# Telephone Wiring in Garage: What can I do with this?



## vdotmatrix (Nov 24, 2015)

I have a regular / Modern NID on the other side of the wall outside from this thing...it is the typical NID : Grey phone company plastic box and the wires come into the house from there....to this thing.

I want to move this or enclose it or modernize it or remove it....The telepnone lines are distributed from here....needs to be rotated to the right.....sorry







any ideas?


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## JoeD (Nov 24, 2015)

Normal POTS telephone use just two wires. Move and connect them any where you would like them.
The block on the right of the picture is just a simple punch down to connect the wires to each other. You can eliminate it as you probably don't have the tool to punch the wires down.
You can twist the wires together with wire nuts, use a terminal block of any type you like or any other method you like to connect the different branch lines.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 25, 2015)

I have all that stuff, punch down tools. I wired the house with cat5 12 years ago and every room  has ethernet. So all the grounding and stuff is probably taken care of on the NID outside....so the 2 wires seem to be YELLOW and BLACK and they go to the 2 main nuts then it branches again to the that wiring block for some reason I suppose when the house had 2 separate lines I would love to get rid of all that. 2 wires split a million differnt ways right there....I also have a line that goes all the way back to the wiring panel that services the main phone and the ADT.....what a mess.....  thank you....what I got from you was that the POTS uses 2 wires...that's a great start for me man thanks you!!!


JoeD said:


> Normal POTS telephone use just two wires. Move and connect them any where you would like them.
> The block on the right of the picture is just a simple punch down to connect the wires to each other. You can eliminate it as you probably don't have the tool to punch the wires down.
> You can twist the wires together with wire nuts, use a terminal block of any type you like or any other method you like to connect the different branch lines.


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## JoeD (Nov 25, 2015)

POTS is Plain Old Telephone System. It is plain old two phone lines as opposed to new fiber.
Your cat punch tool probably won't work on that block.
To clean that up simply run a two wire cable from the NID to any convenient place. Install what ever termination system you like and branch lines to where you need phones jacks. It is normal now to use cat cable for this and use the blue pair for the first line. 
Home runs to each jack are better than daisy chaining from jack to jack.


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## Sparky617 (Nov 25, 2015)

Do you have dialtone on any of the pairs shown in the picture?  Is the NID outside properly grounded? It should have a copper conductor going to the power company ground stake (1st choice) or a metal conduit connected to the power meter or the power meter box.  I see a ground wire on this board.

The blue and white pairs could be for an active phone line, yellow/black are typically used for a second line with red/green being used for the first line.  If the blue/white lines provide dial tone to an extension in the house I'd probably try to relocate them to the NID and remove this block.  It is a bit of a mess and given that you have a modern NID on the outside probably isn't the main connection point in your house.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 25, 2015)

POTS! thank you.
I am shopping for a similar modern block, I will run 2-wire from the NIC on the other side of the wall to a more out of the way place and see if I can find a small "BOX" to unclose it all. The grounding block may not be necessary ( what do you think?) as I can probably PIGTAIL everything together since the ground is coming from outside and the satellite is also grounded here.The cat 5 that you see goes directly to my wiring panel in the laundry room's. I ran home runs from every terminus in the house.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




JoeD said:


> POTS is Plain Old Telephone System. It is plain old two phone lines as opposed to new fiber.
> Your cat punch tool probably won't work on that block.
> To clean that up simply run a two wire cable from the NID to any convenient place. Install what ever termination system you like and branch lines to where you need phones jacks. It is normal now to use cat cable for this and use the blue pair for the first line.
> Home runs to each jack are better than daisy chaining from jack to jack.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 25, 2015)

I ran that CAT5 line from there to the wiring panel in the other picture YEARs ago. It looks like the red and the green are wrapped around the primary line coming in so they did used yellow and black. Everything is going out from this messy block.... thanks I certainly need everyone's insight! 





