would work fine. The problem is that they are not twisted pairs and are susceptible to the 'cross talking' and interference previously mentioned. This type of wire may be fine for a single line or could even accommodate a fax line. You may get the fax noise bleeding into the voice line if you use it this way.

If you are planning on a home office or multiple hard wired lines for whatever reason, you will want to upgrade the wiring. Cat 5 Wire comes with four twisted pairs. The colors are Blue/White with Blue stripe (Primary Line); Orange/White with Orange stripe (Second Line); Green/White with Green stripe (Third Line); Brown/White with Brown stripe (Fourth Line). That is how the colors are supposed to be used. That does not always mean that they were used that way in your home.

Twisted pair wires should not be mixed with each other. Back to that whole 'cross talk' thing. Instead always use the pairs together as they come in the cable. One pair, one line, simple, right?

You may run into other types of wire in older homes. When possible you may want to replace older or non standard types of wire. The newer wire is designed for communications and does a much better job.

Types of Telephone Service

There are different types of telephone service that you may encounter in your home. The type of service affects the wiring that you will have.

Analog - Standard land lines or analog lines are the kind we had for decades. The phone company brings one or more lines into your home via a terminal block. This block is usually located on the outside of your home.

Your internal phone wires are hooked to it and the phones work. This type of wiring has its own power in it. That is how you are able to hear the dial tone. Most new phones with features require more power and have 120 volt adapters attached to them.

DSL - Stands for Digital Subscriber Line. Without getting into tech talk this technology gives you high speed internet over a standard analog phone line. How fast and in which direction it is provided will be determined by the service your phone company provides. In practice, you often get a voice line and a DSL line in one package.

DSL lines are hard wired into your home and use wired jacks similar to the hook up the phones. There is usually a splitter that allows you to separate the phone line from the digital service for the computer.

Wireless - You are still able to have wireless phones in your home if you purchase a set up that uses a base unit. The base unit is hooked to the hard wired phone line and transmits to the other wireless phones. This allows you to put phones anywhere in the home. You can purchase a pretty decent system with three or four phones for less than a hundred dollars.

VoIP - Stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. This allows you to have a telephone that works via a high speed internet connection, usually a cable modem. The advantage to these systems is a lower cost. An adapter is hooked up the modem and usually provides a phone jack. You will need to disconnect the phone company's wiring from any line that is being hooked to the hard wiring in your home. You can burn up the adapter if you do not.

The intricacies of mixing a VoIP system with various other types of phones in your home is beyond the scope of this article. You may get a self explanatory kit from your provider that tells you exactly how to hook it up. Follow the instructions carefully, call the tech line if needed. Take a look at this webpage for some additional information, How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home. This website provides a pretty in depth discussion on what to do for this type of system.

Cell Phones - Many people have scrapped the idea of having a home phone number altogether. They just use their cell phones for all of their calling needs. Nothing wrong with this, just remember to plug it in. You don't need any phone jack wiring at all for a cell phone connection.

The older your home the better chance you have of finding different types of phone wiring. For home built in the last ten years the wiring is supposed to meet Cat 3 Standards. Cat 5 wire now being the preferred wire. The advantage to this type of wire is that it eliminates 'cross talking' (hearing another conversation over your line) and interference from radio frequencies.

Homes that are older than that might have the 'quad' wiring that was used for several decades. This wire had four conductors, not twisted as the new standard requires, they were red, green, yellow and black. Phone jacks and other phone devices that you purchased would be color coded to match this wire. The red and green wires would be the primary line and a second line could be hooked to the yellow and black wires.

In theory this would work fine. The problem is that they are not twisted pairs and are susceptible to the 'cross talking' and interference previously mentioned. This type of wire may be fine for a single line or could even accommodate a fax line. You may get the fax noise bleeding into the voice line if you use it this way.

If you are planning on a home office or multiple hard wired lines for whatever reason, you will want to upgrade the wiring. Cat 5 Wire comes with four twisted pairs. The colors are Blue/White with Blue stripe (Primary Line); Orange/White with Orange stripe (Second Line); Green/White with Green stripe (Third Line); Brown/White with Brown stripe (Fourth Line). That is how the colors are supposed to be used. That does not always mean that they were used that way in your home.

Twisted pair wires should not be mixed with each other. Back to that whole 'cross talk' thing. Instead always use the pairs together as they come in the cable. One pair, one line, simple, right?

You may run into other types of wire in older homes. When possible you may want to replace older or non standard types of wire. The newer wire is designed for communications and does a much better job.

