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I bought a house recently. Some of the wiring, particularly in the basement, while not obviously unsafe, is... inspired.

On the side of a junction box in the basement, there's a device with two thin wires coming off of it, going up into a hole. I believe, but don't know for sure, that above the hole is an exterior wall, but there's nothing on that wall that would use such thin wires - just switches and outlets, which I'd hope are fed from the thicker cables also going through that hole.

So what is this thing?

Emily
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4 Answers4

35

Looks like a doorbell transformer. Prolly output is 24 V ac from input 120 V ac in the metal box.

Jim Stewart
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About 40 years ago, I saw a similar transformer in our basement. I asked my father what it was, and he thought doorbell. We disconnected a wire and the bell still worked. That night, my mom went to make a phone call and the phone dial wasn't lit.

In the old days, mid-late 70's, 4 wires to the phone. Red/Green were the phone service, the other 2 lit up the dial. Sometime later, the current in the phone line itself was enough to light the dial, and the 4 conductor wire was useful to run two phone lines.

JTP - Apologise to Monica
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There is a slim chance that this is electric osmotic damp treatment. You might see a couple of electrodes on the wall. We had this in a house we moved into in about 1977, we disconnected it and cured the damp by unblocking the gutter...

Rich Farmbrough
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I saw one of those things in my basement as well, and I can confirm that it is a doorbell transformer. If you want, you can get a multimeter and put the two leads on the two screws on the top. It should show a low amount of voltage ≈20-40VAC.

Rick Yao
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