Does anyone know how to hook up a phone jack? We only have one phone jack in the house and its upstairs by the kitchen. We need to a put one downstairs…does anyone know how to do this? Thanks in return.
If you’re unfamilar with wiring, or woul dlike to avoid running wires on the outside of walls and across the floor, you might consider a wireless phone jack. Otherwise you’ll need to run a wire either from the outside Network Interface box (grey box on the side of the house) or from the existing phone jack. Just match the colors. There are four wires in standard resisdential wiring, red, green, black and yellow. You onlky need to connect the red and green ones. The black and yellow ones are for a second line. The terminals in the jack you buy will have color codes to match. It’s fairly straightforward. To staple the wires along the baseboard, use telephone wire staples only. these are desogned not to crush the wire and split the insulation.
Call the phone company. Unless you already have a dummy outlet downstairs, splitting the line yourself is going to be more trouble than its worth to do yourself.
Not really. As long as you’re reasonably handy with basic tools, and have a bit of patience, it’s fairly easy.
Oh, but if you do decide to hardwire, remember to take the existing phone off the hook, so it can’t ring. Ringer voltage is about 90 VAC and could give you a nasty knock. Even the on-hook ~50 VDC can be a bit uncomfortable if you have damp hands. Off-hook voltage is only about 10 VDC.