Need help repairing a doorbell from old ADT install

bfollowell

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My wife and I own a few rental homes. We're currently working on one after a tenant left. They had installed a DIY ADT Blue system and left most of it at our rental. I've removed everything but the problem is the doorbell camera. I'm really not sure what all they modified with their install. I removed the camera and reinstalled a basic doorbell push-button, but nothing worked. I opened the chime box and nothing is wired to the chime. The original wiring is wire-nutted to other wires that go back into the wall, and I'm assuming into the attic, so that explains why the chime isn't working. The strange thing is that I have 18-20VAC at the chime wires whether the doorbell button is pressed or not. If I'm thinking correctly, their should be no voltage at the chime unless the button is pressed, but I have voltage there constantly, so I'm not sure what they did. I guess I'm going to have to go into the attic and try to find the transformer and whatever else they may have changed up there.

Any ideas what may be going on with it or how an ADT Blue Doorbell Camera is wired that might cause this?

Thanks.
 

bfollowell

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I'll checked it out, and that's pretty much how a Ring or any other doorbell camera I've ever seen works, but that's not how this one is setup. I think I may have figured out what they've done though. It's just a guess, and I can't go over for a couple of days to check it out, but it sounds reasonable in my head.

I think I had two wires coming in at the chime from the switch and two wires coming in there from the transformer. I suspect that one of the wires from the switch and one of the wires from the transformer were originally tied together, then the other two wires went to the chime. Press the button, the circuit is completed, the chime sounds. They disconnected those, connected the two transformer wires to the original switch wires, effectively providing 18-20VAC to the doorbell switch. They connected the ADT doorbell camera. Pressing the button on the camera likely made some wireless chime work, which would explain why nothing was connected to the chime when I opened it up. Or maybe they never had a chime at all and only used the app. Nothing else would make sense since they had nothing connected to the chime.

I'll check it out in a couple of days. I'm sure, once I separate the wires, two of them will provide voltage from the transformer. I'm fairly certain that the other two will be coming from my doorbell switch. It'll be easy enough to have my wife press the button and check for continuity. Assuming I'm correct in my thinking, it'll only take another five minutes to wire it back correctly and button everything back up. I'll try to remember to come back here and post my findings, in case anyone else has a similar issue in the future.

Thanks for your reply.
 

bfollowell

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I got over quicker than I thought I would. I found what I thought I’d find. I determined which wires went to the switch and which to the transformer and then the fixing was easy enough. Everything is working well now.
 
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