Is there any reason why I shouldn't remove/ dry wall over a phone jack?
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Anonymous
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Our house is about 20 years old and we are the second owner (bought 18 years ago.)
The previous owners had phone jacks put in every room, but we haven't had a landline in approx. 15 years, we just use our mobile phones. There is one phone jack in particular that I don't like. It's at the built in desk in the kitchen (yes, I know those are seen as very dated now, but I actually really like it and use my kitchen desk a lot!) I think the cover around it started out white, but it has now yellowed like white plastic does and just looks ugly. And it's so unnecessary. I'm thinking of taking it out and drywalling over the hole--is there any reason why I shouldn't? There is a 99% chance we will sell this house within the next year--prospective buyers won't care if there is no accessible phone jack in the kitchen, right? |
Anonymous
| If you’re going to sell the house, just put a new cover over it. The new buyers may want a jack. We would. |
Anonymous
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You can buy a new cover for a couple bucks at Home Depot.
It will be more work to patch the hole well. Some people have VOIP phones...they use jacks. Don't make work for yourself. |
Anonymous
| We still have a land line - not ready to give it up |
Anonymous
| I'd personally either pull the phone cable and replace with cat 6 or just dry wall it over. The amount of people using traditional landlines is not high |
Anonymous
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No technical reason you can't just disconnect the wire, leave it in the wall and drywall over the hole.
Don't fall into the trap of leaving it there because it might be useful some day. Trying to plan for the future is hard because nothing is harder to predict than the future! |
Anonymous
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Honestly, the replacement wall plates are standard size and cost less than $2 at HD or Lowes. And it is maybe 5 minutes with a screwdriver to swap the wall plates. So do that. Drywall would be both more time consuming and more expensive.
If we are looking to buy a house, we want wall jacks for our landline telephones. |
Anonymous
| If you weren't selling the house, I'd say drywall over it. But if you're selling within a year, there is no reason not to just go buy a new cover for a few bucks. |
Anonymous
We have a VOIP phone and it does not use a jack. Maybe some do? OP, if you drywall it you will have to touch up the paint and make that look good. I would not bother if I were selling in a year, but I don't think it's a huge deal either way. |
Anonymous
| Patch over it. It's outdated technology and you won't be doing any future buyers a favor to leave it there. Let them hard wire whatever phone jacks they want in the future, in the unlikely event they want that. About the only thing people use a landline connection for these days is a fax machine. |
Anonymous
| We dry walled over ours when we did a reno. They’re totally obsolete. I’m actually annoyed we still have a phone line running through our yard. I wish there was a way to make them come get rid of it. |
Anonymous
| My home alarm system requires us to have a landline. I don’t even know our landline phone number, but we do have to maintain it. |
Anonymous
| I would just put a blank fresh wall plate on it. |
Anonymous
This. For yourself, it’s fine to drywall over it. But if you’re selling anyway, I don’t see why you’d take the option away from the next owner. |
Anonymous
| Just replace the cover. A kitchen jack is important to anyone who wants a landline. I still have one, kept it when kids were too little for phones and my not wanting to depend on babysitters having a charged phone. I think people with kids should have landlines for safety reasons. |