sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Today's Adventure

Brand-new house. 3,000 sq ft, with pool and elevator.

Building Inspector wants to have a working telephone in the elevator. There is no federal, state, county, or local law requiring same, but I agree to do it.

GC says that elevator man installed the Trimline-esque phone in the cab. GC says that Sparky ran a blue wire to the elevator machinery box.

"All you need to do" is connect the dial tone.

Just looking at the elevator installation gave me the willies.

Traveling cable 20 feet too long, with excess all balled up on the floor next to the machinery.

Hydraulic hoses not secured to anything, and too long.

Power disconnect mounted upside down, so "UP is OFF" and "DOWN is ON", and of course, the label is easy to read if you stand on your head.

Floor call-button wires run at an angle of about 80 degrees across the wall and into the controller box.

Traveling cable bunched up and chafing at the (too small) romex connector.

Safety switch on basement-level door not adjusted correctly. Allows door to open before cab is level.

3" gap between floor of cab and finished floor, once doors are open.

Several pounds of wood chips, wire scraps, coffee cups, sawdust and other miscellaneous crud, along with several loose wires with Molex plugs just flopping around, not plugged into anything, on cab roof.

No emergency key left with home-owner.

Telephone connection RJ-11 jack by-passed, and blue Cat5e run into the controller at an angle of 60 degrees through an existing (in-use) romex connector.

No wiring diagrams or any other documentation left with GC or owner.

On the first floor:

Modem and router hanging in a book shelf cabinet thing. Bunch of blue wire hanging out, some with 8p8c plugs, some with bare ends, no faceplate, no jacks.

Several blue wires in basement, but not one is labelled, not one goes anywhere that I can find, using the toner and probe.

Electrician who ran it all quit from the company last week.

Dial tone comes from cable company. No wire from 1st floor maze to basement, where I need the dial tone.

Solution:

Got carpenters to unscrew and slide out the cabinet. Drilled down in the wall behind, between a gaggle of wires and pipes without breaking anything.

Made a temp head-to-head splice between new feed wire and existing elevator wire. It really needs an enclosure, and a 66M block, and labels and documentation to make it all Kosher, but I'm not being paid to think.

Building Inspector is happy.

My bill will include a "Stoopid Tax"

I'm happy to be away from the house before Madam gets home.

TOO LATE!!! Madam just rolled up in the Lexus.

She wants to know why she can't put the cordless telephone base station and answering machine in the closet off the mud room, where she asked for it? I take a look, and there is ONE (1) blue wire run to that closet, and it's serving a POE wireless router.

I tell her that she needs to contact the GC who will contact the Sparky who will come and run another blue wire for voice, as it should have been done from the git go.

She says that she already asked the Geek Squad® technician to do that, but "he didn't know how."

She wants my phone number, "in case you messed anything up when you were installing the elevator phone."

I refused, and I escaped.

Best to toss the "pineapple" in the door and run....run....run.

Rcaman

Godspeed.

Everyday I find that the more money people have the more stupid they are and the more entitled they think they are.

-Hal

Arthur I feel your pain

Just reading this I'm I'm pain.

I don't think you "could mess anything up when you installed the elevator phone." That line was crossed long ago by others and is not even in the rear view mirror.

I am hoping the inspector fails the installation for the safety of the guests to the house.

Sadly, the way it works is the last person touched something automatically being assumed they were the ones who broke it.

Never installed DT in a residential elevator, only commercial and those are usually 30 minute jobs (20 minutes waiting for security to unlock the door).

When I was a NYTELCO key and pbx repairman, in a walking district in Manhattan, I would occasionally need to duck into a building to use the men's room in an office of one of my subscribers.

I would often get yelled at across the floor by some frustrated employee, with the accusation that went something like this: "Oh, the phone man is here, that's probably why the (fill in the blank) copy machine, soda machine, toilet, toaster oven, elevator, fax machine isn't working."