Sounds a bit like overkill to me. What would be the point of having an actual phone? it would need to be a speaker phone, nobody would be daft enough to put a handset exposed to the elements and vandals. The locals a bit the wose for alcohol tend to use my garden globe lights as footballs sometimes. Brian
Its way beyond wd 40, its actually squashed and I suspect the brass will break if I have to reset it many more times. Brian
Our local library has had one on their back door for several years, and the bell push isn't protected from the elements. The push did fail recently but it looked like it had been there for a couple of decades, so I stuck a new one up. Since then I've installed two more bells for family members who were fed up with wireless failures. Postmen love them. No way of knowing how long a given plastic is likely to survive UV exposure. Some plant labels disintegrate within months I notice!
The trouble with those cheap bell pushes is the shoddy innards of the button assembly. Quite often the push would either not ring or it would get stuck on and continually ringing.
One time (bizarely) the bell push decided to ring constantly of its own accord and simultaineously set next doors car alarm off. This was strange because I had not changed the channel on the bell and next doors car hadn't changed their car alarm. I've had at least 6 wireless door bells in the last 10 years. After the last one packed up I'd had enough and have since ordered a wired one.
Funnily enough, that looks exactly the same as the door bell push switch we've been using without any problems whatsoever these past 30 odd years. It's wired to an ex-GPO 12/24 volt trembler bell mounted on the other side of the door frame using until a few years ago, a 24v battery pack made up with a couple of 8 x AA cell holders glued back to back with double sided adhesive tape hanging from a screw head below the bell.
I resisted the temptation (I think!) to flood the innards with silicone grease on the basis that it was more likely to cause retention of moisture between the contacts formed from condensation. I'd rather accept the inevitable and less troublesome ingress of moisture due to rain which could readily drain out or evaporate before building up enough to bridge the contacts. Intermittently wet electrical connections have a much longer service life than those left in a permanent state of wetness.
When I bought myself a cordless door bell a decade or so back for my upstairs office, I decided to use the original bell push to trigger the wireless sender and wired it up to the sender unit mounted immediately below the battery via a 12v zenner and a standard 1N series diode so that the power came from the bell battery rather than its own internal 12v battery.
This worked a treat and the wireless bell push could still be operated independently of the front door bell, using its own internal battery, either for testing or for when the XYL came home with shopping and needed to attract my attention without resorting to screaming out loud to be heard via the closed office door and the oft times sound of music or a TV programme I'd happen to be auditioning.
The battery pack did eventually start to fade (gracefully) after a couple of decades, by which time the battery holders were beyond redemption due to corroded contacts.
When it came to a replacement battery pack, I had an attack of "Pragmatism" and simply spent a whole quid on a 3 pack of PP3s which I converted into a 27v battery courtesy of a couple of soldered wire straps, hanging the pack off of the wood screw previously used for my 24v monstrousity. The extra 3 volts proved not to be a problem with the "12 volt" wireless bell push so it was "Job Done", and rather neatly compared to what had gone before.
My only concern now is that by the time I need to replace said 3 x PP3 battery pack, the pound shops may have reduced the pack size down to just two. I think Poundland are still selling them in packs of three so I think I should buy a couple more packs whilst I still can and store them sealed from moisture ingress in the freezer. According to the wikipedia article this battery type *can* be frozen without damage.
For a door bell push switch, you *are* asking too much. They just need to be rainproof with a drain hole providing an escape route for any moisture ingress whether caused by rain or, more commonly, water vapour condensing inside the bell push housing.
Curiously enough, a requirement often comfortably exceeded by your common or garden "Two Brass Strips" classic bell push switch provided it's not over-exposed to wind blown driven deluges from every point of the compass by being mounted naked atop a gate post in an area famed for its high annual horizontal rainfall.
In the case of most suburban dwellings in the UK, the house itself shelters the bell push from a little more than half the compass points of exposure and mitigates the impact from the remaining compass points. It's surprising how often such cheap 'n' cheerful bell pushes can fulfil their function over decades of faultless service.
Obviously, there'll be exceptional circumstances demanding a more weatherproof solution, either a specially constructed bell push optimised to prevent driven rain ingress and provide improved moisture drainage and ventilation [1], or else the mounting of a classic door bell push switch within some form of protective cowling. The alternative, specialised gas proof switches used in places like petro-chemical plants tend to be a rather expensive and bulky 'overkill' solution for something as mundane as a door bell push switch.
[1] As has already been suggested, a magnetically operated reed switch design can readily achieve the erstwhile impossible gas tightness required to keep the switch contacts free of contamination by moisture, allowing the use of silicone grease to protect the wired connections from the inevitable condensation of the atmospheric humidity invariably present to a greater or lesser degree in the UK's climate. If you want even more sophistication, you could use a Hall Effect sensor switch and magnet, with a liberal coating of silicone grease over any exposed electrical connections.
I've had the *same* wireless door bell for the past decade (still going strong) but I have to admit that mounting its bell push on the *inside* of the front door frame may have had a lot to do with its longevity. :-)
As someone else has already suggested, your best bet is likely to be a bell push based on a magnetically operated reed switch (mercury wetted for preference), assuming the intercom doesn't call for anything more sophisticated than a simple "push to make" single pole switch.
If the existing switch involves more poles or uses a change-over contact or two, you can still use a magnetically operated reed bell push switch if you can incorporate a suitable relay to generate the more complex switching functions of the original switch.
Truly weatherproof switches need to be gas tight to prevent moisture ingress and these ain't cheap.
Is there some amplification involved, so that only a few mA is enough to sound the bell? If so, that's the problem. Water in normal bell pushes doesn't pass enough current to sound an old fashioned bell.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.