Letter: Charging about

Keith Bailey
Monday 10 August 1998 23:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sir: Why is it that we do not build our houses with a 6-volt supply in addition to the standard 240?

Every other piece of household equipment seems to come with its own 6- volt transformer these days. A glance at the tangle of cables under my desk reveals transformers for two mobile phone chargers, halogen desk lamp, answering machine, calculator and cordless phone. Elsewhere are a couple of vacuum cleaners, electric drill and screwdriver, more cordless phones and a doorbell. Then there are shaver points in the bathrooms and chargers for garden tools and golf trolleys in the garage. This ignores those other items (PCs, radios, clocks, which probably have their own in-built transformers).

All of them cost money to produce, sit there consuming electricity, generating heat, electromagnetic-magnetic fields and goodness knows what else, tripping one up and probably constituting a fire hazard. How much simpler a second low voltage circuit around the house would be so that we could just plug these gadgets all straight in.

KEITH BAILEY

Basingstoke

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in