Phone line repair! What am I doing wrong?

Question

I was trying to re-route my phone line and the only way to do it was to cut it. When I tried to put the lines back together, the line no longer worked. I twisted the phone lines together and then used a marette to hold it together but it doesn't seem to be working. The line I cut is the main line coming from the box of the phone company. I thought it would be as easy as maretting them to join them again but I'm not getting anywhere with that. Any suggestions???

Answer 1

call the phone company.if you cut the cable without seperating the 2 pairs,you shorted your ring and tip.reconnect the wires,and contact your phone company about loss of service.easy fix  

Answer 2

the phone company should do the repair. they are resposible  for the wire to the house.. say a tree branch fell and broke the wire, not you cutting it.

Answer 3

if it were me i would go to Lowe's or home depot as they have insulation displacement connectors that you do not have to strip the wire for.  you just stick the wire in as far as it goes with the matching wire to your phone and push the red tab down to make a connection.  Wire nut and compression fittings are good for 12 volt and 120 volt systems but the insulation displacement system works much better.

Answer 4

If you cut the line have you stripped back the outer coating to see the little color coded wires? These have a plastic coating that insulates the copper from touching one another. Strip a matching wire about 3/4 of an inch and twist them together and then use electricians tape to insulate them. Do them one at a time and you will have success. I do not know what marette is. Good luck. The phone company charges alot for this so have some patience.

Answer 5

The marette (or wire nut) will work just fine.  The trick is to splice each wire back together, keeping the colors matched up.  You do have to strip them back though so you are twisting the bare wires back together.  If they are shorted now, just rewire them correctly.  The line should come back.  No reason to call the phone company nor to lie to them.

Answer 6

It really sounds like in the process of your rerouting you pulled a wire and loosened up a different connection somewhere, like at the box.  Or maybe caused a break somewhere else, those wires aren't all that strong.

You can put a meter or tester across the wires where you spliced it, see if you have any voltage up to that point, that'll help you troubleshoot.

You're really only worried about the red/green wires; just a note of precaution, although phone voltages aren't particularly dangerous, expect about 50 V, and if a call comes thru, the ringer current can tingle you a little if you are well-connected.