Safe to remove out-of-service 3-line landline junction box by myself?

Question

We have lived in this house 13 years. It's wired for a landline, but we've never used it. Previous owners must have had 3 business phones lines to the house. There is a junction box for those landlines on a finished basement wall. I would like to reclaim that wall real estate and disconnect the wiring from the box and remove the box and drywall over the opening (2" by 2").

I contacted the phone company and they declined to come out and remove the box, since I do not have and do not intend to get an account with them.

I used my non-contact current probe to see if the wires are hot, but the tool is not registering any current.

Is it safe for me to just disconnect all these wires, cap them with electrical tape, and stuff them back in the wall so I can remove the gray junction box? Or cut them, or....? If so, any pointers?

Answer 1

This is a demarcation box - it belongs to the telco and you should contact them and get them to remove it if you want it gone. The wiring accessible in the top half is yours to do with as you please.

Answer 2

Utility

Don't cut the wires. You may not know why, now. But when you need to run 5V or 24V from A to B and you happen to have intact useable 18ga cables ready to go, you'll thank yourself.

Lots of IoT gadgets will be wifi but need half a watt to run. Cameras, room thermometers, outdoor sensors (light, heat, etc). (Oops, it's not #18) Pulling wire through finished walls is a pain, and they might be useful for something in future.

Remove the wires from the box, cut off the uninsulated ends (less than an inch), secure them tightly to a piece of string, shove them in the wall but tie the string to something.

Safety

I think that grey wire next to the black one is a ground. It protects you from lightning strikes being carried into your house by the black cable. You ought to find the other end of the grey wire clamped to a pipe or to your breaker panel or to its own grounding rod.

Inside the grey box you'll find the black wire has a grounding strip alongside the data bundle (I think I can see that in your pic), or a foil shield, or both. The ground wire or shield in the black wire must remain connected to your ground, presumably via the grey wire.

You must either completely remove the black wire from your home or maintain the ground bond.

You don't need the grey box but you need to keep the cable grounded if it's entering your house from outside. Use whatever connector you like, to do that, before you shove them in the wall.

Answer 3

I would cut the wires to the box, tape the ends and stuff them in the wall.

They are low voltage so not much if any chance for problems. I like to find where the wire come into the house and cut them there as well. So the wires are all dead.

I then would call Century Link 1 last time and tell them their box is on the front porch, ( or by the front door, or next to the garage...you know what I'm getting at.)

Then when it's been there after 30 days, throw it out.

Answer 4

I wouldn't bother. Stuff the wires back where you took them and be done with it. I dropped my landline last year. All the underground wire and outside box is still there but dead. There're no phones in the house other than the one I carry around.

Answer 5

Telco used to be notorious for abandoning equipment in place; disconnecting and picking it up would cost more than it was worth. So I'd say do whatever you need to and don't worry about it.

I'm not sure it's worth keeping the wires for reuse if you're sure you won't be running land lines again. But you might be able to use them to pull other wiring -- Ethernet cable, for example -- so I agree that it might be a good idea to keep the end accessible even if you remove the junction box.