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Q We have two doors that are wired to the same doorbell chime. The problem is that whenever someone rings the doorbell, we can’t tell which door they’re at. The doorbells in other homes I lived in ring “ding-dong” at the front door and “ding” at the back door. How do I rewire the house so this doorbell tells us which door to answer?
A You shouldn’t have to do any major rewiring to fix the chime unless the doorbell wires from both buttons were spliced together somewhere before entering the chime box. Pull off the chime box cover and you’ll see three terminal screws. One is a common terminal where one wire of the transformer goes. One of each of the other wires goes to the other two screws. The main doorbell wire is usually red and goes to the screw marked with an “F” or Front. It rings “ding-dong.” The rear doorbell wire is usually green and goes to the screw marked with a “B” or Back. It rings “ding.” If you only have two wires at the chime, your wires are spliced together elsewhere. You’ll need to either fish a new wire from the splice to the chime box or buy and install one of the new wireless doorbells available at home centers.
