removing excess phone sockets - who can do that?

mac.d

If you are with BT, it might be worth your while contacting them and saying you don't appear to have a proper master socket anywhere in your house so can they come and fit one. They did this for me at one point (I was a BT customer for both phone and broadband at the time), and it'd at least tidy up the main socket.

wallofbeans

mac.d wrote: »

If you are with BT, it might be worth your while contacting them and saying you don't appear to have a proper master socket anywhere in your house so can they come and fit one. They did this for me at one point (I was a BT customer for both phone and broadband at the time), and it'd at least tidy up the main socket.

We are with BT for phone at the moment. Would they do that for free? And I wonder what they would do and where they'd put it?

[Deleted User]

The BT master socket is the means to disconnect your house from the incoming line whilst you work, if you haven't got one mind your fingers, the ring voltage is about 200V.

wallofbeans

I've taken the covers off some of these boxes this morning and found this...

https://imgur.com/a/4aKlx

I seem to have an extra, not connected to anything, wire in the makeshift master socket above front door. And also I wonder what the red wire is in the socket I currently have the phone plugged into...

Any ideas?

Thank you SO MUCH for all help and advice so far. Incredibly helpful and could save me a fortune!

wallofbeans

jack_pott wrote: »

The BT master socket is the means to disconnect your house from the incoming line whilst you work, if you haven't got one mind your fingers, the ring voltage is about 200V.

That doesn't sound good!

If I don't have one. Which I'm not sure I do. How did this happen??

Mister_G

The picture of your living room socket (third picture) seems to show some of the inside of the socket. It looks like this is your master socket.

You may be able to persuade BT to replace this with a modern NTE5 Mk3 socket which has the built in filtering for broadband. It would mean that this would also be where you plug your router in. Not sure if that would be convenient for you.

BTW the ring voltage is 90v AC, which can still give you a nasty shock!

wallofbeans

Mister_G wrote: »

The picture of your living room socket (third picture) seems to show some of the inside of the socket. It looks like this is your master socket.

You may be able to persuade BT to replace this with a modern NTE5 Mk3 socket which has the built in filtering for broadband. It would mean that this would also be where you plug your router in. Not sure if that would be convenient for you.

BTW the ring voltage is 90v AC, which can still give you a nasty shock!

I'd like that to be the master socket! It already has phone and router plugged into it. But it seems to come in through the front door into a box above the door then down the wall, through the wall to the mess in the third picture here:

https://imgur.com/a/7ASGf

And then out of there and two that socket you mention. Or is the red wire coming from somewhere else?

I just want to get rid of everything but a master socket. I want it in the living room, either where the mess hanging off the wall is, or the one that currently has the phone plugged in and you suggest could already be the master socket.

I want to disconnect and pull out everything else.

AndyPK

as said, the one hanging off the wall is the master socket.

Yes BT / OR may come and replace this, although it would be a bigger box and stick out further, so you need to decide what exactly tidy is in your definition.

i.e just screw it to the wall and it would be tidy.

and would a bigger box that sticks out further be ugly?


The red wire appears to go upstairs, maybe to the bedroom socket.

Mister_G

Any wiring before the master socket is solely the responsibility of Openreach (OR).

Looking at your photos, it is apparent that the wiring has 'evolved' over many years.

If you can get OR in to just replace your master socket, then you can remove any other wiring yourself, as it should then be dead.

It would be useful if you are present when they do the work, as you can quite often 'shame' the engineer into tidying up their mess.

cajef

Your master socket is the one with the ring capacitor and spark gap on the PCB, which looks like the one hanging off the wall.

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/UK_telephone/uk_telephone.html