Help - old BT wiring

[#1]

Had some renovations done which involved removing the old phone which was attached to wall when we moved in. Looks like this was plugged in to the master socket which is wired to a box above the front door where phone line comes in from outside. Other wires come from this box to an extension and the other I believe is an ISDN line. I want rid of all this and to move the master socket- what are my options? Does this have to be done by an Open Reach engineer?

[#2]

@crisk Welcome to the forums. In answer to your question - yes, only OpenReach are allowed to carry out work on BT equipment.

Note: there is a £160.00 charge for this.

[#3]

Many competent in DIY will do themselves anyway; plenty of guidance videos on You Tube.
Sometimes in local paper you'll see ads from ex O/Reach engineers offering to undertake such work.

[#4]

Aren't consumers allowed to pull appropriate wires out of the consumer side of the main socket?

If you try it and fail [but not obviously], you would only have to pay £160 to get it fixed, anyway.

[#5]

Yup, @VileReynard - what you do beyond the test socket is up to you, but if you bork it, it is expensive to repair - unless you know how. 😀

[#6]

Thanks guys! This is my problem, I read somewhere on here that anything before master socket is OR responsibility and all the wiring is. Everything radiates from the brown junction box where cable enters the house which comes before the master socket! I’d add a pic if I could work out how!

[#7]

Managed to add image but its switched round - wire at the bottom goes right to the master socket 

Wire on left goes down to master socket

[#8]

I've never seen an incoming box like that, before - have any idea where the other cables go? That is definitely something for an OpenReach engineer to look at, though.

@198kHz  - any thoughts?

[#9]

If it's not the BT master socket, it's yours and you can do what you like with it.

edited for apostrophes.

[#10]

@VileReynard That is an incoming socket belonging to BT/OR as it is before the master socket - not something I would advise a member of the public to fiddle with, TBH.

[#11]

Thanks, that's what I thought. The other wires go to an extension upstairs and another extension( which our router is plugged into) and an isdn box in the living room. I wanted to just disconnect the upstair extension and isdn as we don't need them but loathed to touch in case it affects the phone/broadband. Ho hum looks like an engineer it will have to be. Thanks for your help, appreciated. 

Caroline 🙂

[#12]

No problem - I would get the engineer to check the cabling, btw - looks a bit suspect to me - but I'm not a telecomms engineer, so it might be OK.

How old is the property, and how long have you lived there, if you don't mind me asking? Still mystified about that box.

Any wiring your side of the test socket in the master socket is yours to do as you wish with, but looking at that picture, I would get the engineer in to move the master socket, and talk nice to him and see what he can do about the rest.

[#13]

looks a bit suspect to me

looks a right dogs b'fast to me!

[#14]

Hi John, 

The house is from 1922 and we’ve lived here 8 years. Been having trouble with phone and broadband so thought it’s maybe about time to get this sorted. There’s no internal wiring past the master socket, everything comes from the brown box above the door although it looks like the isdn box comes from the socket in living room. Bit like the pic below. We currently have phone plugged into master socket and router into living room extension. All that said, I had a closer look at the wiring on the outside of the house and notice a further box in the eaves where the line reaches the house and that has no cover on it and all the wiring hanging out! We've had intermittent problems with phone/broadband and thinking this may be cause. Am I right in thinking Open Reach need to fix this and at no cost to me? 

[#15]

That box above the door is a Block Terminal No 20/8 , and you don't see many of those these days.

Your broadband would almost certainly improve if the wiring was regularised.

If you feel you can do it yourself, then go ahead - BTOR don't keep a record of what goes where in a customer's house, and any cables, sockets etc are available from run-IT-direct .

Alternatively, many ex-BT engineers advertise such services in local papers.

I assume this mess of wiring was there when you moved in. In that case, perhaps BTOR would do the job at no cost to you, but I don't know.

Maybe @Gandalf would know?