Sparky617 said:


> Do you have dialtone on any of the pairs shown in the picture?  Is the NID outside properly grounded? It should have a copper conductor going to the power company ground stake (1st choice) or a metal conduit connected to the power meter or the power meter box.  I see a ground wire on this board.
> 
> The blue and white pairs could be for an active phone line, yellow/black are typically used for a second line with red/green being used for the first line.  If the blue/white lines provide dial tone to an extension in the house I'd probably try to relocate them to the NID and remove this block.  It is a bit of a mess and given that you have a modern NID on the outside probably isn't the main connection point in your house.


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## JoeD (Nov 25, 2015)

POTS is simple. All you need is two wires of almost any quality. Once those two wires get into your house, how and where you run them is up to you. Old time systems daisy chained from phone to phone. Modern installs recommend home running each line for easier troubleshooting.
The ground only needs connections at the NID.


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## Sparky617 (Nov 25, 2015)

The ground is required on the telco NID outside of the house.  Not at any intermediate blocks within the house.  That ground is to protect the house if the strand gets electrified by lightening or coming in contact with a power company line.


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## Blue Jay (Nov 25, 2015)

Been a long time since I'v seen one of those old protectors (the black one with most of the wires on it) you said ADT the line will go to it first and then to the rest of the house, a WAG would be the one on the right side of the quick connect block, you still need to go thru the alarm panel first otherwise someone could just take a phone off hook and prevent the alarm from calling out.

  If your punch down tool fits the pins on that block you could move the rest of the wires there. The yellow wires connected to the center of the protector would just be spaired out as they would have been used for grounded ringing on multi party lines or for automatic number id on a 2 party line.

  Hope that clears up the mud a little bit.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 26, 2015)

I shoukdn't have said anything about ADT as I still dom't get it....but one of the first lines out from my wiring panel is ADT or ADT is the primary then it comes back to my wiring panel but that's another discussion...I also have a burst celluar back up for the alarm....You know what, your ADT comment makes perfect sense and that is exactly how it is setup-i guess we ARE talking about this NOW!!!! THANK YOU!!!  Never understood the WHY I just wired it that way....

OKAY...someone else said that my modern punch tools wouldn't fit this thing...AND someone else said that the grounding block is superfluous or even redundant as this function is taken care of outside in the NID- SO that thing can GO, BUT would I just PIGTAIL all these grounds together?


Blue Jay said:


> Been a long time since I'v seen one of those old protectors (the black one with most of the wires on it) you said ADT the line will go to it first and then to the rest of the house, a WAG would be the one on the right side of the quick connect block, you still need to go thru the alarm panel first otherwise someone could just take a phone off hook and prevent the alarm from calling out.
> 
> If your punch down tool fits the pins on that block you could move the rest of the wires there. The yellow wires connected to the center of the protector would just be spaired out as they would have been used for grounded ringing on multi party lines or for automatic number id on a 2 party line.
> 
> Hope that clears up the mud a little bit.


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## Blue Jay (Nov 26, 2015)

The old protector you are calling a grounding block is only being used for a terminal block, the 2 holes at the top are where the screw in carbon arrestors used to be (replaced by protection in the NID). You will want to check where all the ground wires go to, one of them may go to the NID, if so do NOT use a wire nut but use a split bolt instead.

  You could try your punch down tool with a piece of wire on one of the bottom row of pins to see if it would work.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 26, 2015)

The 2 lines that come in from the left-are coming from the NID: one is the ground and one is the phone line with the unused red and green wires wrappered around.

Here is a block I found on AMAZON

I would probably be able to use a "modern" day punch down tool....

SPLIT BOLT...found one .....



Blue Jay said:


> The old protector you are calling a grounding block is only being used for a terminal block, the 2 holes at the top are where the screw in carbon arrestors used to be (replaced by protection in the NID). You will want to check where all the ground wires go to, one of them may go to the NID, if so do NOT use a wire nut but use a split bolt instead.
> 
> You could try your punch down tool with a piece of wire on one of the bottom row of pins to see if it would work.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 27, 2015)

I think I found the solution and I will some how bring my POTS up to date.
I kinda like the simplicity of this page and the LEVITON product.....I have sort sort all this stuff out in the garage where all this is located and from there it goes to ADT and my wiring panel. That wiring panel i just realized carries ethernet AND telephone to the rooms in my house....