Wiring a Telephone Jack

The whole concept of phone jack wiring is pretty simple if you stay with the pairs. How many lines do you have coming into your home? For each line you should have a pair of wires that is coming out of your terminal box or Network Interface Device (NID) in phone company speak.

Often the phone company will mark the lines with the number that is associated to them. This would normally be true where you have multiple lines. With only one line it should be a no brainer.

The first thing you want to do is determine which pairs are associated with which lines in your home. The phone company will likely use the normal hook ups. Using red/green; or blue/white for the primary line. Write down which pairs go to which lines.

Most over the counter phone jacks and devices will still use the red/green colors for the primary line. So if you are hooking up a fax line to a jack you will attach the orange/white pair to the red/green terminals on the jack. Is the jack for the regular phone line? You would hook the red/green or blue/white wires to the red/green terminals. Simple? So is rocket science to an MIT graduate.

Just keep the pairs together, don't mix them up. If you get them backwards you can usually tell. Try the primary line, does the fax machine screech in your ear? Does your daughter answer on her line? You have something reversed. Switch the wires and try again. Test all the lines before you get everything put back together.

Are all the phone jacks working now? Good, this phone jack wiring project is history.

Troubleshooting Phone Jack Problems

Troubleshooting phone jacks will often involve loose or broken wires. Assuming your phone service is working at other jacks in the home you would want to check the connections. You saw how thin that wire is, yes it can break.

Take the cover plate off and check the wires. Are they loose? Do they appear to be broken? Try redoing the connections, possibly cutting a little off of the wire and stripping them again. A break is likely to occur right at the connection lug. Hook them back up and see if the phone jack works.

Phone jack wiring will usually be connected together on the back of each jack. Check other nearby jacks to see if there are any loose or broken wires that could be feeding the problem jack. Unless you have been doing some remodeling, it is unlikely that the wire in the wall had gotten damaged. Not impossible, just unlikely.

Are all your jacks working now? Great, you have successfully dealt with some phone jack wiring issues. How to you feel? I thought so, proud.

Summary

As technology continues to advance there will no doubt be more and more ways that phones can be hooked up. Today there are still a lot of phones that are hooked to hard wires. It is low voltage wire and can break.

Remember that each phone line needs a pair of wires to work. Keep the pairs together. Locate the right pair for the phone jack you are working on, two minutes with a screwdriver and presto, a working phone line. Phone jack wiring can be that simple.

Troubleshooting electrical circuits can be helpful when you are getting overloads on one circuit. It may be that you have to move a high wattage item like a 'space heater' or 'kitchen appliance to another circuit. This can eliminate the breakers tripping when multiple items are turned on at the same time.

For some related topics, see the articles 'Troubleshooting Electrical Wiring', 'Fixing Electrical Outlets', 'Installing Light Switches', 'Reparing Three Way Switches' and 'Basic House Wiring'. Follow these links for more information.

Tracing the wiring for a circuit can be challenging for an amateur. The wires run through walls and ceilings and don't always follow a logical path. Most of the time tracing the wiring is not necessary. Knowing which circuit supplies an outlet or light fixture is all that is needed most of the time.

Do you have a desire to know exactly what each breaker does in your basic house wiring. It may be a little confusing when you try to determine which outlets and lights are on which circuits. The labeling in the panel will give you an idea, but usually lacks specific information. A simple way to check is to shut a breaker off. Go around with voltage tester and see what is off.

Most of the time you can find the right breaker by trial and error. Does that bother you? You can take the time and check all your electrical devices by shutting off the circuits one at a time. Write down which items belong to which circuits.

Checking for Overloads

Too Much Load

Each circuit is designed for a certain load, or amount of electricity it will use. It is possible to exceed that load by using extra plug in devices. You can buy a plug strip for less than ten dollars. Now a normal duplex has six places to plug things in. Want to 'double down', yes you could even plug another plug strip into it. You get the picture, when you start exceeding the limits of the circuit breaker it will trip.

I use an electric heater in my office downstairs. My wife irons in the next room. Guess what? Too much load, the breaker trips as soon as the heater tries to start when the iron is on. Two high wattage items, recipe for an overload. Installing a new circuit breaker is not needed when you are overloading the circuit.

Do you experience the same thing? Does the breaker trip when a certain device is used? You probably have too much load on that circuit. Try moving things around and see if it solves the problem. Overloads are not the fault of the circuit breaker. Remove the overload and the problem is solved. No need to install a new circuit breaker.

