Help! My phones are dead!

Yesterday, all of my home phones went dead.

I have a single line (one number), with 13 jacks on five circuits. I tried disconnecting all of the phones and then plugging them in individually, with no luck.

I have service to the test port in the box on the side of my house. I hooked a temporary cable in there and ran it in through a window. I either have a short somewhere in one of the circuits or a problem with the phone hookup for my alarm system. I plan to try to bypass the alarm next

Any phone techs out there have any suggestions?

disconnect all phones, then disconnect wire running into the house and start checking for a short.

Yep. I had the same problem in my home this year. It turns out the PO's had put a phone jack in their bedroom...well, technically, it was just inside the bathroom attached to their bedroom. Anyway, that's now our girls' room(and they don't have a phone)...and the phone jack happens to be pointed upward....and, by chance, their toothbrush holder is mounted on the wall right above it....

Yeah, you get the picture. We now have one less phone jack in the house!

If all of them are dead more than likely it's in the outside box. Can you get into it? If so, there's a strip inside that the wires are pressed into so you can make quick connections. You'll probably see that one or more of those connections looks smoked.

You didn't hear this from me, but if the outside box has one of those tamper proof Allen screws with the little stub in the center, they can usually be removed with a pocket flatblade screwdriver.

Jensenman wrote: You didn't hear this from me, but if the outside box has one of those tamper proof Allen screws with the little stub in the center, they can usually be removed with a pocket flatblade screwdriver.

Yes, it did, and I wish I had read your post earlier! As a bonus, mine even had a guard around it. After failed attempts to drill the post out, I was finally able to grab it with my smallest Channel-Locks and twist it out.

And a co-worker who used to work at the phone company talked me through it, cell to cell, from the comfort of a bar. He said that if I had a signal at the test port, then most likely I had a bad outlet somewhere. He suggested that I open up each outlet, one by one, remove the wires from the back and then check another phone for a dial tone. As soon as you disconnect the bad one, all the others should come back.

I found it on my third one (I had 13 to check). It was the unused one outside the house. Water had gotten into the waterproof box and shorted it out.

I am happy.

Okay, you guys seem to know a lot about phones. My old Uniden 5.8Ghz cordless phones are about dead... battery life on one is under 5 minutes, which will NOT do it for my average conversation. And I've used them in the bathtub so much (hey, I multitask) that the speakers short out with the slightest bit of humidity.

Any tips for good phones? I like a base with the answering machine the plugs into the jack, then the extensions just need a wall outlet and small base.

Margie

Marjorie Suddard wrote: And I've used them in the bathtub so much (hey, I multitask) that the speakers short out with the slightest bit of humidity. Margie

It goes without saying that this post is useless without photos.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: Okay, you guys seem to know a lot about phones. My old Uniden 5.8Ghz cordless phones are about dead... battery life on one is under 5 minutes, which will NOT do it for my average conversation. And I've used them in the bathtub so much (hey, I multitask) that the speakers short out with the slightest bit of humidity. Any tips for good phones? I like a base with the answering machine the plugs into the jack, then the extensions just need a wall outlet and small base. Margie

Mah phone got Vt4k, y0:

http://www.vtechphones.com/vtechui/index.cfm

sweet i love it when my phones cam's change over

if you can "test hold" the phones... some phones are miserable to hold for more then a few min... other then that i have no recommendations...

When it comes to cordless phones I have always been partcial to Panasonic. I have had very good luck with them.

Woody wrote:

Marjorie Suddard wrote: And I've used them in the bathtub so much (hey, I multitask) that the speakers short out with the slightest bit of humidity. Margie

It goes without saying that this post is useless without photos.

+1. Lots of bubbles and candles, please.

I have a Panasonic 2 handset deal with 2 separate charging bases. After not being able to EVER find a damn handset unless I looked under or around the upstairs couch and generally finding that they were dead, I got another single handset/base for upstairs.

I felt so stupid buying the other one for the upstairs, I was reminded of the comic who said that when his grandmother won $25,000.00 in the lottery that one of the things she planned to do was buy a cordless phone for each room in the house.

we just got new cordless phones as the battery life went away on our handset system.

we figured that with this house we only really needed 2 handsets and we went with this one

they are interesting, about the same thickness you expect of a tv remote. Work very well and each handset has its own speakerphone on the hand unit (not the base) I think you can get them with an answering machine (we use voicemail, so didnt want it) $65-ish for ours

+eleventybillion on the Panasonics. I bought a 6-handset setup with talking caller ID (had it on my last Panny and the Wife can't live without that now), conferencing, intercom and shared phonebook with 6 separate charging bases and one answering machine (can be turned off for voicemail systems, and the phones indicate when you have a voicemail) for about $70 from Frys.com. As a bonus it's a DECT6.0 system also, so it doesn't interfere with wireless networks. They have that same sale from time to time, currently the 3-handset setup is on sale for $60 click here!

edit: yeah, I feel really stupid when the first 3 handsets I pick up are dead, or I can't find one handset but then find 4 on the kitchen counter all together. I swear, I'm going to go back to corded phones, at least you knew where to find them!

To the original poster: the alarm is a likely suspect. It seizes the line when it needs to call out, and if it's malfunctioning that may be happening now. My alarm did the same thing a few years ago, so I had to get it serviced. If that's not the case, disconnect the whole house from the box on the outside of the house and hook a phone to it directly - there could be a shorted wire somewhere inside.

My 80+ year old parents have a new Uniden and seem to enjoy it. I don't care for some of the features, and it can be difficult to use. Go with a good, name brand, phone but like when you buy a new TV or DVD player/recorder, try to use all the buttons before you buy. I had a friend with arthritis that changed his idea on a new TV based on his ability to press the buttons easily (or not press the wrong ones) on the remote.