Does anyone know what this thing is? This one had a chain and the red tag says “rewind”. The one pictured was on the wall but all of the other rooms in the house had them on the ceiling but without the chain.
Heat alarm!!
I remember sitting through a sales pitch for these back in 1980 or so. Heat detector is correct. They are wind up so they didnt rely on battery or power. When we finally said NO, the salesman asked to borrow the phone for the call to the manager…I will never forget the line he used to his manager…“They have chosen to go unprotected”. Of course the price came down if we bought that night…I asked him to pack up and leave right away.
If I remember right, they weren’t cheap. A set was hundreds of dollars.
This particular model did not detect smoke…fire alarm only. Crude, primitive mechanical device but loud as all hell and NO ONE was going to sleep through it.
Michael hit the nail on the head. It is an old fire alarm made by Vanguard. The round button on the front (center) melts at an extremely low temp (same metal used in sprinkler systems / “Woods” metal) releasing a plunger stem and all hell breaks loose. It will raise the dead and as a side note; do not play with it as it does not stop ringing until it winds down. I had these in a home I owned back in the 70’s when I was in the Navy. It is very very loud.
I have seen an old fire alarm similar to that, it winds like an alarm clock and has a fusible link, so when it melts the link the wound spring provides energy for the bell.
Thanks for the info on these devices----very interesting.