Electrical Shorts

Shorts would be another culprit. Dead shorts are not that common, but they do happen. Old or frayed wiring can get crossed at the wrong spot. When you have a short the breaker will not stay on. As soon as you turn it on it will trip. No funny combination of devices, just 'Click' as soon as you turn it on. Again, for this problem, installing a new circuit breaker is not the answer.

Check all the wiring for the things you have plugged in. Do you see any obvious problems? Fix or remove any device with bad wires. Don't see anything obvious? Use the process of elimination. Remove one item and see if the breaker holds. No? Try another item. When you find the culprit you need to fix it or get rid of it.

Installing electrical fixtures in your home is not too difficult. Reading and following the directions is important. Each manufacturer has its own set of guidelines for how they want things hooked up.

Generally for basic house wiring you will find that the devices are fairly consistent. Check the wiring diagrams when hooking up new fixtures. Brass lugs are always hot. Silver lugs are for the white wire (Neutral). Green lugs are for the ground.

Most of the time you will be replacing an old fixture with a new one. When you are doing this, you want to pay particular attention to how the old fixture or device was hooked up. Tag the wires or take a picture of the installation before you remove the old item. Most of the time it will not be necessary to disturb the joints inside the box. The wires you need should already be at the top.

The article 'Install an Electrical Outlet' covers the installation of plugs.

See 'Wiring a Light Switch' for information on working with switches.

'Wiring a Three Way Switch' covers the special requirements for lights that have multiple switches controlling them.

Adding a dimmer feature to an existing switch is a common desire. See the article 'Wiring a Dimmer Switch'.

For installing light fixtures, see the article 'Wiring Lights'.

The foregoing articles cover most of the situations that you are going to face. Review the articles to find out what you need to know.

This article provides some basics on how residential wiring is used and connected together. See the information below for tips and tricks on how to install and modify the wires in your home.

Not sure if this is your problem? See the aticle 'Troubleshooting Wiring Problems' and 'Do It Yourself Electrical Repairs' for listings of all the electrical topics.

Most of the information in this article has to do with what you find inside of a box when you remove a device. What are all the wires for? Which ones are hot? Will something stop working if I unhook something? All good questions, the subjects below will address these concerns.

Wiring Basics

For most homes in the United States, the  power is 110/220 volts. You will sometimes see other designations, like 120/240 or 115/230 volts, why is that? Electrical devices are designed to work with a range of power. The reason is that you have both a design voltage and a maximum voltage. Design voltage for most devices is 115/230 volt. Devices can work with plus or minus 10% of those figures. So a typical outlet may have as little as 104 volts going to it and everything will still work fine.

The higher number is the combined total of the two hot legs of power that feed your panel. When have one hot wire, it is hooked to one side of the panel and provides 115 volts +/- of power. When you have two hot wires, the voltage is doubled, 230 volts +/-.

When you work on a box that has cables coming into it. The number of hot wires in the cable, should tell you what type of power you are dealing with. One black wire would normally be 115 volt, a black and a red (usually red, or another color) would mean 230 volt.

Residential wiring will usually only have three colors of wire, plus a bare ground wire. Unfortunately, the use of these wires is not always self explanatory. As an example, a electric hot water tank can be wired with 10-2 w/Ground wire. The white wire will be one of the hot legs for the 240 volt hot water tank (Note: Most codes do not allow for this method any longer.

Working With Electrical Items

Making Joints

Wiring Diagrams

Stripping Wire

Using Wire Nuts

Braiding Ground Wires

Testing Wires

The white can also be a traveler (meaning it is hot sometimes) in a three or four way light switch. Inside the panel the white wire will usually be hooked into the neutral bar. The exception would be when it is uses as a hot lead. Then it would be hooked to a lug on a double pole breaker. Most electricians will put black tape or a black mark on a white wire that is used as a hot lead. Not always, use your voltage tester to verify what is hot.

Usually, black and red wires are hot. The exception to this would be in light switches, where they may or may not be hot depending on the position of the switch. For three and four way switches the white, red or black could be hot depending on the switch positions and the configuration of the wiring.

Confusing? It can be. In the panel the black and red wires are usually hooked to lugs on the breakers. You see some weird things out there, that is why I use the word 'usually' so much. In other words, some people engage in basic house wiring modifications without checking things out first.

The ground wire should never have a load on it. Sometimes it can act as a neutral, such as the hot water tank wiring mentioned above. In the panel the ground wire would either be hooked to the ground bar or the neutral, if it is acting as the neutral.