The doorbell on the house was broken, or so it appeared. It was an old square button connected to a bell on the second floor that looks straight out of the 1920’s.

This is the ringer. Don’t ask me how old it is, how someone wired the button to it all the way up in the hall of the second floor or why there is a hand-painted 641 on the cover. The original plan was to rip this thing down when it came time to tear down the crappy wallpaper behind it.

Anyway, after a month of people pressing the button out front, I figured ok maybe it’s time to replace it. Besides, the small “please knock” paper I taped under it kept falling off. I hit the local Home store and purchased a Wireless bell system that was on sale for $19.95. After it sat in the corner for two weeks, I got around to installing it.

Since the doorbell didn’t work, I figured the best course of action would be to rip the button out, put black electrical tape on the wires connected to it, shove those back into the hole, put a plate or some spackle over it and install the new plastic wireless chime in the same spot. Now I realize shoving the wires back into the wall without cutting the power probably isn’t the brightest idea, but like I mentioned above, the bell is upstairs in the hallway and I don’t know how someone got wires all the way up there, nor do I know how to cut the power to it. Apparently doorbells don’t use much electricity anyway and there are no markings for it on the fuse box in the basement.

Nonetheless, I rip the old button out and in the process of unscrewing the wires off the back of it, surprise surprise, the damn bell starts ringing! I don’t know if the wires were loose on the back of the old button, just old, or if the button was broken, but it worked again. Change of plans. It was back to the local Home store, this time for a new doorbell button.

The only one they had was this brass looking thing so I got that. Maybe I’ll change it in the future if I find something better but this will do for now. Anyway, I connected the existing wires to that and presto, a restored old doorbell. At least until I get a new bell to replace that rusty old thing.

I felt dumb for buying the wireless system without fully checking out the old button, but that didn’t last long since I put them on back and side doors, which were doorbell-less.

There was one small problem with the wireless. Apparently the neighbors across the street have the same or similar system. So whenever someone rang their doorbell, it also rang here. That sucked… until I read the instruction book and it said how to open the button and change the frequency by adjusting the jumpers.

So, if you need a wireless system, get one that has jumpers or you’ll go nuts if someone nearby has it or gets it, too.

Total Cost:

• $19.95 - Wireless Doorbell Set (with 2 buttons)
• $3.99 - Replacement Wired Doorbell Button

This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2005 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Exterior, Projects (completed). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.