Set up landline (standard) here and when laying the line I popped a staple right through it. I removed the staple and I checked the line and it works fine. I put a wrapping of electrical tape over the little staple hole. Any inherent danger of leaving it this way? I really do not want to replace the whole segment of cable like I would if it was electrical cable and from what I’ve read phone lines are moderate voltage, low current, but I just want to be sure.
Thanks
P.S. In case anyone is wondering, I like to have a landline around for redundancy (also helps me find my cellphone when it burrows into the couch or bed).
If it’s indoors and the cable is fixed in place (won’t experience any flexing), it’s going to be fine.
If it’s outdoors, the tape will probably fail at some point and water will get in, which could degrade performance or stop it working altogether, but the risk of injury from it is very small.
if it’s indoors, but not fixed in place, then flexing of the cable might cause one of the conductors inside the cable to fail, IF your staple actually pierced it.
As Mangetout says, it will likely be fine. But if you’re really concerned about it, you don’t have to replace the whole segment. Just get a small junction box and make a splice. Or you could put a spare jack there, if it’s in a convenient location.
Did you use the official phone company staples that have the little paper shock absorber, or just plain metal ones? Did you use a weak stapler or a high powered one that really drives the staples deep?
If the latter, every staple that squeezes the cable has crimped the internal insulation and corrosion has already begun there. Indoors in a dry climate that may not matter for many years. Outdoors in a damp climate that line will become noisy within a couple years. Which noise will “infect” every wiring run in your house.
This is indoors, underneath my bed in a corner if that helps. I used a rounded staple but I lined it up wrong and shot one end of the staple through the wire, leaving an entry and exit hole, very small, and the phone line still works just fine. Pretty much akin to poking a finishing nail straight through the wire then pulling it out. Is the electrical tape sufficient? What do you mean by noise? Literal or metaphorically (as in interference)? Curiosity has been piqued.
If the internal insulation has been nicked, the wire *will *corrode. Your electrical tape won’t matter at all indoors; it’s not holding out the atmosphere.
By noise I mean the audible sound of static. Crackling, humming, and all the rest. Which will interfere with any human conversations on the line. And which may render DSL slower or even unusable anywhere in the house. Which will only matter if you have DSL.
The key thing is this deterioration process is slow, especially indoors. You might be 100% fine for a decade. Then your phones will slowly get static-y and it’ll be the devil’s own work to find & repair the source. Since you’ll have long since forgotten about that staple.
Which is why Telco standard back in the day was to immediately remove and re-string any cable that got inadvertently stapled during installation. They were all about long term reliability and ease of troubleshooting. Building in a guaranteed eventual failure is dumb. Cable still on the spool cost them $0.01/foot. Cable freshly installed was worth $0.10/foot considering the labor cost to install. Repairing cable later easily cost $25.00/foot considering the troubleshooting effort.
Far smarter to throw away a lot of 1 cent cable now to avoid dealing with any $25 cable later. Or at least that’s what they thought when they owned it all.
Well that is good news believe it or not. I’m not usually so lazy but In that case I will leave it, its not so much a high priority fix, that is of course if there are no safety concerns with it?
Thanks for all the responses, keep 'em coming, i’ll just absorb more for future reference.
Good advice and absolutely correct. The problem is that a staple can easily damage a 22 or 24 AWG conductor, and that’s a bad thing. The insulation hides the damage to the actual conductor. Right now, you know where the (possible) damage is. It’s better to simply replace the wire or use a junction (as previously suggested).
The most common noise sources in POTS are corroded junctions/splices and water shorts. Since this is inside, you are unlikely to get a water short, BUT it does happen. You would be surprised how water follows cables, both on the exterior of the cable and on the interior.
Meh as long as it doesn’t pose an electrocution (the shocks hurt but thats about it risk or fire hazard I am fine with leaving it. One of those things I’ll deal with if the line starts making noise or something I suppose. Settled. Thanks for the responses everyone. I am amazed at the wealth of knowledge on here.
One of the interesting things about shorts in telephone circuits is that they often manifest themselves in a peculiar way. You can use your telephone just fine when you call out, but an incoming call will ring once and then stop. The reason for this is that the ringing voltage is quite a bit higher than the normal (battery or off-hook) voltage. The ringing voltage is often sufficient to overcome the remaining resistance in the cable and this is sensed by the CO equipment as a short or off-hook condition. The caller hears one ring, and then a busy signal. Very frustrating.