1. somehow the convention of red/green for the primary line got switched from the NID....
2. I will convert it to the white-blue/Blue twisted pairs using those gel connectors...then I will run the 2 phone lines.
3. I just noticed that the phone line that is not the CAT5 is configured RED/GREEN WHAT A MESS....
4.  could go into the NID and reconnect the red/green for the yellow black to get on the same page or run cat 5 through the wall

HECK-if I can cram 3 wires in the gel connectors I can just be done with this in stead of soing all that but...it aint done that way


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## Blue Jay (Nov 27, 2015)

They make the connectors for 3 wires  "UR"  but trouble shooting is harder.
BTW this was my bread and butter for 30 years, I've seen a lot of changes in that time and some were not for the better.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 28, 2015)

well The headache I have that I discovered today is when I went out side to just look at the NID there is not a ground wire from the NID ....the 2 wires: one telephone wire and one "supposed" ground pass through the wall to the thing we have been looking at for the last week.....and the 2 wires come from the NID and from the NID are the black telephone lines that go to the pole on the street.

Can the NID be grounded somewhere else? Like on the pole or some where other than near the NID?

I will have to call the telco and tell them about this....so for yearsand years everything has been grounded to a nonexistent ground?



Blue Jay said:


> They make the connectors for 3 wires  "UR"  but trouble shooting is harder.
> BTW this was my bread and butter for 30 years, I've seen a lot of changes in that time and some were not for the better.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 28, 2015)

From what I can deduce, the actual ground wire goes frm that grounding block deeper into the house to the house plumbing. The ground is distributed at the "NUT" where everything else goes out-even back out side to the exterior NID. Is this standard good practice or should it be grounded OUTSIDE before it enters the house in any way?


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## Blue Jay (Nov 28, 2015)

Should be grounded outside and bonded with the power ground, their job is to see that it is grounded properly. At one time this was considered proper but was one of the good changes that came around.

  Call the Telco. and let them know that the ground on the NID is not up to spec and needs to be corrected. This would be no charge to the customer.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 28, 2015)

I am certainly going to do that Monday morning. thank you....

When I opened the NID I see that there were 2 telephone numbers or 2 lines on this house.

the primary in the #1 place where the RED abd GREEN should be going into the house. and the #2 line YELLOW AND BLACK ( which currently go into the house.

So it is the #2 configuration that is hooked up now. I can easily connect the right wires in the NID and the red and green on the inside .... just to follow convention, then on the inside using gel connectors for the CAT5: blue-wht=GREEN and BLUE=RED

I am disconnecting altogether the NON-CAT5 in the picture and have everything go through the wiring panel as it should.

Good?


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 28, 2015)

SO I will have this connection made and the ground(s) connected with a split bolt which I got yesterday....I wouldn't put this in a giant handy box but what could I protect these NEW connections in that have been in the open in the garage for 30 years?


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## Blue Jay (Nov 28, 2015)

Dry location is all that is needed, this is low voltage so no real spec.


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## vdotmatrix (Nov 28, 2015)

Yes, I realize that. I want to protect this from mechanical damage in the garage. I was looking for a small shallow box to protect the wires from getting pulled apart...I guess i could use a plastic blue box and run all that stuff into it mounted to the wall....Nothing is simple.





Blue Jay said:


> Dry location is all that is needed, this is low voltage so no real spec.


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## hornetd (Nov 30, 2015)

vdotmatrix said:


> Yes, I realize that. I want to protect this from mechanical damage in the garage. I was looking for a small shallow box to protect the wires from getting pulled apart...I guess i could use a plastic blue box and run all that stuff into it mounted to the wall....Nothing is simple.


