This is not wholly relevant to a modern household, but in the process of renovating my Edwardian semi I have unearthed the remains of a DC electrical system. The house was built in 1901 and was lit by a mixture of gas mantels and oil lamps. The remains of the pipes that distributed gas around the house can be found under the floorboards. The location of the burners is often marked by a blanking plug, sadly the piping is too small to be used as the conduits for electrical cable. I'm guessing, but mains electricity was probably installed sometime between 1920 and 1930 and there have been three, possibly four generations of wiring since then. The first wiring consisted of fabric insulated wires kept apart by channels in a wooden conduit, at some point these were replaced by what appears to be lead cased cables, fortunately these have been replaced by modern PVC insulated cables.
Oddly, when the house was built it had a DC system of sorts. This had two functions, one of which is still in use today. The two main downstairs room each had a button which agitated an indicator system in the kitchen to alert the live-in cook/housekeeper of someone's need of something or that the front door needed answering. This is neither a large or grand house and I regularly walk to the kitchen to make tea without suffering excessive fatigue. When the indicator board was removed, possibly because of the lack of a servant to respond, it was replaced by a make-and-break electric bell operating off a 6 volt battery. Yet again, this is a guess, the indicator board might have been powered by a lead acid accumulator.
There are some vague family memories of accumulators, mainly related to pre-war radios. Early valve radios had two batteries, one known as the high tension battery which provided the potential for the anode with a voltage of between 40 and 120 volts, the current drain was low so they lasted a long time, but they were expensive. The second battery known the low tension supply provided between 3 and 6 volts to heat the cathode which drew a much higher current, often accumulators provided this supply. The younger members of the family had to carry these things to a local shop where they were charged up for a few coppers before being dragged back.
Accumulators must have been mainstream technology before WW2 as even my non-technical family seemed to have working knowledge of the things (as a boy, I was told not to stand on electric cables as the current could not flow, there is little to suggest this was a joke played on a child). I have no idea how this conversation started, but I was chatting to a lady, maybe a little older than myself who in her youth had helped her father who was a motor mechanic refurbish batteries. She described scraping out the old sealant so the plates could be removed, these where held together by bolts so they could be separated, cleaned an refilled after which the battery was resealed. The non resealable accumulators required regular checks for both the level of fluid and its specific gravity.
Its stretching a point, but there is some historical basis for the concept of a low voltage home.
Oddly, when the house was built it had a DC system of sorts. This had two functions, one of which is still in use today. The two main downstairs room each had a button which agitated an indicator system in the kitchen to alert the live-in cook/housekeeper of someone's need of something or that the front door needed answering. This is neither a large or grand house and I regularly walk to the kitchen to make tea without suffering excessive fatigue. When the indicator board was removed, possibly because of the lack of a servant to respond, it was replaced by a make-and-break electric bell operating off a 6 volt battery. Yet again, this is a guess, the indicator board might have been powered by a lead acid accumulator.
There are some vague family memories of accumulators, mainly related to pre-war radios. Early valve radios had two batteries, one known as the high tension battery which provided the potential for the anode with a voltage of between 40 and 120 volts, the current drain was low so they lasted a long time, but they were expensive. The second battery known the low tension supply provided between 3 and 6 volts to heat the cathode which drew a much higher current, often accumulators provided this supply. The younger members of the family had to carry these things to a local shop where they were charged up for a few coppers before being dragged back.
Accumulators must have been mainstream technology before WW2 as even my non-technical family seemed to have working knowledge of the things (as a boy, I was told not to stand on electric cables as the current could not flow, there is little to suggest this was a joke played on a child). I have no idea how this conversation started, but I was chatting to a lady, maybe a little older than myself who in her youth had helped her father who was a motor mechanic refurbish batteries. She described scraping out the old sealant so the plates could be removed, these where held together by bolts so they could be separated, cleaned an refilled after which the battery was resealed. The non resealable accumulators required regular checks for both the level of fluid and its specific gravity.
Its stretching a point, but there is some historical basis for the concept of a low voltage home.
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