The oldest working doorbell?

[PaulR]

I suspect that the transformer for our door bell was fitted when the house was built in 1935 although the bell is a little newer. It is screwed to the underside of the stairs in the understairs cupboard and I must say I have concerns about fire if anything happens to it.

[Herald1360]

Add one of the thermal fuse thingies that modern wall warts etc use if you want more peace of mind.

Mind you if the transformer's still good after 75 years, it's not likely to fail in a hurry.

[bayleaf-123]

When I was quite small, my parents took me to a small southern French village called Frejus situated on the slopes of, I believe, the Alpes, Maritime. We visited an ancient house still being lived in since the 12th-13th century. Housed in the outer wall of about 24 inches, was an iron? bell operated by a rod from the outside, which had a ball on the end. Pulling down on the ball caused the rod to lift and strike the bell. The inner end of the rod had a riveted repair done in the mists of time and the bell had been repositioned so many times it was now struck on the least damaged part of the rim. The outer ball was also worn by peasants none too clean hands to a hanging half ball! It may still be there, but deforestation above led to a devastating flood, in I think the early sixties that devastated the village and led to a huge concrete culvert down the hill to cause one of the ugliest carbuncles ever to be inflicted on an otherwise unchanged beautiful place.

Weedy.

[Herald1360]

Technically I guess that the Frejus Bell is inadmissible in this forum, being purely mechanical. (Mind you, so was my Clink-clank doorbell in post #13). So probably mid C19th is about the oldest possibility.

This:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oxford-electric-bell

isn't exactly a doorbell, but it's notable for its longevity!

[blackbill]

Hi, my house has still the original bell indicator board. It is wired in double cotton covered wire. the only thing different is that it is now powered by a 1950's transformer instead of wet cells. The house was built in 1900 and the first owner was according to records was a master plumber. Plumbers used to be the early bell installers, using tin pipes and mechanical wires to actuate the bell. I think my house was used a a showcase for electric wiring as it has the Bedroom 3 push 8ft from the indicator board. There is an indicator for a bathroom, which is a joke because in 1900 there was no inside bathroom.

[broadgage]

Originally Posted by PaulR

I suspect that the transformer for our door bell was fitted when the house was built in 1935 although the bell is a little newer. It is screwed to the underside of the stairs in the understairs cupboard and I must say I have concerns about fire if anything happens to it.

The risk may be reduced by fixing the transformer to a piece of fire resistant board, rather than it being directly fixed to woodwork.
Even thick plasterboard would help.
Or relocate the transformer to a brick wall.

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by Herald1360

I also have the bell pictured, waiting for a use. I reckon it could be 100 years old or so, maybe even 19th century. It works perfectly well.

I have a very similar one, just rescued from doorbell use in my house..... I installed it there 12 years ago and it has served as the doorbell perfectly.

The more interesting thing is that it survived being modified for use as a large relay when I was playing with radio controlled boats in the mid-sixties! Maybe I used it as a rudder actuator too, but there is still the evidence where I sanded the bell striker to make better electrical contact......

Richard

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by Herald1360

Technically I guess that the Frejus Bell is inadmissible in this forum, being purely mechanical. (Mind you, so was my Clink-clank doorbell in post #13). So probably mid C19th is about the oldest possibility.

This:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oxford-electric-bell

isn't exactly a doorbell, but it's notable for its longevity!

I had an ex-WW2 'TABBY' night scope powered with a Zamboni pile and using a British infra-red tube produced in 1939! Unfortunately the battery was dead, but I have read about other ones still working after nearly 70 years.

That wasn't a door bell either!

Richard

[unabridged]

Hi all. Not technically a doorbell but that is what the intended use of it will be in a few months!

I pulled this bell out of a skip at my school when I left 6 years ago. It was plastered with paint and the arm was jammed, with various bits of fabric cable hanging out of its orifices. These were installed in 1968 when the school was built and were in use as part of the fire system up until 2007. Recently I had it shot blasted back to bare then built up layers of primer, and an original dove grey style paint. Polished the gong and improved the internal wiring.

