I've got an old phone jack in my house from the 1979 era, and I'm not looking to go through the hassle of removing the wiring or patching up the wall. Instead, I'd like to just cover it with a flat wall plate. Can anyone advise on how to safely disconnect the wires? Would simply disconnecting them and taping them individually, and then tucking them back in the wall be sufficient?
3 Answers
It's totally fine to just disconnect the wires. Since phone lines are low voltage, you can shove them back into the wall without any worries. Just to be safe, you might want to put some electrical tape on each wire before you tuck them away and slap that cover plate on. No risk of anything dangerous here!
Just a reminder, make sure they’re not connected to anything active before you just push them in.
I'd suggest cutting the wires, putting on a cover plate, and just leaving it as is. Honestly, they don’t do much these days anyway. Just make sure those ends are taped off well for safety.
If you want to be thorough, try to find where the wires connect to the main line in your home and disconnect them there too. But honestly, if you're only dealing with a single jack, just capping the wires and keeping them inside the wall should work fine, especially if you don’t have any active phone service right now.
That’s a solid plan! Better safe than sorry, right?
For sure! When I had a line disconnected, I took care to label everything first, just in case.
That's good to hear! I was worried about potential hazards, but if it's low voltage then I guess we’re fine.