Are there any safety concerns when working on telephones or wiring?
No special precautions need be taken when connecting or disconnecting phones from standard wall jacks. Once you move from consumer-level telephone technologies into the bowels of your home’s telephone system, though, there are a few cautions. • Lightning is always a danger, so avoid doing any wiring during storms. Conventional wisdom has always been to not make phone calls during dangerous thunderstorms, anyway. • Never install a telephone in a wet location! You’ve all seen the movie where the bad guy throws the phone in the hot tub and electrocutes some poor character actor. Plan all installations so that the body of the phone cannot accidentally fall into a sink, tub, pool, or fish tank. As far as cordless phones go, you won’t get electrocuted if the headset falls into the spa, but it will dampen your spirits. • Disable the line you are working on until you are ready to test the installation. It is true that the normal voltage in telephone wires, which provides the dial tone, is not
