Electrical – Tried to move the doorbell over a few feet but now it constantly rings like a school fire alarm

doorbellelectrical

I bought one of those older looking doorbell replicas. It's brand new but it's designed to look like the older models. It has the long tubes that hang about 3ft from the box. In order to make this work I relocated the doorbell on the wall completely by about 2.5ft. I couldn't keep it where it originally was located since it is over a door (due to the long tubes being in the way).

I bought doorbell wire from H.D. and also used romex to run behind the wall to extend to my new location. I hooked the red to red and the white to white and I hooked up the Romex correctly (black-black and white to white and bare copper to bare copper). I then hooked up the red doorbell to the transformer and did the same with the white. The red and white wires that come from the buzzer connect to the transformer (in my case, I'm using front and trans but not using the rear since I have no back doorbell).

I had the circuit off at the panel. After I finished my connections I turned the power back on and the bells constantly rang. It sounds like a fire alarm in a high school. So I turned off the power, inspected the wiring to make sure there was no crossing of the red and white and couldn't see anything. I then tried switching the red and white from the front and trans on the transformer (basically just reversed them thinking this might have been the issue) and still got the same constant ringing. I then tried to reconnect my old doorbell to see if my new doorbell was defective. After doing that I heard the old doorbell ring just once. So I thought I was right. But then when I walked into the room where the doorbell is located I could hear this loud buzzing sound. I then tried pressing the doorbell button at the front door and it wouldn't work. But the buzzing sound was constant.

I can't see or comprehend what I did wrong. All I basically did was extend the Romex and doorbell (red and white) wiring by about three feet behind the wall. Does anyone have any idea what I did wrong? I am so perplexed by this. I'm guessing it must have to do with the red and white wiring. Because, if I had done something wrong with the Romex wouldn't it have blown the circuit and turned itself to the "OFF" position?

Best Answer

I figured things out and was hoping to delete my question before it got any responses. I knew I did something wrong on my end. What I grossly misremembered were the wire connections before dismantling in the first place. Basically what I did (that was wrong) was wire the two red and white wires from the buzzer on the wall to the transformer; one per terminal. Then I wired a red and white from the doorbell chimes (front and trans) to match the red and white wired I connected to the terminals on the transformer. This was why the constant ringing was happening. It wasn't until I followed this diagram that I got it to work:

enter image description here

I got the above image from this site: Basic diagram of doorbell wiring.

I normally take a photo of whatever it is I'm about to dismantle with my smartphone and then mimic it when I redo it with a new product or after I move it to another location. This time I neglected to do that.