House Alarm Upgrade

Snowflakes

Registered User
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Hi, I'm looking for advice as having had my house alarm serviced twice within 9 months by 2 separate engineers it's still randomly going off. It's an Aritech wired system (9 years old but has been rewired 7 years ago when we did a house renovation and most of the sensors replaced) problem is that it only has 2 different zones programmed into it so the faults say either upstairs or downstairs but nothing more specific. I've had the alarm battery replaced a month ago and also a few sensors but still no joy... The guys who serviced it will be an €80 minimum call out and I'm not convinced at this stage that he can help so I'm thinking about whether it would be worth putting in a new control panel which might at least give me more detailed information where there is a fault? Any ideas/suggestions would be great. I'm not that keen on being monitored but possibly a text service would relieve my neighbours of the task. Thanks in advance
 
Alarm system faults most often occur with the sensors. A new panel won't help identify the fault if the system is just wired in two zones. It'll just tell you again which zone the issue is in.

The engineer should test each sensor individually . A decent engineer should be able to test the wiring between the panel and sensors also.

How often is the false alarm triggering? Is it always the same zone? How many sensors have you and what types are they? Any PIR sensors facing windows?
 
Thanks for your reply Leo, yes I guess the system is wired that way, I was thinking it was a programming problem so I'm glad you've pointed this out before I replace the who keypad. So the faults that show up are random zones, they include upstairs/downstairs and also the 2 PIR sensors (not facing windows and no moving objects etc) so I can't even narrow it down to an area. The engineer who came out did appear to test everything and he replaced the battery but still no improvement. It goes off about twice a week. I use it daily and at night. I've about 20 sensors on windows in total. Thanks again
 
We had a similar problem recently. The alarm guy replaced a couple of sensors but we still had the problem. He came out again & did a more thorough checking. The ensuite window sensor had some rust on it. When he ran the current through to test it it was ok but when he looked more closely at it he reckoned the rust was causing the problem. He replaced that sensor & the problem stopped.
Look at your bathroom sensors more closely in case that's the problem.
 
The wired window contacts are cheap, and the wired PIRs aren't too expensive either. You could start with getting a new window sensor, replace one of the existing one and seeing does the problem persist. If it does, replace the next sensor with the one you removed from the first window, and wait again. Keep going through this process until the problem one has been identified. As Butter says, start with the ones most exposed to moisture/ condensation.

If the problem still persists, get a new PIR and repeat the same routine.
 
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