The "bell transformer" is usually attached to the closed junction box that makes it easy to run the wires to the buttons and the bell.
In my case, the builder attached it to the box that was part of the central vac. My point is that it could be on just about any 120 volt circuit including "dedicated" circuits for things like dishwasher, washing machines, etc.
The high voltage side probably is wire nutted on. Pull the wire nuts, and check for voltage with a VOM set to AC volts (high enough scale, thank you....) and have someone flip breakers. Yelll at the person when the voltage goes from 116.83333 to 0. Have him (her) leave that breaker off.
Rueful chuckle. Yet another on the long list of household chores that is trivial when you live with others, but a major PITA when you live alone. Mapping the breakers and rationalizing and load-balancing the wiring layout has been on my to-do list for a couple years, but living alone, it would take a bazillion trips up and down the stairs.
aem sends...
Thanks. The good news is that the transfomer is directly above the breaker box. Save some voice probably (g).
Sound like a good game for when the nieces and nephews come over at Christmas (G).
Yeah, but living alone, I'm always the one that gets to travel. 'Well, it just makes more sense to only buy ONE plane ticket, doesn't it?'
aem sends....
Maybe tell trick or treaters that the goodies are down in the basement and they can get them by throwing a special switch? I would guess if the kids don't want to do it, you might be able to get the cops to do it when they come over. With the extra added advantage of having radio communications.
There are ways around it.
I know a couple ways to trace breakers with some trips up the stairs, but not as many. Plug in a radio into the socket, and turn it up full blast. When you find the breaker that turns the radio on and off.....
Another alternative is to plug in two hair dryers, and deliberately trip the breaker.
Still, it's a lot of stairs. You don't know someone you can call, and who owns a couple FRS walkie talkies?
There's a 99% probability I'm about to tell you something you know already, but here goes, just in case.
A line voltage operated radio turned up loud along with a screw in "bulb socket to line cord receptical" adaptor can tell you which breaker controls what to help reduce the bazillion trips.
Jeff
I use this with a screw-in outlet receptacle. It saves having to test each breaker to find the circuit and then resetting all the digital clocks in the house.
My house (built around 1970) has a short cord attached to the transformer, and plugged into the same duplex receptacle as the (gas) furnace.
If the transformer is warm and if that means the button is stuck in, I would go check the button. If it doesn't move in and out, if it stays stuck in pretty much and may have been stuck in, I would pry out the button, and disconnect one side. You don't have to; turn off anything to do this because the voltage is so; low.
If you could then ring the bell by touching one wire to the other, at the door, and if the transformer then cooled off, you may just have to replace the button. And like I say, you don't have to disconnect anything to do that.
I have no idea how warm a doorbell transformer gets when it's not doing anything, because they are indeed always running. However less current flows through their primary when the secondary is open, when no one is ringing the bell. So being warm may be normal or abnormal, depending on something I don't know and what you consider warm.
A friend put in a new storm door and had to remove the button so that only the two wires show now. So now I'm the only one who rings the bell, by grabbing the two wires and squeezing them together. Can't feel a thing, but no one else does it. he says.
My transformer is barely warn, although there is some load (one button is lighted).
Noisy stuff doesn't work for me- I've tried. Between the hearing loss and the tinnitus, I just can't tell without walking back upstairs. I'll probably end up dragging out the 100-foot extension cord, plugging it in upstairs, and connect to a droplight in the basement. That will at least narrow it down, and only require one stair-climb per room. Light goes out, go up and try all the other nearby sockets and fixtures with the probe. Annotate a copy of the floorplan (that I also have yet to make), indicating what breaker each and every device is on. Key that plan to a list taped inside service panel door. As to the radios- I actually can stuff a couple REAL
2-ways in my briefcase at work and bring them home overnight or over a weekend, and nobody will notice. But that requires another warm body, since even if I tape down the button, the radio times out in a couple minutes. Maybe a garage sale baby monitor would work better. Been trying to get my brother, the semi-retired plant engineer who did summers as a residential electrician as a kid, to come for a visit. (Just had my sister the tree-hugger come visit, and she insisted on redoing the overgrown front garden the previous owners left behind. Sweet of her, but we are having an extended drought here, so now I gotta water the stuff every day.)aem sends....
I'm a single guy living in a subdivision of (mainly) retirees, and a few young families that bought the houses where the retirees died. By definition, I am not to be trusted. On Halloween, I sit out on the front porch where the parents standing in driveway can see me.
Yes, there are dozens of ways I do it. I'm not a technician, but I play one at work. It is just a matter of getting motivated.
aem sends...
aem sends....
Very tempting, but hard to justify for a one-time use. Looks a lot like the cable sniffers we use at work for tracing cat5 runs. I presume the 'hound' end would also go off at any other fixtures on same string? Maybe I could buy it, get this place sorted out, and use it as a Christmas present for my techie brother.....
aem sends...
on 8/4/2007 4:53 PM aemeijers said the following:
If it was a one time use, it wouldn't be worth it, but I have used it a number of times since I bought it a year ago. My breaker box has had a number of additions since it was first installed, and the notes next to the breakers aren't exactly right.
Sounds like you really need a second set of hands.
I tried, man, but they all got better offers. This living alone in a world set up for couples and families is getting to be a downright PITA.
aem sends...
Sigh. I have the same problem. Hard to get anyone to help.
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