Whole Home Intercom Doorbell Retrofit With Video Doorbell

For this project I wanted to replace the home entrance intercom/doorbell next to the front door with a wireless video doorbell. Included was removing the main intercom station and replacing it with an electronic doorbell that could drive the doorbell tone to some of the existing satellite intercom stations in various rooms in the house.

There were three objectives of this project.

1. Replace the 90's era main control station of a whole house intercom with a digital doorbell.
2. Replace the front door intercom and doorbell button with a new wireless video doorbell.
3. Retain several room station intercoms to broadcast the electronic doorbell tone throughout the house.

Many whole home intercom systems had an electronic doorbell built-in. That is in addition to being able to use the intercom system to converse room to room there was a entrance intercom with a doorbell button. When someone at your door pushed the button, an electronic doorbell tone was sent to the main station and all the satellite room stations. From any one of those stations you could converse with the person at the front door.

When I first came up with this project I of course searched to find out if anyone had already done this. While I found several related YouTube videos and Internet posts, none of them were doing everything I wanted to do. Some of the posts were retaining the intercom system and just replacing the front door intercom with the video doorbell. Others replaced the intercom system with a doorbell but didn't try to utilize any room intercom stations to broadcast the doorbell tone.

Many homes built with a whole home intercom system are larger than an average home. With the electronic doorbell built into the intercom and the doorbell tone broadcast throughout every intercom station, you would be assured that the doorbell would never go unheard. Most replacement doorbells are designed to be placed in a single location. With a large home there could be some parts of the house were it can't be reliably heard. Since you already have a speaker in every room (the intercom satellite stations) why not utilize them in the solution?

As part of the overall solution I had planned to build some sort of an amplifier to broadcast the doorbell tone to the speakers in several of the intercom stations. Instead I ended up finding an electronic doorbell product with a built-in amplifier specifically designed to drive additional external speakers. However this doorbell was expensive. In fact this entire project ended up more expensive than I had originally estimated. Altogether including the video doorbell I spent over $350. But once I convinced myself it was worth the expense, on with the project!

Parts list:

• Madison Electric Products® Heavy Duty Four Gang Device Box
• Leviton® Four-gang blank plate model 88064
• Two Coolais® 12mm Momentary Push Button Switch 3A 250V AC PBSM-02 (High Head)
• Edwards Signaling® 598 120V 8/16/24V 30W Transformer
• Edwards Signaling® 593 Adapter Plate for 590 transformers
• 6.4" Blank Wall Plate Cover for Nutone® Speaker - 5.25" Screw Spread from Kyle Switch Plates®
• Video Doorbell. I selected an Amcrest® 1080P Video Doorbell Camera Pro model AD110
• YourBell® MP3 Programmable DoorBell model YB2004_UFO & YourBell® Video Door Button Interface (VDBI) model YB_ACC_008
• Wago® wire connectors
• plaster
• interior wall paint
• sandpaper

Tools:

• screwdriver
• drill and drill bits
• drywall saw

Because I was going to use the whole home intercom satellite stations to receive the electronic doorbell signal in addition to the electronic doorbell itself, my locations were limited. The only place where all of the satellite intercom wires came together was at the intercom central unit in the main hallway. So that had to be my location.

Most of these whole home intercoms are powered with a standard household 110-120 volt electrical line. So be sure to find the correct circuit and turn off the power to the main intercom station before continuing.

I removed the whole home intercom main station in the first floor hallway. My intercom central unit was an Audiotech model 460 (4-wire system). Take care to label the wires to the room satellite stations (mine were Audiotech model S56W) so you can identify them later.

The intercom installed into a plastic frame box that fit perfectly in the stud pocket between two 2x4 studs. Without cutting drywall I tried removing the plastic frame box. I was successful but it was difficult. In retrospect I wish I had just cut the drywall out around the box to begin with.

Because I chose to use an electronic doorbell with a built-in amplifier I needed to install this doorbell somewhere within reach of the main install location which was where the intercom central unit had been. I decided to install it on the opposite side of this wall which was in the stairwell to the second story.

This would provide a fairly central location where the electronic doorbell chime would be heard throughout much of the home. Where it could not be heard clearly is where I would utilize the existing satellite intercom stations.

After removing the central unit's plastic frame box, I installed a 4-gang device box in its place.I was careful to run the existing satellite station wires and the 110-120 volt electrical into the box.

The household 110-120 volt electrical connection was on the far right side. The in-wall rated 120V 8/16/24V 30W transformer was mounted next to that using the manufacturers mounting plate. The existing satellite wires were on the far left. I don't know if it was absolutely necessary but I fashioned a metal separator plate inside the box between these satellite wires and the transformer.

I carefully drilled two holes into the blank wall plate for the doorbell test button and the button that will rotate through the various programmable doorbell tones. You will want to use a sharp drill bit and drill from the outside to the back to prevent the plastic from chipping on the public facing side of the plate. Note that this is not easy to do. I placed several layers of tape on both sides of the wall plate. Next I cut a piece of wood that matched the inside depressed area of the plate.This was also taped to the inside of the plate to provide support when the drill bit was being pushed against it.

After everything was wired up I turned the power back on and tested it using the test and tone rotation buttons. After a couple of wiring mistakes were corrected the test was successful.

Don't forget to again turn off the 110-120 volt electrical power to the in-wall transformer before beginning this next step.

I removed the existing front door intercom/doorbell. I had decided early on not to try to alter the exterior of the home. Luckily I found a blank wall plate (6.4" Blank Wall Plate Cover for Nutone® Speaker - 5.25" Screw Spread from Kyle Switch Plates®) that fit over the existing exterior intercom mounting box. I will install the new video doorbell on top of this plate.

I drilled a central wire pass through hole in the center of the plate and drilled holes for the mounting screws.

I followed the manufacturers instructions for installing the video doorbell.

I turned the power back on and tested. Success!

Lastly I fixed the drywall around the new 4-gang electrical box, sanded and painted.