On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:48:22 -0500, George
wrote:

Leroy wrote:


yeah, the article stated 3 lousy watts for a *lighted* doorbell. I doubt
that an unlighted doorbell switch even draws a watt. It's a transformer
but it has *no* load on it at all except for the brief moment it's pushed.
Much ado about Nothing.


But a transformer with no load consumes power which is largely given off
as heat. You can observe this by feeling the transformer. Such loads
collectively add up to a lot of waste. If you have purchased any devices
that use external power supplies (cell phone charger, router in recent
times you will notice that that they no longer use transformers and come
with much more efficient switching power supplies. When it comes to
power waste slow and steady wins the race.

One watt for a year would be about a dollar a year. The payback
on all the OP's effort will take a Long time. g

The fact that my doorbell transformer is not remotely warm to the
touch would indicate to me it is not dissipating 3 watts of power (and
it IS powering an incandescent lighted push button)

The lighted button helps find the key in the dark, so I don't really
care if it costs me $3 a year.