{"id":462,"date":"2026-07-11T09:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T14:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/?p=462"},"modified":"2026-09-20T01:21:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T06:21:03","slug":"fixing-your-broken-doorbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/repair\/fixing-your-broken-doorbell\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing your Broken Doorbell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even though I&#8217;ve found people will text me to say they&#8217;re at my door despite there being a doorbell, when my doorbell stopped working, I felt compelled to fix it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At first the doorbell just sounded a bit muted, then it turned into a single &#8216;ding&#8217;, and finally it just stopped making noise. I had resolved to just get rid of broken things\u2013instead of holding onto them to fix them later\u2013so I threw out the old chime without troubleshooting it and figured that <em>surely<\/em> I had something on-hand I could use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I did some research and learned that doorbells are generally on a 16v-24v circuit (due to a step down transformer, see below image), so doing it myself wouldn&#8217;t be dangerous. I double-checked this with a volt meter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.1800doorbell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/standard-wired-doorbell-system-1200x1200-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:570px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I first wired up an old, metal, circular alarm bell that I just happened to have. It was incredibly loud, and I decided it might be way too <em>alarming<\/em> for a doorbell. I then remembered I had some buzzers in my electronic component stash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/laurelleaffarm.com\/product-photos\/vintage-1950s-industrial-machineage-fire-alarm-bell-Alarm-Device-Mfg-Syosset-NY-Laurel-Leaf-Farm-item-no-w31250-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I wired up two buzzers, tested it from the front door\u2013several rooms away from the buzzers\u2013noting that it was a <em>healthy<\/em> buzz so I&#8217;d definitely hear it wherever I was, and went about my life. Then, one day I was in the same room as the buzzers when someone rang the bell. I screamed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/61-12v0tNNL.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:275px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I removed one of the buzzers, and it still scares me, but at least it&#8217;s not as loud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though I&#8217;ve found people will text me to say they&#8217;re at my door despite there being a doorbell, when my doorbell stopped working, I felt compelled to fix it. At first the doorbell just sounded a bit muted, then it turned into a single &#8216;ding&#8217;, and finally it just stopped making noise. I had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[60,59,58],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-repair","tag-handywoman","tag-home","tag-repair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanahryding.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}