Its a 24 volt bell - I managed to get a 24 volt fire transformer from a source, and wired it up ready to roll (fitted an old Crabtree plug to keep in with the era). My intention is to use an MK bell switch on the secondary (24 volt) side to switch the bell. At present however it works perfectly on the bench wired directly to the 24 volt output. It really has a fantastic ring (and got loads of likes on Facebook with its local history links :P )

Now thats a proper bell, I bet it's got a lovely ring.

[PaulR]

You certainly wouldn't sleep through it when the carrier brings that new radio at 7 on a Saturday morning

[matthewhouse]

There's an almost exact one of those in an office in Tiverton. I forget what it was doing and what office it was in, but it was still in use. This one had a 240V a.c. coil.

[unabridged]

Yes! It sounds fantastic

I'm sure there were various versions of them. I see them on a daily basis at the different buildings I visit - in various states of repair and use. They seem to have been a standard bit of kit for any industrial or semi industrial application. I either see them covered in rust and disconnected or not too pretty and just functional. Like to think it's a rarity to see a mint one. Looking forward to getting it into use.

[P.Pilcher]

Well, for what it is worth, at the age of 8 I moved wih my parents into a new house - in May 1955. Shortly afterwards I helped my father install a friedland "ding-dong" type chime powered by a bell transformer. The unit could also be wired to give a single "dong" if another bell push was fitted at, say, the back door. The chime has been working ever since as it still does today 58 years later having never needed any form of maintenance from the day we installed it.

P.P.

[tawnyman]

I don't know how old it is, there's no information on it at all, but I renovated one recently, coil was cloth-wound wire. Unfortunately it's missing its case so I'll have to knock one up for it. Would measuring the coil resistance give any clue as to the intended voltage? This one runs well on 9v.
Julian

[Herald1360]

I suspect 9V is a bit OTT for that sort of bell.

Coil resistance per se isn't much of an indicator as I suspect the inductance has a part to play as well. I'd be inclined to reduce the voltage as low as it would go whilst still providing a nice ring, then feed it from the next higher multiple of 1.5V. Some of the old wet bell batteries probably provided their own current limiting from polarisation effects and fairly high internal resistance.

[tawnyman]

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who lavishes time on things most people wouldn't give a second look at! Julian

[Mooly]

Its fun to do an off the wall calculation on things like this. I've no idea what the no load consumption of one of these things is (we have one too from when the house was built in 53) but if it were say 3 watt then that means its used around 1600 Kwh over that time. Enough to heat a 3.4Kwh storage heater for around 60 days heating from cold each time.

We don't get many rings at the door (and the butler always attends to such matters anyway ) but calculating the duty cycle and energy used (and wasted) in relation to energy used when the bell push is actually in use is interesting. The mice appreciate the warmth of the transformer though.

If the bell had been battery powered instead I suspect it would have worked out cheaper to run.

[broadgage]

Yes, unless an electric bell gets a great deal of use,battery operation is often cheaper than mains.
A bell transformer might typicly use 2 or 3 watts forever, perhaps 20 KWH a year. That will cost about £3 a year, not much but still a waste.
3 or 4 alkaline D cells would cost about £5 and in infrequent use would last about the shelf life of the cells, at least 5 years and perhaps 10 years.

I have used the same battery for my doorbell for nearly 20 years, replacing it only recently, and it was not new when installed in about 1985. Zinc carbon 991 lantern battery.

[julie_m]

My doorbell is running from a "wall wart" that outlived its appliance. 10V AC (minus the voltage drop in the flimsy bell wire) gives a nice, loud "ding-dong". But it's easy to forget about that magnetising current!

I suppose I should plumb it in to my solar-charged 12V batteries, really .....