John Hendow

Over the weekend we continued work on our latest house project. One of the subprojects was the doorbell chime which we decided to replace since the existing unit was (1) ugly (2) plastic and (3) mounted in a place were it was an eyesore. As long as we were replacing the chime I decided to simply reroute the wiring a better location. I looked into the stud space where the old unit was mounted and discovered a few pairs of low-voltage wiring that I assumed where related to the alarm system. Tracing the doorbell wires it was clear that I would not be able to access the wiring via the attic. It happens to be quite far toward to edge of the roofline which means there is zero clearance in the attic at that point. I spent a few hours scuttling around up there trying to find a way to do it. Eventually I had to simply cut a new access hole in the wall and pull the wires over, then drill up into the attic and feed the wires far enough that I could reach them. Back in the attic I finally got enough of the blown-in insulation (curse whoever invented that stuff) out of the way to confirm that those low-voltage wires were not actually connected to anything at all. I spent probably six hours just pulling the wires and patching holes related to the doorbell, and it’s not even hooked up yet! I still need to run the feed to the new transformer. Sheesh. When people push the doorbell and get a satisfying ding-dong, I hope they appreciate the amount of effort involved in wiring the accursed thing.