Intercom repair in Paris: no longer rings, no longer opens, and whose responsibility it is

An entryphone is a small electrical system in its own right — a street panel, a power supply, cabling rising through the building, a handset or monitor in each flat, and a door release that frees the door. When one part fails, the symptom depends on which, and that's what lets us locate the fault before dismantling anything. For our general method, see our electrical troubleshooting page.

The three faults, and what they point to

It no longer rings

If you alone no longer hear the ring while the neighbours do, the fault is in your flat: tired handset, cable unplugged behind it, ring volume set to zero — it happens more often than you'd think. If nobody in the building hears anything any more, the fault is shared: street panel, power supply, riser cabling.

One case is worth knowing: on two-wire systems, a single faulty handset can take the whole building down, because it short-circuits the common line. The neighbour who tinkered with their intercom last Sunday seems to have nothing to do with it, and yet. We find it by disconnecting the handsets one by one.

You can hear, but the door won't open

You talk to the visitor, you press the button, nothing happens. The suspect is downstairs: worn or jammed door release, the release's power supply, the handset's open button, or the control cabling. What separates the cases is whether the door opens from the other flats — if yes, it's your handset; if no, it's the release or its supply, and that's shared.

The screen stays black

On a video entryphone, a monitor with no picture but with sound points to the monitor itself or its supply; neither picture nor sound for everyone points to the panel's camera or the general supply. Video monitors are often proprietary parts: we check compatibility before offering you one.

Private part or common part: who calls, who pays

This is the question that blocks everything. The rule is stable: what's inside your flat — the handset or monitor and the cable up to the junction box on your landing — is private, at your expense. What serves the whole building — the street panel, the supply, the door release, the riser cabling — is common, at the co-ownership's expense, on the managing agent's order.

In practice the diagnosis serves precisely to establish which side the fault is on, and we tell you clearly so the bill goes to the right place. When the fault is shared, it's the managing agent or the residents' committee who instructs us — our page on the electrician for co-ownerships explains how that works, from the quote to the owners' meeting.

What we repair, and what we replace

We start by testing in order: the handset, the line, the supply, the panel, the release. Most faults are fixed by replacing a single part — a handset, a power supply, a release — for a few tens of euros in hardware, and the entryphone is back the same day.

Replacing a handset needs one precaution: it has to be compatible with the building's system, which is often proprietary. A handset of another brand won't ring, or won't open the door. We identify the system before ordering, and we tell you honestly whether the part can still be found.

When the whole street panel is at the end of its life, or when the building was never cabled for an entryphone, it becomes a co-ownership decision: replacing the panel, or for small buildings with no riser, a wireless entryphone that calls the occupants' phones directly. We price both, and the meeting chooses.

A point of honesty: on recent panels with electronic access control, programming the fobs is the job of the system's installer or manager, not the electrician. We handle the whole electrical side — supply, release, cabling, handsets — and point you to the right contact for the rest rather than wasting your time.

Our intervention

For a broken entryphone in Paris or the inner suburbs, we come within 24 to 48 hours, faster in the 15th where our base is — and on the common parts of the 16th, in Passy or Auteuil, where managing agents call on us regularly. Callouts start at €132 incl. VAT, covering travel and the first half hour, which covers the diagnosis and the replacement of a handset or a power supply in most cases. The cost of a part is told to you before continuing, and if we don't find the fault you aren't charged for the callout.

Our electrician pricing is public; for a slot, contact us and say whether the fault affects your flat alone or the whole building — that already steers the diagnosis.