So, you’re thinking about splicing your phone wiring? Consider using Ideal Industries telephone splice connectors. My first general suggestion, is avoid splicing if it’s practical to do so. A splice is basically an opportunity to introduce connectivity problems into your line. Depending on where the splice is, it can also make troubleshooting your phone lines tricky. So the ideal scenario is to run new phone wire to avoid the splice. With that said, sometimes splicing is the only feasible way to go. Before you grab your electrical tape to twist the wires into a marginal and trouble-prone splice, consider the “proper” way to splice. . . .the way the pros do it: with gel filled telephone splice connectors. I recently tried out several from Ideal, and they worked great! The ones I used feature “insulation displacement technology”. Translation: you don’t need to strip the phone wires, the splicer does it for you. Simply insert the wires you’re splicing into each little receiving tube. Make sure all the wires are all the way in, and hold them steady as you crimp the splice (any small wrench or lineman’s pliers work fine). The result is a perfect spice in a corrosion-deterring gel. It’s so proper, it makes me want to offer Grey Poupon mustard to everyone who pulls up next to me at a stop light. I bought three different packs from Ideal: 1) The 85-950, for splicing two wires together. This is probably the most common usage. 2) The 85-925, these are 3 wires splicers for adding a line. 3) The 85-960, this is a combo pack containing versions 1 and 2, as well as five blue tap connectors for tapping into an intact line. Each little box of about 25 connectors runs about $4-$6 from your local Home Depot or Lowes.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
I need to make my phone line longer and spliced the one wire aith red, green, yellow, and black but my other line jus has 2 black wires where do I hook em to the red n green??????????????
I had a two line phone in my home. This phone does not work any more and I want to replace it with a one line phone that uses the first line we had in the home. I can see where our technician spliced the lines and the line leading to the phone. Orange and Blue wires are spliced into the red/green/black/yellow line. How should I proceed?
HI I have an existing phone line that runs from the phone out to the computer for internet. I want to put internet in another room and was wondering if i can just put a T-piece or something in and run aanother line from that to the new room. All in all i want to end up with 2 rooms with a phone line wall jack.
thanks.
Are we talking dial-up or dsl/cable/high speed? If it’s just dial up, you can split the phone line several time (connecting the same color wires to each leg of phone line). In fact the splice connectors mentioned in this article are ideal for it. If you’re running high speed internet, splicing the wires is probably not recommended (you may want to ask your ISP what they suggest for multiplying the number of connections, but many people use an “ethernet switch”).
Excellent write up that was chock full on information that I was looking for…. I do have one question though, hopefully someone will be able to answer me:
A couple years back I had FiOS installed in my house and the telephone guy had to cut my RJ-11 phone line (why he did, I don’t remember) and then he reconnected my line with a shoddy connector box (Red/Green wires connect to two seperate connectors) and it was fine, but I started to notice static on my line, and when I messed around with that connector box, it went away… Anyway I want to properly reconnect these wires, and I want to use the parts you listed in your article, but I am confused on how to do it. Do I just take both ends of the line, cut them so they are even and show no exposed wires, stick both ends into the red cap connector, and then press down on the button? Is that it? It will actually shave off the outer gray rubber insulation as well as the multi-color (red/Green/Black/Yellow) insulations? Or do I need to cut off the gray outer jacket, then just insert the red/green cables into the red button housing?
Sorry for the long winded question, just want to make sure I get it done correctly.
Thanks
Hi Anthony. Glad you found the article helpful. There’s no need to strip the wires if you’re using the product we described. You just insert the wire ends into the connector and when you crimp (squeeze) the button it will cut through the wire insulation to make a proper connection. Good luck with the project!
We recently remodeled, which meant we had to move our phone lines without the help of our phone service provider. My husband did pretty good. We have phone and internet. The weird stuff started next. I can no longer send using Windows mail, but can still recieve. i can however do bought with my internet provider but their email is as slow as dial-up and as old as AOL. They haven’t been able to fix the problem, nor has windows mail. Could the problem be my phone lines?
Hi Donna. We’re not really phone techs, but since the problem is specific to a particular email function (in a particular program) I would guess it’s unlikely to be a phone line issue.
Solid writeup… anyone who has tried splicing these wires the old fashioned way knows how aggravating it can be; low voltage wires are hair-thin and darn near impossible to strip and splice correctly and with any stability. After living in our new / used house for a year, the phone company discovered that the previous owner had installed a second line of his own accord. They disconnected that one immediately, giving me a look of reproach (I swear it wasn’t me – it was the one armed man!)… not wanting to tempt the phone police, I decided to splice into my existing “legal” line, and these made it soooo much easier – thanks!
Nice article. I knew these things existed, but you even gave a part number! As luck would have it, when the fire-extinguisher guy was here yesterday, he accidentally disconnected the only pair of wires that wasn’t joined by a splice connector that happened to hang behind the fire extinguisher. When I finally found the culprit, I determined to prevent this from ever happening again!
Glad we could help Bill! Keep a close eye on that fire-extinguisher man. . . . sounds like trouble! ; )
Thanks… I’m heading to Lowe’s right now…
Thanks for this great bit of information. By mistake, I cut the house phone line (thinking it was dead) and had to splice back together.
Glad we could help Kelli! Thanks for the note.
Thanks much! I had to rewire my wife’s shop and your page help a lot. the telco dmarc was locked in another suite but we were able to just splice off of the existing line and run the new line. Works great
Excellent Josh! Good to hear rewiring your wife’s telephone line went smoothly. Glad our splicing information was helpful too!
Thanks for the information, I too found the instructions on the back of the package a little less than informative, I wasn’t sure what kind of crimp tool that they meant finding out we can just use a standard pair of pliers was informative.
Hey thanks for the info. The package nor the Ideal website say that you do NOT need to strip the wire. (except the description of the blue one’s)
Thanks Scott, glad you liked the Grey Poupon angle. And thanks for the comment David, glad we could be more clear than Ideal about proper phone wire splicing technique!
This is so hilarious: “It’s so proper, it makes me want to offer Grey Poupon mustard to everyone who pulls up next to me at a stop light.”