So I find myself on Sunday with a free day since I postponed painting the garage. The next day is Halloween and Lisa and I will have about 50 kids ringing our doorbell for a few hours. There’s just one problem though, our doorbell isn’t working! It hasn’t been working for the past couple months. Not sure why exactly. Lisa suspects it went out during one of our nasty late summer thunderstorms. In fact, we had just noticed within the past couple weeks. So, I figured I’d take an hour, probably less and knock this thing out and then spend the rest of the day watching football. Well, I figured wrong.
Here’s how I spent the day troubleshooting a doorbell.
First thing I did to check out this situation was to find the transformer in the basement and check to see if I’m getting voltage on the outlet side. Nada. Found the problem right away. I disconnected the transformer and went out to the hardware store and bought a new one for about $12.
The old one. I looked for the voltage specs and bought one to match.
The new one.
Come home, install the new one and nothing. The doorbell pushbutton is still not illuminated and there’s no chime. Crap. There is voltage coming out of the transformer now though so I definitely fixed something.
Second thing I checked was the chime itself. As soon as I popped the cover off, I knew I was in trouble. A lot of chimes have a front door and a rear door bell. Well, our home doesn’t have a rear door chime and our front door chime was all out of whack.
OK, I’m thinking this is still easy. I’ll just switch wire leads and use the rear door chime instead. So I swap leads, turn on the breaker and hear the familiar ding of the doorbell followed by a loud annoying hum that doesn’t go away. Crap. I need a new chime.
So I go back out to the hardware store and pickup a $20 doorbell chime, which doesn’t include a transformer or a pushbutton. I was mainly trying to find a white doorbell that was about the same size as the old one. I get back home, wire it in and it still hums!!!! So now I’m really annoyed. Not only because I might have wasted a couple hours already, but I have to look at the pushbutton now and i might have to run out for a new one.
I pop off the switch from the door, and disconnect my leads and notice that the leads had probably shorted out inside the switch. After correcting the switch, I reinstall it and it works fine. Sweet. Only took 3-4 hours and $30. Should’ve taken 1/2 an hour.
The new chime.
So, the Scooby-Doo breakdown goes like this: The pushbutton shorted out, causing the chime and transformer to fail.
The moral of the story is: Doorbells are a pain in the neck.
Anyone else have any doorbell issues? Did it take 4 hours off of your life?
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