Here is a site with some pretty good information on doing home telephone wiring. 
<http://www.homephonewiring.com/blocks.html>
If you have a Graybar Electric Supply in your area they usually carry a good selection of telephone supplies including punch down blocks mounted in metal boxes.  

-- 
Tom Horne


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## vdotmatrix (Dec 4, 2015)

I trimmed the fat on this POTS nest inbthe garage. I had Verizon come out and the guy was all evasive in his answers said the thing was already grounded; he took an assuming cavalier attitude that the system was grounded; I even think the system must be grounded to the plumbing in the house; I would still feel better if this thing was grounded BEFORE entering the house at the box outside.

Right now as you can see, the line is mated to the CAT5 and off it goes. The ground is not connected the phone line anymore as it was before harry homeowner got involved; I do hope the grounding wire that goes outside is doing the job-but I couldn't get a straight answer from this guy.

He said "I: could install a rod into the ground and then Verizon could come back and "move the ground" at no charge.....

It's not rocket science RIGHT...? I can either just leave well enough alone or continue and install a grounding rod but right now the system that's been here for decades has been altered........in that the phone line doesnt go through the grounded block anymore....I had to move it for the bike racks I made.

Any ideas?


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## vdotmatrix (Dec 4, 2015)

Well project done for now unless we have thunder snow.


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## Blue Jay (Dec 4, 2015)

I would have been fired in a heart beat over a statement like that. Call them back and tell them to bring the grounding up to spec or your next call will be to the Public Utilities Commission. EVERY thing should be bonded together with the power to prevent flash over!


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## vdotmatrix (Dec 9, 2015)

i was just getting around to what the NID looked like and how it was grounded.....so the grounding wire that comes from INSIDE the house goes to the grounding bar in the NID so this thing MUST be grounded to the plumbing in the house....

Don't know what to think of the orange and blue wires in the TELCO side of things in the NID.

any ideas.

thanks


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## Blue Jay (Dec 10, 2015)

That would be a 2nd drop wire for more lines to the house.


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## hornetd (Dec 16, 2015)

vdotmatrix said:


> i was just getting around to what the NID looked like and how it was grounded.....so the grounding wire that comes from INSIDE the house goes to the grounding bar in the NID so this thing MUST be grounded to the plumbing in the house....
> 
> Don't know what to think of the orange and blue wires in the TELCO side of things in the NID.
> 
> ...


How far is it from the Network Interface Device (NID) enclosure in your picture and any Grounding Electrode for the Electrical Service Disconnecting Means? 

Is there a copper washer between each of the Grounding Electrode Conductors (GECs) that are connected to the old protector inside the house?  If not then the connection to a Grounding Electrode inside the house is inadequate.  If the communications Grounding Electrode Conductor (GEC) is connected to metallic plumbing inside the building then that connection must be made within Five feet of were the Metal Underground Water Pipe enters the structure.  Piping that is any further than five feet from were it enters the structure is not acceptable as a Grounding Electrode as it is too subject to future replacement with non-metallic piping.  Best practice is to make the connection on the supply side of the first shut off valve in the piping since their are few people who will tamper with a portion off the piping that they cannot shut off.  

Grounding Electrode Conductors for Protectors which are mounted outside the building should not enter the structure at all.  If the Electrical Service Grounding Electrode Conductor or some part of the Grounding Electrode Array is close enough and outside the building then the GEC should be run to that closest point on the Electrical Grounding System.  If the distance is too great then the GEC should be run to a Grounding Electrode which is installed as close as practicable to the NID *AND* that new electrode should be bonded to the Electrical Service Grounding Electrode System using a number Two or larger copper conductor that is run outside the building.  Were the soil conditions are suitable the bonding conductor between the two Grounding Electrode Systems should be buried in the earth.  As with any other electrical conductor it must be Two Feet below finished grade if not run in conduit.  Best practice is to run it as bare copper buried at least Thirty inches deep so that the bonding conductor itself can serve as additional Grounding Electrode.


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