The main doorbell chime box in my hallway has been making this horrible, high pitched buzzing sound every single time someone rings the front button, and yesterday it just died completely. I picked up a basic mechanical chime unit at the hardware store, thinking it would be a simple case of disconnecting two low voltage wires and screwing the new plastic box to the wall. Instead, dealing with old, brittle copper wiring inside the plaster turned the whole thing into a massive puzzle.
The absolute worst part was that the wiring holes on the new baseplate didn’t align with the old wall anchors at all. When I tried to back out the ancient mounting screws, the dry plaster around the box completely crumbled apart, leaving a giant, messy hole right in the middle of the hallway wall. I had to spend thirty minutes hunting down plastic toggle bolts just to get the new backing frame to sit stable against the wall without falling out. Every time I drilled, more white chalky dust dropped straight down onto my face.
Then came the real nightmare of matching up the terminal wires. The old wires weren’t labeled at all, and the copper was so brittle from age that the main front door line snapped right at the base when I tried to twist the screw terminal. I was stuck balanced on a chair with a flashlight, using wire strippers to carefully shave back the tiny bit of remaining insulation while terrified I’d snap the wire completely inside the drywall where I couldn’t reach it.
The box is finally bolted down tightly now and the plastic cover snaps over the frame cleanly. The chime actually makes a normal sound now when you hit the exterior button instead of that annoying electrical buzz, but the wall right underneath the plastic shell is still totally covered in white plaster scratches that I’ll have to paint over eventually. The doorbell functions fine now.