Having done regular house calls for some years I understand the dilemma. If you press the bell and hear nothing, what do you do? If the bell is not working you then need to wait a long time (which is a nuisance if you are in a hurry) as knocking too soon sounds rude if the bell did in fact go off in a distant part of the house. My solution was to ring the bell and immediately knock as well (unless I actually heard a fairly loud bell). And you still get criticised for that. It is impossible to win with some people.
calling, by arrangement to collect something, I rang the bell - no reply so I tried again - no reply so I knowed. Went back to my car and found a phone number - rang and got voicemail, so I wa s about to drive away when my phone rang - Oh I was in the shower. no, the doorbell doesn't work. This at a house which two expensive cars outside - both with personalised number platesso perhaps they couldn't afford to get a new door bell.
And not that uncommon (and hence why people knock / flap etc).
Maybe vanity means more to them than visitors ... or because they have spent all their money on their vanity they can't afford to pay someone to look at it for them (as they probably wouldn't know, or be bothered to look into what to do themselves)? ;-)
We have rechargeable batteries in our main (wired) doorbell unit and as they go flat the 'Ding-dong' randomly just becomes a 'Ding'. At that point I get the second set of 4 x rechargeable C cells into the bell unit and put the others on charge. ;-)
they don't want to waste the time. Waiting 20 seconds on 20% of dead bells adds up when you're a courier. Skipping the bell of course causes them to not be heard.
Well I told my butler to contact the handyman ... he obviously forgot, what am I expected to do ! C cells seem a bit OTT you could use rechargble AAAs you could also use a solar panel to recharge the batteries. A windmill might do it too. ;-) Then you'd have free doorbell power and help save the enviorment.
I don't actually mind if they ring, and knock as well. The problem is that a knock is rarely heard due to the layout of the house.
Ours is like that (but brass). Bought many years ago while on holiday in Hereford (!). Large slot, the criterion at the time was that a copy of Personal Computer World would go through it!
Of course. So would I if that's all it did. But it's integrated with the PBX, and the bell push actually rings all the phones in the house (and a garden bell). Guarantees we will hear it. Also logs the date and time.
Me neither (all things considered) but from our POV *in* the house it's 'Ding-dong' and before we have even stood up, 'knock knock knock' (on the glass in the door) immediately followed by 'flap flap'.
It puts you in the feeling of 'Ok, I'm going as fast as I can!' but whilst that is exactly what they want you to do, they don't necessarily mean it quite like that. ;-)
Similar hear but mostly because a single knock could be loads of other things. ;-)
The other strange thing is we have both thought we have heard the doorbell very early in the morning when it didn't actually go off at all.
I might look again to see if I can get one to fit our uPVC door.
Hey, you know how to live eh ... and I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one that often explores the local shops (all of them), even when on holiday. ;-)
For Dad it was similar but Photography related materials and magazines. ;-)
Because C cells were for larger short curent usage, those and D cells were standard in the days you had to drive a mechanical a solendiod that hit tw o bells alterantively.
That doesn't indicate recharchable cells are required. Cs & Ds were used for long life with interminatend discharge. It just seems a bit of a waste to use C recharables that's all.
OK for me they'd have seemed a bit pricey for the use they are put to. We have over a dozen DMMs we stopped using partly because they used 6 X C cells. C cells are about 4x the price of AA/AAA.
So you need 4 in the bell unit and 4 on charge that's about £30+ worth of batteries just seems a lot to me. I had a simialar bell cheap alkaline lasted over 3 years and I only needed 4 at a time.
of course not but well done for buying a white doorbell ;-)
A couple of years ago a student project was to make something that could b e powered by renewable energy a combined doorbell and letter box was design ed. Using a solar panel and a detector on the letter flap that would if activat ed send you an email that you'd got post, the students never did understand why I found this funny.
It's a difficult one to work out. Did yuo work out the enviomental ineffcic ny of producing an extra 4 cells. I don't supose yuo saw Horizon the othernight with prof cox calculating the infrastructure power wise needed to replace everything with re-newable.
Many years ago barely out of my teens I obtained (legally) the air horns off a scrapped British Rail locomotive and with a supply of Co2 from a brewery bottle and a suitable 12v solenoid air valves had fun with them on various cars. They were between cars when a mate held a party and as a wheeze we place the caboosh in a dustbin by the door and arranged for the bell push to work the solenoid. On the bell push was affixed a notice DO NOT RING BELL. Sure enough the neighbour had a moan about the noise to the old bill like he always did at about 11pm despite that we always toned things down from about 11.30 and only held a couple party's each year at beginning and end of Summer. Midnight the Horns went off, the door was opened to reveal a couple of Police Officers who had finally got around to calling. " we've come to investigate a noise complaint" said one "you'll probably get a load more now , can't you read" said the person who opened the door. Meanwhile the second officer a young WPC was unsuccessfully trying to suppress a fit of the giggles at her surprised colleagues embarrassment.
We just a a proper bell transformer in the electricity cupboard. It lights the bell-push up as well so visitors are more likely to see it. My wife can be a bit anti-social at time though, so she often doesn't answer at all while I am out at work!
The chargers are more expensive, and you may only have the AA/AAA type. Maplin sell battery converters than hold AA cells and are the size of C (or D) cells. (For that matter, judging from the mAh rating C and D rechargeables may be AA batteries in oversized cases. AA batteries can be up to 2400 mAh.)
I have a bell, no knocker. It's a brass bell with a piece of string to pull, the whole mechanism is out in the porch in full view. Most people still hammer on the door.
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