Adding an Extra Phone Jack

If you happen to have an office, room or area of your home that is dedicated to "work" then you know how it seems that everything under the sun needs it's own phone line in order to get the best possible use out of them. It could be a phone, computer or fax machine to name just a few of the different machines, or it could be something completely else, they all need a phone line to work properly in an office environment. The problem with this is simple, most homes have only one phone jack in any given room, at least initially. Since most homes only have one phone jack per room, there is pretty much only one way that a person can increase the number of phone lines into any given room, and that way is through the addition of more phone jacks.

Adding phone jacks does not have to be a stressful situation for anyone, nor does it require the hiring of an expensive electrician to rewire the house. There are two ways that I would suggest the home electrician goes about to rectify this situation. The first is that you purchase a wireless phone jack system and install it in your home. This method is relatively cheap and easy to use. These units can be purchased at any home improvement (like Home Depot) or electronic (like Circuit City) store starting at $60.00 plus tax.

The second way is going to require a little more effort, and a little more patience. That method would be to do the rewiring yourself. Again, this is quite possibly the most inexpensive of your options, and there is no need to be afraid. All that you need to do is follow these simple steps and you are soon going to have a brand new phone jack ready to be used.

Before beginning, be sure that you collect all the tools and materials that you are going to need to complete the job. In this case you are going to need some telephone wire, wire cutters/strippers, a screwdriver, pocket knife, an awl and finally a new phone jack. I would suggest using what's known as a double mounted phone jack. These typically tend to be box in shape, and rest on the outside of the wall, but they are easier to work with for the beginning electrician. After you have collected all the materials, you are ready to begin.

A final word of warning, you are going to be working with electricity, and that means you are going to be running the risk of getting shocked. Electricity is dangerous, and you should be as careful as possible when working with it. That being said, if you have a pace maker, you really should not work with electricity at all, since it could get damaged.

1. Remove all phone s from the area that you are going to be working on. This means that you want to unplug the phones and get them out of the way. When those have been removed, then you should unscrew the existing phone jack from the wall.
2. After removing the existing jack, pull what is known as the mounting box from the wall. You are going to do this so that you can reach the wires that are on the inside. These wires should be color coded using these colors: yellow, black, green and red. If they are not, then you should stop at this point and call in a professional.
3. Using your awl, punch a hole through the back side of the wall, then you need to strip roughly an inch from the new phone wire and separate the wires that are inside it. After you have separated these wires, take your stripper and remove about ¼ inch of insulation from each. As you are doing this, please note that the wires should be color coded, similar to the above.
4. Take each of these new wires and attach them to the corresponding terminals on the phone jack. This is where the color coding is going to play the biggest part. After you have matched the colors, thread the opposite end of the wire to through the hole in the back of the junction/mounting box.
5. Repeat the steps above by running the wire through the hole that you punched in the wall, and attaching the wires to your new phone jack. Don't worry if you have any extra wire, since you can just simply push that back into the wall. Once you have put everything back together, you are ready to plug in a phone and test your work. Simply call someone, and you should be able to quickly tell if your work was done properly.