phone line repair

[Nick_D]

The cost of my project just went up. While scraping dirt for my RV pad with a box scraper, I hooked the buired phone line which services the house. The line has 12 wires in it. I did a temp splice and was able to restore service.

My question is how do you do a permament repair? I plan to pour a concrete slab over the damaged area so I need a good water tight splice. Do I need to soder the splices? Should I call a professional?

Any suggestions?
See attached photo.
Thanks, Nick

 

[GaryM]

Here's a photo of a Scotchlock connector that SWB uses of outdoor splices. The body is filled with a gel, maybe slicone, that provides weather proofing. The wire are inserted and the cap is squeezed downwith pliers. Well, they probably have a special tool that costs $200. This pierces the insulation and makes the connection.

I think these would work underground. But I'd also think some additional mechanical protection would be required. If you see a phone guy you might ask his advice. He might even give you some connectors.

 

[mrcaptainbob]

The splices Nick is talking about are great. The only suggestion I'd make would be to bury a nice diameter pipe (maybe pvc) to thread the wire through before reconnecting. A nice one inch id may provide enough room for any future wiring needs of getting from one side to the other of that new drive, as well.......

 

[MikePA]

Your profile doesn't indicate it so I thought I'd ask...Where in the country do they bury a phone cable shallow enough so that it can be hit by a box blade?

 

[JimC]

In Texas and Okla, the phone company uses contractors to bury phone lines (other places also I'm sure).

When my son & I bought some land near here in 1995 we ran into the shallow phone line problem about 6 times, and then got gunshy because as we dug irrigation lines to the hay fields from a new well, we kept digging up old phone lines everywhere.

Seems that over the years, they would just lay a new phone line instead of fixing the breaks.

The line depths varied from just a few inches to about a foot, I guess the clay was so hard in the dry season that as long as it did not show it was ok, and it didn't appear that there was any inspection.

We became real friendly with the phone repairmen and they supplied us with a generous supply of underground splice repair kits.

They are simple to use and we never had a failure with them.

We also put the splices inside pvc pipe to give a little more protection.

 

[Egon]

Nick:
I did the same thing about 10 years ago but mine was only a four wire line. The location was marked in the wrong spot.
I also made a temporary repair and went to phone for repairs. Got a busy signal so started thinking and went back out and did it myself. Slid a plastic pipe over one end. Then slid shrink wrap over each wire, sodered them, slid the shrink wrap over the sodered area and the also taped it. Had to add wire and used use two slices per wire to get additional length. Then taped the whole bundle and slid the plastic pipe over it. Filled the plastic pipe with silicone and taped the ends. Its still working.
Egon

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The scotchloks you want sure isn't that red one. It has no teeth!!

That's the one they use to clear cap the ends of the pairs.

You can buy the scotchloks at Home Depot and Lowes. You can also buy the crimper there too.

But if you're careful you can get away with doing the crimpling with a pair of slip joint pliers. The whole secret is crimping it down parallel. I you use something like lineman's pliers you'll crimp it down one side first and that dawg won't hunt, even on steroids.

You don't strip the wires prior to crimping. That is important.

Back in the old days the insulation for the wires was paper and the sheath for the cable was lead.

Then came plastic.

When the plastic came on the scene it was the end all. They thought you could run a cable through a river and the plastic would keep the moisture away from the copper conductor. They soon found out that was wrong. So then they started filling the cable with grease to keep the water from flowing down the cable.

In the telephone world one of my careers was finding and fixing buried cable faults. What you have there is potential heartache in spades just waiting to happen. It doesn't appear to have the grease in it so your chances of moisture in the cable causing trouble are not just a matter of if but when.

The best thing to do is to call the telco for a replacement done right. If that cost is too much you can buy five pair drop at Home Depot or Lowes and install it yourself. I wouldn't want the cable going under the garage or any other building or even a road without a piece of conduit for future replacement.

In the old days they would repair a cut drop. Then they found out the repairs would go bad if they weren't done just perfect. I dug up tons of those, telephone men, gawd they're lazy. So then they came up with the policy of replacing the whole drop rather than repairing it.

Now let's pretend you need to get this thing repaired and you understand it isn't a permanent thing, just something to get you through the next year or so till you do the telephone drop along with some other things.

I'd get a piece of two and a half inch PVC about twelve fourteen inches long or long enough to go about three inches beyond the sheath opeing on each side of the cut. Undo all your twisties and slide the PVC over to one side or the other. In the middle of the PVC drill a one inch hole.

Then splice all your wires together with scotchloks. If the wire won't reach to splice them pick up enough drop wire from Home Depot to use as piece out, double the amount of connectors but..........

Very important. Under the black plastic cover of the cable you're gonna find an aluminum sheath. This is very important to the integrity of the cable. So you need to run a piece of insulated wire, say ten gauge from side to side. If you can find a terminal connector that has teeth for gripping then that would be the easiest. You crimp it to a piece of the aluminum and to your wire. If not at least wire brush you aluminum and wrap the stripped ends of your wire tightly around the aluminum at each end. Emery cloth works even better.

While you're emery clothing or using regular sand paper on the aluminum also do the plastic sheath for about six inches on each side. It is important to sand it around and not lengthwise. You're doing this to prepare the sheath for water not traveling along it to your conductors in your splice. So don't get lazy and go lenghwise. Around and around, it is important.

When you've got the conductors spliced and the grounding sheath (aluminum) continuity maintained slide the PVC back over the opening. In the plumbing department there's some gooey type tape with an aluminum kind of stuff attached to it. What you're looking for is something that's sticky and that will build up the ends of the cable to meet the PVC. I imagine clay will work fine if you have nothing else. Then use electrical or duct tape to tape the ends up.

The hole you drilled in the PVC should be on top, has to be on top.

Now you can pour in some of that fiberglass stuff you can buy at the hardware store for fixing cars or fiberglass like boats. But since you're going to be at Home Depot go ahead and pick up some tubes of water resistant silicone.

After thinking about it maybe instead of one big hole you should do about four or five little holes. Something the tip of the silicone tube will fit in tightly to. Then you fill that puppy up. Put in enough to where you think it won't take anymore and then put in a whole bunch more.

This will get you through for awhile. Time enough for you to catch one of those guys with the buried drop plow on the back of their trucks. You be real nice to him and with a little negotiation he'll plow in that new drop you've purchased at the box store.

Plan on running your new drop where it's easy to locate when necessary. And out of the traffic areas of the tractor with a crazed operator on board.

 

[GaryM]

Harv,

You're correct about not using the red ones! I just wanted to show him what he was looking for.

My neighbor is a SWB lineman and has all that stuff on his truck. But he got hurt on the job and his truck is back at the dispatch office.

 

[karmakanic]

Nick.
You might check with the phone company and see what their policy is concerning the repair. When I cut our line backhoeing for a culvert, they came out and fixed it at no charge. That was a few years ago, and things may be different today , but worth a call to see.

Dave

 

[bmac]

Well, this topic is very near and dear to me right now. I am in the process of having a pool installed. Called the utilities to have everything marked. As fate would have it, the phone line went right where the pool excavation was planned. Called the phone company to alert them and asked to have the line relocated so we would not have service interupted. They said, "Sure, glad to help. Be there in about 3 weeks." Well, I said excatation is scheduled to begin in 3 days. Their solution - if line is cut , call for repair and they will get out sooner to fix it. Sure enough, the line was cut. They came out 3 days later to run a new line. Had they just done what we asked, I would not have been without service for 3 days. But, I guess it did not matter to them. BTW, our line was about 1 foot deep.