Quick status #2: Phone hell, and appliances

Saturday we both woke up sweating about the appliances. The doors throughout our house, a 1941 Cape Cod that we bought from the original owner’s son and that had been occupied by a family member since it was built, are narrow—the door into the living room from the front is about 31 inches, the widest door into the kitchen is 27 inches, and the door into the utility room where the washer and drier would go is only about 26. We dashed to Home Depot to enquire about installing a new door. Fortunately a very patient Irishman in the door and window department informed us that it should be much simpler—all they should have to do to move the fridge inside would be to take the doors off.

That was good news, because we had to quickly dash south to meet Lisa’s parents halfway and pick up our dogs. We got back from that errand at around 3, only to find that the visit from Verizon had failed to get our phone working. He muttered something ominous on the call about some wiring being missing.

A trip back out to the box confirmed what he said. When I had checked the network interface the first time, I failed to note the absence of any wiring leading out of the NIB into the house. Yep, there was absolutely nothing connecting the network interface box to the house. I moped for a while, then went inside and “walked the wire” from where the connection in the kitchen dropped into the garage, through the utility room, and into the storage room where an, erm, “antique” phone block was connected to the ceiling. Next to it, a strain relief tube had been passed through next to the window.

Inspiration struck, and I ran to the Home Depot for some Cat-3 outdoor grade wire. I connected it to the NIB, ran it along the house into the strain relief tube, and tried to figure out how to connect it to the old phone block.

And there the story ends for now, because even after trying a couple of variations I can’t get the darned dial tone to go. Oh well. This is probably a good opportunity to look at structured wiring options, and quickly. Our cell phones don’t work so well up on the hill.