Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Push... Wow that Scared Me!





So for a little over a year now Maren and I have lived in our tiny little cottage. We have come love aspects of our beloved home, and a few of the... well things that need improvements. Maren has already started on a honey do list for this spring and summer. Just of few things that need maintaining and others that need to be fixed.
You are currently looking at one of the things that was on the list. Simple as it may look some things can be confusing to some. The previous tenets of our home lived in this house for approximately eight years. Come to find out, the entire time that they lived in the house, they didn't have a door bell. (This was discovered after I had fixed the door bell.)
As a student of Construction Management at BYU, I have taken a few classes that believe it or not, I have learned a thing or two. One such class was an Electrical Class. The intent of the class is to teach us enough about the trade that we can talk to subs and not look like idiots. Well in one of the my labs for this class we learned how to wire a door bell. Imagine my excitement. A few weeks later I was looking over some items on my back porch when I found and item. I thought to myself, I bet if I replace that then I can get the bell to work. So I went to Home Depot and found that the item was $15. I eventually bought the transformer and two door bell buttons. My grand total was somewhere near $16. Two weeks later I started to replace all the items. And spent more time looking for tools than actual wiring of the components. Now that I have a door bell Maren took down the sign that we had next to the door saying the doorbell is broken please knock.
That night after the door bell was working a neighbor came to my front door and rang the bell during dinner. I don't think I have jumped like that in a long while. It has taken a little getting used to having a door bell again, but it is sure nice to have.







All these pictures are here to show the transformer and how I have it connected to power. My house is not wired for a ground so you see the green wire with just a cap.
I did not change any of the original wiring. All that was done was replace everything on the ends of the wires. The actual bell on the wall is the unit that came with the house.