The Doorbell

Sometime during the attic demolition the front doorbell quit working. Fixing it was low on my priority list, obviously (it's been at least a year since it last worked...).

So that's my excuse if you stopped by and we didn't answer the door.  It was nothing personal.  ;-)

My lack of motivation to fix it can also be attributed to the mess of wires in the picture.  I just wasn't looking forward to figuring out which ones were for the doorbell.  They all seemed to be connected to the bell's transformer in one way or another.

And other wires were too.

I think over time there were a number of "clever" people who connected various things together to make noise with as little wire as possible.

Doorbells.  Phones. Switches/buttons in various rooms to summon "The Help".

Splices everywhere.

Partially visible wires that eventually disappear into a wall or ceiling.

3 hours of tracing wire just to get back to where I started the day: with the back doorbell working after I removed as much wire as I thought prudent.

Then 2 more hours tracing the front doorbell wiring, trying to determine where all the splices are going.

Finally I just gave up and cut the splices.  Wherever they were going wasn't working anyway...

But the front doorbell is working again.