Built-in Speakers

I moved into a town-home that has built-in speakers in each room. The wires come out of the wall only in one room and that allows to make living room speakers work. I do not see any wall switches or anything like that. Any recommendations/tips on how built-in speakers usually work and what do I need to check on to "activate" all the speakers? Thanks!

 

Are you saying that all of the speakers from all of the rooms come to one room? What is this about the "living room"? Are the speaker wires labelled? Are there any volume controls in any of the rooms?

If they all come to one location:
1- Label all of them well with something that won't tear or rub off easily; EXAMPLE: LR, Right LR, Left KIT., Right KIT.,Left
2- Buy a speaker switch that can handle all of these rooms; if there are several pairs of speakers and you do not have impedance-matching volume controls in every room, make sure that the speaker switch has a "protection" button or device that will make your receiver (or whatever you're using) "see" only 1 or 2 pairs of speakers. Otherwise, you will surely overdrive your amplifier and it will die very prematurely.

If you're wires are not labelled, here's how to find out what goes where. Strip the ends of each wire, get a battery (1.5 Volt D,C, or AA cell type), get a helper. Using the + and - from one speaker wire. Touch one wire to one end of the battery and hold it there. Tap the other wire to the other end of the battery and keep tapping. This makes a slight popping sound at the speaker that this wire is hooked to. Meanwhile, have your helper run around and find that speaker. Or, just have the helper stand under one speaker as you work your way through the pile of wires.