Do you have an older wired doorbell button or simply want to replace a wired doorbell button with a new design? At first, it could seem a little overwhelming, but it’s a fairly straightforward process if have the right tools and the know-how. Please watch the short video below where our friend, Dennis Coffey demonstrates how to replace a wired doorbell button. As always, we recommend you hire a certified electrician. If you decide to do this yourself, please ensure you cut off electricity to the push button before working on it.
How to Replace a Doorbell Button Video Transcript
Hey folks, I’m Dennis. Thanks for watching my video. Today, I’m going to show you how to replace the doorbell button on your outside door. If your doorbell button is broken or if the light has quit working, which is what usually happens and you want to have a lighted doorbell, this is how you replace it.
First thing you got to do is get a replacement doorbell button and make sure that it says it’s lighted if you want a lighted doorbell button. I’ve already taken mine out, but I’ll show you how to disconnect it. and how to put the new one in. Turn the breaker off to your doorbell. Sometimes that’s a little bit of a challenge to find, especially if the light in your doorbell button doesn’t work, um, or if your button is broken.
Normally, if you’re, if you’ve got a light near the door where the doorbell button is, it’ll be that breaker because they usually jump it off the light fixture that’s nearest. You can throw that breaker, make sure you got the lights that are nearest the doorbell button, and then try the doorbell to, uh, make sure it’s not going to ring.
Um, if your button’s broken, um, the best thing to do is to have a meter and check the voltage across the terminals on the button to make sure there’s no voltage there. The voltage on a button is really low voltage, so it’s not going to hurt you, but you don’t want to take any chances. So you’re going to have two wires that go to your doorbell button.
Um, it’s going to be black or black and red or green and yellow or any combination thereof. Doesn’t really matter. Um, you’re gonna need generally a Phillips screwdriver, sometimes a slotted, sometimes they’ll take both. You can see what’s happened with mine is the button itself is broken. Uh, anyway, you’re gonna disconnect the terminal.
That’s gonna leave a couple of bare wires.
Just pull that off and then make sure that your, make sure your wires are good. If they’re in good shape, you may not have to strip them back. Um, and, uh, Redo the ends of the wires, but Just check them and make sure that they’re okay. Then you take your replacement doorbell button It’ll come with, generally it’ll come with screws.
Most of these things are the same on the back You should have a hole where your, where your wire comes out and a recess for the back of this, of this button right here So this whole part will fit in there. Take your terminals and Loosen them. The wire is going to go You want the wire to go between the lug, which is the square part, and the screw head.
So that’s where you’re gonna, you’re gonna put the wire right in between those two surfaces, the bottom of the screw head and the, and the lug. It does not matter which wire goes to which terminal. Makes no difference at all. So I’m gonna take my wire and I’m gonna bend it into a hook, like so. And then I’m going to hook it onto the screw so that tightening of the screw will actually pull the wire into the connection.
You don’t really want it to like pull it, but you don’t want it to force it out. So that’s why I hook it in a counter, or in a clockwise direction.
And then you just tighten that up good and snug. Same thing with the other side. Bend that into a, bend that into a hook. And then put it on there so that when you turn the screw clockwise, it tightens the wire or kind of pulls the wire into the connection. That makes sense. I’m not really saying that right, but I think you probably get the gist of what I’m saying.
Okay. When you tuck the, tuck the wire for the doorbell into the hole, get the, get the doorbell itself in the hole. Now in my particular case, I relocated my doorbell because I just put a storm door on, so I’m going to have to drill a couple of holes for the screws. And in that case, I’m going to use a, uh, I’m going to use a real small bit, like a 1 16th bit.
Put the doorbell where I want it.
Drill a couple of pilot holes, like so. Take the screws that come with the doorbell.
I get them both in before I seeded either one of them. Just to be safe. Make sure you get them in the pilot holes you drilled.
And I’m going to go turn on the power and I should get a light. And there we go. Now the light is fixed. And the doorbell works. Thanks for watching my video folks. Please give it a thumbs up. Like it, share it, subscribe to my channel if you would and I hope to see you back soon. Thank you and God bless.
