For sometime I've been thinking about the merits of wiring a house with a
low voltage bus (12 volts).

There are a number of reasons I think this could be beneficial.  First I
really don't like the switching power supplies in PCs.  They are noisy not to
mention the fact that they seem to go bad on a semi-regular basis and when you
put a few of them in one room they generate a nontrivial amount of heat.  If
I wired my house for 12 volts I could run a PCs off a simple voltage
regulator / DC-DC converter.  Another benefit would be small power supplies for
embedded systems (home automation components) are much smaller when the primary is
only 12 volts as apposed to 110 volts.   Once white LEDs come down in price
they could replace the [hot, inefficient] incandescent lights currently in
use.  Also I could build a big UPS for all low voltage items in my house.

Another reason I am interested in low voltage home systems is I have often
though of living "off the [power] grid".  12 volt systems would largely
eliminate the need for expensive power inverters.

What I am wondering is what would be the best (most efficient) method of
stepping down enough power from line voltage to 12 volts?  Would a "simple" wire
wound transformer due?   Maybe a switching power supply.

Sorry for the odd questions, I know next to nothing about power conversion.

--adam

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