Having trouble reestablishing a hardwire doorbell in our house. We have been here 10 years and I never remember it working, and we went wireless for a while but I wanted to return to hardwire.

Remove faceplate in hall which revealed a transformer and wires connected to push button (this from when I took old one off wall). Should be a matter of adding in the chime mechanism and wiring per diagram. Problem is I cannot get any of it to work.

Thought it was transformer, but just bought a new one and no dice. Below is a pic of what I have determined thus far. Looks like junction box is in middle of romex run. Not sure what is up or down stream from this, but the circuit is on the "Garage" breaker (garage lights, door opener, GFCI for for front porch).

I've tested the circuits with a basic tester with the below results. Putting one lead on hot wire and one on neutral and I get nothing. Put one on hot wire and one on ground, I get a 110V circuit. Low voltage non-contact tester shows only high voltage on the hot wire. Ignore the disconnected low voltage run back to front porch.

Have no separated the two neutral and two black to test separately, but figured I would check the TexAgs experts first before burning the house down. Any ideas?

You need power to transformer, chime, and button. If you have power to those then the component is bad. The button only connects everything and causes there chime to ping the metal bells inside. You have to have a button to push. When the button is pushed, power should be everywhere.

Thanks BrazosDog, but I think the issue is not getting power to the transformer, indicated to me by not being able to show a 110V circuit when touching the leads to the hot wire (black) and neutral (white) with the circuit tester.

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I've tested the circuits with a basic tester with the below results. Putting one lead on hot wire and one on neutral and I get nothing. Put one on hot wire and one on ground, I get a 110V circuit. Low voltage non-contact tester shows only high voltage on the hot wire. Ignore the disconnected low voltage run back to front porch.

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Are you using a voltmeter or something like a light-up circuit tester? You're probably going to have to use a voltmeter to figure out what's what. You should be reading a nominal 120V (118.6, 120.9, etc) from both hot to neutral, and from hot to ground. You should also be reading very little if any voltage from neutral to ground. If you read something jacked up like 42V or 67V (some oddball number nowhere near 120) from hot to neutral, then your neutral is likely floating, disconnected, broken, or loose some place.

Used both a plain circuit tester and a high-low tester. I get a sort of "low voltage" reading on the neutral alone, and not 110V circuit indicator on hot to neutral. So I think it may be a hanging neutral. I know I have a plug out along the baseboard in the hall that has also always been there. Will put my inspector cap back on tomorrow.

Look for something loose at the receptacle. If it has stab-in connections, I'd swap it out for screw terminals.

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/how-to/how-to-fix-doorbell

Checked all switches and receptacles on that circuit. Reconnected all neutrals after discovering one very loose. Plug in hallway now works, and I get a 110v connection between hot and neutral that will connect to transformer. But not getting anything out of transformer. So, could be the new transformer is not a good one or some other issue.

Most of my friends have suggested to just put a sign up for folks to knock and yell. But dammit, I'm determined now.

You can't get the bell to ring by touching the two doorbell wires together? I mean, if that doesnt do the trick, then the bell itself have to be bad, right? That's the only other possible part that is not doing its thing. Is the new transformer the proper voltage for your doorbell system? Is it possible the old one is one voltage and bad and the new one is another voltage and good but won't work with the system?

I applaud your effort. Seriously...nothing drives me nuts like something that doesnt work when it should.

flown-the-coop said:

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Checked all switches and receptacles on that circuit. Reconnected all neutrals after discovering one very loose. Plug in hallway now works, and I get a 110v connection between hot and neutral that will connect to transformer. But not getting anything out of transformer. So, could be the new transformer is not a good one or some other issue.

Most of my friends have suggested to just put a sign up for folks to knock and yell. But dammit, I'm determined now.

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If you have 110 V going into the transformer and are not getting anything out (should be ~16v) then the transformer is bad.

So to wrap who's up, after finding the loose neutral and resolving the electrical supply to transformer issue, I determined that the new transformer from Home Depot was bad. Hooked in old transformer and I was cooking again. One last step, putting the bell outside.

In my genius of going wireless ten years ago, I cut the low voltage wiring back to the brick. This turned a five minute mount into a 90 minute drill some mortar out, try finding some slack in the low voltage wiring and then working with about an 1/8 of an inch of exposed wiring.

But it works. And I am done.