Door bell query

My transformer is located next to the consumer unit, under the floor sounds like a potential fire hazard so worth tracking if you can.

Typical bell wire is often solid core. The switch is beside the door, so presumably there is no wire movement, but heat and vibration over a long period may have broken it, possibly near the bell itself as it recovered when that was moved.

In message snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net>, Jeff Gaines snipped-for-privacy@outlook.com writes

Quite right. Further searching has found it in the meter cupboard. Clearly marked Friedland and with bell wire disappearing into the wall.

Not obvious because our meter cupboard is like something out of Mission Control packed full of stuff, not least being twenty fuses, all using proper fuse wire. One board of 8, another of 6, then 4 and 2.

In message snipped-for-privacy@jrenewsid.jretrading.com>, Joe snipped-for-privacy@jretrading.com writes

Yes, it is solid core and yes, I had the same thought myself after posting. I'll have another fiddle, to try and isolate where the break may be.

In message snipped-for-privacy@binnsroad.myzen.co.uk>, Graeme snipped-for-privacy@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes

That's where mine is. I found it when I was doing some re-wiring.

Brian

For a bit of fun if you have a smart meter with an IHD you might like to see how much power it’s drawing all the time. I imagine it’s warm to touch. Some of these old transformers draw a significant amount of power 24/7.

Obviously one man’s “significant” is another man’s “inconsequential” but it would be good to know what it’s consuming.

Tim

Along the same lines, electronic bits powered from the mains directly, like wireless doorbell chimes and 'smart' power switches, will normally draw a quiescent power of 1-3W. Using a remote power switch to 'turn off your TV at the mains instead of leaving it in standby' might save no power at all.

Depends on who built the system

I have a 22 year old solid state mains to 12V dimmable lighting transformer built into a partition wall.....

We have a Friedland bell. It was here when we bought the house in 1997. It is battery powered, 4 D cells. I’ve never needed to replace them. True, I fitted a Video bell a couple of years back but I left the old bell etc in place as a back up and some people still use it.

I think an old fashioned doorbell driven by batteries is one of relatively rare occasions when batteries make more sense than a mains power supply for a non-portable device.

Tim

When we redecorated the hall recently, I ran some wires through the wall into the garage with the idea of adding an interface so I could make the bell work with the Eufy video bell ( as is, they aren’t compatible) and that will include a mains supply. The project is about 998 on my wife’s list of job’s for me to do.

She lets the list get that long?

Does she have a sister :-)

She just adds to its quickly.

One of a kind.