Door Bell issues...

I just purchased a house and when I moved in the door bell did not work. I went into the basement and found the wire that runs to the buttons (front door, and side door). I then followed the wire to the circut breaker. The wire was hanging above the circut breaker not attached to anything There were two screws on the side of the circut breaker that also had no wires going to it and from the position of the wire hanging this was a very logical solution. I screwed the wires to the screws and I had a working door bell! .... well until last week. After visitors kept knocking on the door I tried the door bell to see why no one was using it. The button is still lit up but when you push it, the bell does not ring. The wires are still connected in the basement. So... two questions... 1. Why would you suppose the wires were disconnected in the first place? 2. Why would the bell stop working now?. Thanks for any replies, they are much appreciated!

 

Something is wrong with your question.

Door bells do not connect directly to circuit breakers. Door bells run off much lower voltages, from a transformer.

Thw wiring from the buttons should go to the bell (or buzzer or whatever) and to the transformer.

Why don't you describe the wiring, including the bell, both buttons and the transformer and perhaps we can offer assistance.

 

Thanks for the reply and for pointing out an oversite on my part. The wiring is to the transformer. It is next to the circut breaker in the basement (both mounted on the same piece of plywood). two wires connect to two screws on the transformer. I have not looked at the transformer in too much detail yet. I will to that tonight. The bell has two bars, one on top and one on the bottom with two "plungers" in the middle. There are three screws on the cover of the plungers and only two wires are screwed to them, the middle screw and the right most screw. (also both door bells when working gave the same ring... just a ding without a dong) I have not looked at the wiring behind the buttons yet. They still light up so I figured all is well on the button end. That may be just an assumption on my part. I hope this additional information helps. Thanks again for your reply.

 

Chance are that either the button or the chime was sticking and somebody disconnected the wires from the transformer to get rid of the buzzing. So you could replace either one or both. Buttons cost a couple of bucks and chime units start at about $8 and go up depending on how fancy you want them.