atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Weird wiring closet

What is the weirdest wiring closet you guys have run into?

I had one about a year ago that was a lean- to attached to the outside of the building. Phone system had piece of plywood directly above it. But that was about all.

A while back I was servicing an old ITT 3100 for a trucking company. The system lived in a cage down in the mens locker room in the basement. Then the building was to be nearly torn down for a major reconstruction and expansion of the terminal, but the phone system had to run uninterupted (a 24/7 operation). They built a plywood hut around this switch and basically tore down the building around it. I have pictures of a four foot snow drift, mud and construction debris surrounding the system - still humming away with its cabling dangling all over.

We had to create one about 12 years ago. A company had a gas and air bottle distribution plant in Maryland, right outside of DC. Their main "administration" building was being demolished and the staff was relocated to another company facility in Pennsylvania.

Still, the retail sales building, the main terminal/distribution building and various other small buildings existed. Since the "administration" building contained the phone switch (I believe it was an Executone IDS at the time), we had to decide how to replace the missing building to house the switch.

Since the facility was scheduled to be phased out and closed down within five years, it wasn't economical to run new underground cabling and relocate the system to another building.

We purchased an empty SC8000 cross connect cabinet made by Reliable/Reliance/RTec/Marconi/Emerson, whatever. This cabinet was easily large enough for a person to live inside. It had double doors on both sides that were well gasketed. We purchased a small "venturi" type cabinet cooling system, mounted some rails and plywood and voila! The switch room, thanks to the use of 110 blocks, was able to fit into a 5' tall, 4' wide and 3' deep cabinet. We even managed to arrange for Bell Atlantic to reroute their underground cable and install their NID inside. We had to give the cross-connect box a physical street address, but that was easy. We just used pedestal stickers and put the street number of the former building on it. It was pretty impressive! Even Bell Atlantic's management came out and took pictures.

It turned out to only be temporary. The facility was eventually closed and the land cleared for other development, but for two years, the setup worked well.

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Ed
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How come there's always enough time to go back and fix it a second time?

why do the pa and phone system always get the last consideration in building and upgrade projects. i,v had them in 4x4 closets,under stairways, on top of offices in manufacturing plants, in out of the way and hard to get to
places?
m

Not so bad, but in the drugstore i work at, the phone system is in a 3 by 10 room (where our time clock is). it is pretty hard to get around in there. the wiring is a big mess, and i'm happy they haven't asked me to fix it.

Exactly.

I have a customer where there phone system, voicemail, punch blocks, DSL modem/router, and all cabling are underneath the sink in the break room. Just to connect my laptop to the phone system i have to carefully pull out the voicemail to make room.

How about installs above the ceiling in the bathroom........got a few like that.....

How about installs above the ceiling in the bathroom........got a few like that.....

oopps

Maybe not Weird... but here's one:

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And here's a picture of a system that was turned over to the IT dept. for MAC's:

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