Phoneline dead - suspect ext. junction box

Amraam

Amraam

Amraam

Soldato
Joined
5 Jan 2009
Posts
4,771
Hi all,

Came home to find that the house alarm wasn't working. Immediately check phone line and that was dead too. No faults in area, and broadband was fine, so got on to BT who said there were no faults that they could see.

Anyways, I've had a look outside and I've spotted a faulty toilet overflow pipe that had retreated into the wall by about 1cm, meaning over the last few days (whilst we were away) water has gotten into the brick work. It doesn't look bad, but the bricks show damp. It's also right next to the junction box, so I think water damage is happened :(

BT have already said that if damage to their equipment is found, it would be a £130 fee on the bill. Before I book them to come out and investigate, and almost definitely claim that it's water damage, is there anything else I can do? I know tampering with their stuff is illegal so I'm not sure if I actually have any options now.

Here's the box and obvious damp:
https://goo.gl/photos/S82A6m2r7nU8fAg57

Any advice?
 
I've first hand experience and have also read quite a bit on these forums that the engineer reports the fault in a manor that the call-out fee is not applicable, so be extra kind ;)
 
MissChief said:
If the fault is external it's very u likely to be a chargeable visit.
Click to expand...

Even if it is potentially damaged by a water fault on our premises?

Plenty O'Toole said:
I've first hand experience and have also read quite a bit on these forums that the engineer reports the fault in a manor that the call-out fee is not applicable, so be extra kind ;)
Click to expand...

Good to know thanks. Still a bit of a gamble, but I'm hoping the fact that the external box is 25+ years old that they might just look at it and want to replace it.
 
That's just a cover over a cable entry point. On the other side of the wall from that should be your master socket. Is the plaster damp inside the house?
 
Caged said:
That's just a cover over a cable entry point. On the other side of the wall from that should be your master socket. Is the plaster damp inside the house?
Click to expand...

Ah OK thanks. I hadn't taken it off yet as I'm knackered and it's pitch black. Not that I can see, but I'd planned on popping the face plate off to check.
 
Right, definitely a damp problem :( Woke up this morning to see that the broadband was affected also, with intermittent disconnects and slow downs. Went and took a look at the mast socket and the internal wall has damp. Going to get that overflow pipe fixed and try to dry the wall before calling BT. Either way, I'm pretty sure a BT engineer would see this. Would they likely charge in this case? WOuld it only be the £130 callout, or would there be a fix charge on top, worst case?
 
MissChief said:
Unless it's changed we used to say 99.88 and then 64.63 so I'm not sure where the £130 comes from.
Click to expand...

You're probably right, I can't remember the exact figure. So if BT come and we're super nice with cuppas and biscuits, what are the chances of us having to fork out for repairs? It's almost 100% due to water damage. Had the plumber out yesterday and the toilet valve had failed so it was overfilling very slow and using the overflow pipe which was also broken, causing a leak into the walls.

So if it's water damage to the cables between the external box and the rear of the master socket, are we liable?
 
Let i dry off, claim ignorance and tell them it must have gotten it through their external box somehow?
 
OK, so I've just had the master socket face plate off and there is no water ingress whatsoever - not even dry tide marks. The fault appears to be with the faceplate, or getting the connection to the faceplate. If I plug the phone into the test socket on the master socket, I get a dialling tone. If I plug the phone onto the faceplate socket, I get nothing, nor do I get anything if I use any of the extensions in the house (obviously this is with the faceplate reattached properly to the main box).

So, do I just order a mk3 filtered faceplate and install it myself, or do I play dumb and get BT out to fit a whole new master socket box? The VM or BT engineers have used jelly crimps so there's probably all sorts of bad wire connections...
 
Nothing wrong with jelly crimps.

If the test socket works then it's your problem not theirs. If you call them out there's a good chance you'll be charged.

If you have extensions wired to the removable faceplate disconnect them. Then try the socket with the now disconnected faceplate in place.

If it works add the extensions back one at a time until it stops working again. Once you know which extension is a fault you can investigate further.
 
bremen1874 said:
Nothing wrong with jelly crimps.

If the test socket works then it's your problem not theirs. If you call them out there's a good chance you'll be charged.

If you have extensions wired to the removable faceplate disconnect them. Then try the socket with the now disconnected faceplate in place.

If it works add the extensions back one at a time until it stops working again. Once you know which extension is a fault you can investigate further.
Click to expand...

Agreed, there's just lots of them!

OK will try that. I'll need to borrow a punch down tool from work tomorrow but will give it a go.
 
Yes, if the test socket works then it is likely an issue with your internal wiring. However, a good test is to plug a phone into the test socket, pickup the phone just dial 1. This puts the line into open. Have a good listen and if can hear noise on the line then you could get them out for a noisy line.

Otherwise, I'd disconnect all of your phone extensions and reconnect in sequence and see which one causes the issue. If there are loads of them then you should have junction boxes, as you can only wire up two extensions to the back of the removable plate on the master socket. Unless you have extensions coming off of extensions which is not ideal, but hey.

I recently did a job where I had to trench 60m down a customers garden and bury 100mm underground conduit and pull through external grade BT cable (as well as external CAT5e for CCTV cameras, backup broadband from the house, door phone, alarm cable, sky cable) as BT would only work up to a BT66 external junction box on the back of the house. 2 days after install the phone line was terrible. I removed the jelly crimps at the BT66, terminated the PCB of an NTE5 I keep in my tool bag and did the noise test there - noise still present, BT issue. Turned out it was a fault in the underground cabling between the pole in the road and the exchange.
 
Update. As said by you guys, it was/is a dodgy extension. The downstairs cable obviously has a short somewhere, as as soon as it is connected to the extension port on the rear of the faceplate, the master socket and all extensions go dead. Really strange. Need to get my sparky pal over for a rewiring job...
 
Don't let a spark do data wiring. Most of them are terrible at it because they just see it as "wires mate, nothing to it".
 
if you replace the wiring yourself beware you will have to wait for DLM to reset your broadband back to normal speed. took exactly 2 weeks for mine to go from 5 to 45Mb
BT can reset it straight away, but wont do it without an engineer visit
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom