Just wanted to report back success here. I did order an EL1499ICA online, although what was shipped was an EL1499ICA-L, noted only on the mfr site as an economy version - but looked dimensionally similar to the original specs. I scheduled to have the electrician do it, less about the electrical than worrying about traversing 20' of attic and accidentally stepping through the ceiling drywall somewhere. Was very simple 10 minutes for the electrician to swap out the entire housing. Before he came, I did look at the housing and there is no way to remove the rectangular sealed box to just replace the transformer - it's basically riveted shut. He was the original electrician from the remodel - said 1 in a 100 of these fails, no good reason... I asked about what happens if one of the downstairs transformers fails, given no attic. He did confirm he could also access from the can itself via the ceiling, as brickeyee said, but it just takes more time and effort that way. I did see that removing three screws allows the can to drop out, although it did seem quite a pain to try to unscrew the old transformer from the housing blind (when your hand and screwdriver have reached into the opening). Would be a very challenging DIY attempt. Replacement housing works great, and learned a few things as a general DIY-er. Thanks, esp brickeyee, for the advice.

OK, everyone got me sufficiently paranoid to contact Juno. The tech rep responded as such to my question about using a dimmer designed for a magnetic transformer on a dedicated outlet for a magnetic transformer: "Electrically that arrangement would work. Since you state that the outlet is located in a remote location, and presumably will be dedicated to only provide dimmable power for the T550N transformer you should be OK. The only reservation I have about this type of setup, is the possibility of some other electrical device being plugged into a wall outlet wired off a dimmer. It might be a good idea to use a single receptacle instead of a duplex to minimize the chance of this happening. Perhaps even labeling the outlet "for low voltage lighting only" or something of that nature as an added precaution. You will have to install a cord and plug on the transformer. If you have not ordered the T550N already, you can order it with a 6 foot cord and plug option. You would order the transformer as catalog# T550N-BL-CP6. Otherwise you can attach your own cordset." I apoligize for not getting all the facts beforehand. Would those who recommended trashing the existing systems or felt there was imminent danger of fire consider this sufficient or are there still logical objections?

One other thing that comes to mind and this is also keeping in mind that the "rules" for who can legally install low voltage equipment vary from state to state, many like here in WI have no licensing required at the state level, some have a separate low voltage license that can be obtained often with a bit of training, but don't require you to be a licensed master electrician to do so, which I think either way makes sense since few electricians seem to be getting into the growing low voltage landscape lighting biz, or in your case a doorbell and I think it was NJ I heard that recently bumped it down to 10 volts for needing a licensed electrician. (bet the IBEW had a hand in that one!) Yet, like in my municipality, they do add just a bit in the local codes that specify the system, be it a doorbell, low voltage landscape lighting, etc MUST be tied into the AC power source via a cord and plug going to a legal receptacle and that part would need to be done by a real electrician and if outdoors would need GFCI protection, etc so assuming you're not a licensed electrician, once you choose to hard wire it, you may be crossing over into the "danger zone" and I always mention that for me or anyone I'd think, "getting busted" by the local inspector and paying some fine or double permit fees or something is peanuts compared to IF at some point like after you'd sell the place due to a new job out of town, there's a fire and large $$$ of property damage or God forbid, someone is badly hurt or killed, now YOU have a good chance of being on the WRONG end of a HUGE $$$ lawsuit and even when people say, "oh come on how many doorbells or low volt path lights burn homes down, what if the goofy buyers decide to rewire some stuff and they're idiots! If you've ever seen how ins co's investigate fires with big $$ claims, its very intense and just proving that your probably illegal, hard wired transformer was NOT the cause will likely come at a great expense and hassle to you, assuming you're able to clear your part of it!

Hi folks - I'm posting this message in the 'Lighting' and 'Landscaping' forum with the hopes of clarifying something I don't have too much experience with. I'm in the process of constructing this 2-post pergola on the side of my house. I'm incorporating 4' tall cedar planter boxes at the base of each post, which allow me to grow climbing plants in. I currently have a 'VOLT' low-voltage transformer plugged into a GFCI to the left of pergola (as depicted by that black arrow). I have two low-voltage lighting fixtures that currently feed into that transformer to light the front side of house. I eventually want to add two additional low-voltage fixtures to provide uplighting to the two pergola post. I drew white Xs to represent the locations of those two additional spotlights. The problem I'm facing is that there's only 1 available clamp connector inside my transformer. I assumed that I could only plug in a single fixture into each clamp connector. I read somewhere that I could actually plug in multiple wires into a single clamp connector. It sounds dangerous, so I just wanted to post the message to get feedback from people that understanding lighting better than myself. Thank you kindly!