How to Replace a Telephone Structured Wiring System

Telephone structured wiring can run hundreds of feet inside of your house, all the length of wire may have you scratching your head, but have no fear, most of it is pretty simple.  Basically, from your telephone provider to you is a length of telephone wires, which everyone gets their service through. This service comes in to your home in the form of a "network interface". This network interface is normally located outside of your home so that the telephone company can easily send someone out to check the box, even if you're not at home. This network interface also doubles in protecting your wiring from outside electrical surges and interference. Normally, at least part of this network interface is locked to prevent anyone from tampering with it.

Most telephone wires in your house come in 4 variants, red, green, black, and yellow. The red and green are used for one line service and the black and yellow are used for the second line. Inside the box you will see these paired up, although only one is normally connected, a home can have up to three lines. As you should know the actual connection from your telephone to the wiring system in your house is made through the telephone jack. There are various methods when troubleshooting and replacing telephone wiring systems.

Testing

By plugging a telephone line testing device into the telephone jack, you can immediately determine whether you have connection or not. This is a crucial first step so that you will know where you will need to start.

Determining Responsibility

While the phone problem may be happening in your home, the problem isn't always yours. You should always call the phone company first! There is an easy way to tell if it's your problem or theirs. Bring your telephone jack tester outside and unplug the short-wired phone plug in the network interface corresponding to your phone line. Your tester will tell you if it's the phone company or not. If you get no signal from the phone jack tester, it's your responsibility, not theirs. If you have multiple phone lines you need to test them all.

Initial Checks

The most common problem is a defective phone. Unplug all the phones and then use your tester in every phone jack and record the results. If you still get no signal, it's not the telephone, it's within the wiring.

The next step is to test your wiring. First disconnect the outside wiring, making sure that none of the wires touch. This  will "open" the circuit and allow you to use a multimeter to test the continuity of your wiring.  A wire that has "continuity" allows electricity to freely flow through it.  If two bare wires are touching, they also have continuity.  If you don't want these wires touching, continuity indicates a defective condition. Find where the defect is and correct it. That is the goal. This can take some time so you'll need to be patient.

Replacing the Wiring

Once you've found the culprit, simply remove the wiring, and run new wires, making sure to color code them with the wires you just removed. The last step is to test the line again. If you now receive a signal, you're in business, and if not, go back and check the connections you made when installing the new wiring. More than likely this is the source of the problem.