Telephone socket replacement woes!

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Hi there

I recently had some new carpet fitted and during the work the fitter accidentally severed the internal phone wiring. It's a Virgin Media 'fibre' phone line so I was able to reconnect a phone directly to the router but obviously the extensions no longer worked.

I got some new cable to replace the damaged wiring but I could not get a dial tone. I triple checked everything to ensure there was a good connection and that the wires were connected to the correct terminals. I tried wiring each socket separately to the router. Nope. Still no dial tone. This led me to the conclusion that the severing of the wire had produced a spark that had damaged both phone sockets.

Next I bought two new phone sockets, a like-for-like new NTE5a master socket to replace the original one and a smaller PABX socket for the extension. Now I get a dial tone from the new PABX socket (I tested it by connecting directly to the router) but I cannot get a dial tone from the new NTE5a socket even after multiple attempts.

Any thoughts?

 

[Wayners]

Did you not pull the face off the original master socket to test for dial tone? Plug phone in behind faceplate.
If no working phone then the cable to house is damaged.

Another question.
With virgin WiFi hub you now plug phone into that.
I know you can link that to internal phone lines but I've not worked out how yet, although I've seen YouTube videos on it.

We had a phone line fault but virgin would not come out. It's all being turned off. You have to use internet WiFi hub now so go stick landline phone in that..

Maybe you have different setup?

 

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Thanks for replying Wayners. Yes, I did remove the face plate for testing.

When the phone line was switched over to digital I persuaded Virgin to send an engineer to connect up the digital line to the old wiring, which basically involved splicing the wires together (see attached photo). That wire is now redundant thanks to the carpet.

I'll probably just buy a second PABX socket. At least I know it works.

 

[securespark]

You need to get the carpet fitter back. He needs to man up to what he's done and pay to have it rectified.

 

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He actually broke some skirting as well but who's counting. He was very apologetic, which makes it so much better.

 

[securespark]

But it doesn't fix things.

 

[opps]

He actually broke some skirting as well but who's counting. He was very apologetic, which makes it so much better.

To be fair, if you have skirting with a reversible profile, or one that is nailed to bits of timber, which are in turn nailed to the the brickwork, that is not really the fault of the carpet fitter.

When painting a room prior to the carpet fitter turning up, I use my foot to ascertain how much bounce there is in the existing skirting. If the internal joints move, I drill holes and squirt in expanding foam to lock the skirting in place. Thus far, it has worked very well.

I have no experience of working with fibre but I don't see why you cannot connect to the gel filled crimps. The voltage used on extensions is so low that you are unlikely to damage a socket by accidentally cutting through an existing cable.

 

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I don't really blame the guy. It was just unfortunate.

A old double door between two rooms was replaced years ago but it left an uncarpeted gap which was filled with a plank of wood. The phone wire ran along the edge of the plank. I wrongly assumed the plank was loose. In fact it was hammered down with a dozen screws or more. The fitter really struggled to prise it off and when he finally did there was a loud crack, the phone wire snapped and a bit of skirting went flying.

If I had realised the plank was nailed down I would have tried to remove it myself ahead of the fitter coming. For that reason I feel partly responsible.

I have now got the downstairs socket working again using the new PABX socket I ordered and I have ordered another one to replace the broken one upstairs.