House Alarm ringing during DIY

Micamaca

Hi gang,

we have a home alarm which we got when we bought the house. The other day we turned off the light switch (for the bathroom only) in the Mains box as we wanted to replace a light fitting in the bathroom. The alarm started ringing after a short time. Now I know house alarms are connected to the mains electricity. But surely it doesn't make sense that if you want to work on something in one room of your house and you turn of either lights or power points off, that the house alarm should start ringing...Goodbye to comfortable DIY!!!

Is this normal??? Should the house alarm ring when we switch off the power to the light in the bathroom?

I have to ring the company anyway as the battery is now saying there is a fault...so I want to see how to replace that. So if there is something else wrong, I want to know so I can ask them!

thanks for any advice, mica

GreeBo

I had the same issue last week and it was caused by a faulty switch

check the alarm logs to see what zone activated and take a look at that sensor...

if you cant fix it you should be able to just isolate that zone

Finneganjp

Hi,
When you say you turned off the power to the bathroom light do you mean you turned off the MCB at the fuse board? I
If this is what you done and the alarm activates it means that the power for you alarm panel is fed off the MCB supply for the bathroom. Normally when the power supply for the alarm is cut the backup battery kicks in. I suspect that your backup battery is dead and thats why the alarm activated. Either that or the alarm is programed to activate/ring during a power failure.
I suspect though from the sounds of it that your battery is dead.

Micamaca

Hi there,

thanks for the replies. I'm not sure how to find a log but I'll look into it.

It seems a strange to have our alarm's power supply plugged into the bathroom lights...but who knows! We weren't here when it was done and there is precious little information there for us.

I guess our battery is dead so I'll have to ring the company and find out about that. But maybe that was the problem. We thought perhaps the battery had run out of juice but that it would recharge when we switched the mains back on. But it still says there is a fault with the battery.

It's just irritating when we try to fix something, we have to wait till it's a reasonable hour as we will be disturbing the neighbourhood when we go to fix the bathroom light. But we have to do work in other rooms too, so will be interesting to see if the alarm goes mental again or is it really powered by bathroom lights! Strange one !

GreeBo

if the alarm is activating cant you just turn it off with the code and continue working?
If not you can disconnect the alarm by opening the panel and removing the battery terminals, and then taking the fuse out of the fused spur...
Then it has no juice so should stop ringing...

Micamaca

GreeBo wrote:

if the alarm is activating cant you just turn it off with the code and continue working?
If not you can disconnect the alarm by opening the panel and removing the battery terminals, and then taking the fuse out of the fused spur...
Then it has no juice so should stop ringing...

hee, hee! We did think of trying the code but it didn't work! But I like the sound of plan B, sounds simple enough. Bit too simple actually for crimmies! Is it that easy to disarm a house alarm : :eek:

Good suggestion though, we'll give it a lash...cheers mica

Stoner

GreeBo wrote:

if the alarm is activating cant you just turn it off with the code and continue working?
If not you can disconnect the alarm by opening the panel and removing the battery terminals, and then taking the fuse out of the fused spur...
Then it has no juice so should stop ringing...

The bell box should keep going with its own battery though, just the internal stuff can be stopped at the panel.

As Finneganjp said killing the power to an alarm panel should just make the panel beep and show a mains failure alert until you return power and press 0 to clear the log. It should not ring when the power is cut, as Finneganjp said might be a battery issue. It is not uncommon to see an alarm panel fed via an unfused spur fed from a lighting MCB.

And once again to ask Finneganjp's question again, I assume by turning off power to the bathroom lights you meant turning off an MCB?.

Micamaca

Stoner wrote:

.

And once again to ask Finneganjp's question again, I assume by turning off power to the bathroom lights you meant turning off an MCB?.

Sorry, I avoided that question as I didn't know what an MCB was...how bad am I!
Yes, it happened when we tripped the light switch for the bathroom...i.e. flicked it up while the OH worked on light fixture. The alarm didn't ring immediately but did a regular beeping noise for about ten minutes and then it started to ring. So I guess you're both right, the alarm is covered by the same trip switch as the bathroom light. Well hopefully we won't have to touch that again for awhile.

Can the battery in the bell box run out? Can you replace that yourself or do you need to call out the company in question? How do you know if the bell box alarm is running out?

Would appreciate any responses, ta! mica

Stoner

yeah all batteries can wear out, things can start happening around the 5 year mark, I dont know how you'd test it to be honest, may be by reproducing the conditions hobie was talking about, set the alarm off, disconnect the battery from the panel and turn off mains panel, if the internal sounders knock off and the bell box is still running then it's battery is working.

I dont know might be a self test facility on some panels, I've only worked on about 3 types of panel, haven't gone near one in about 7 years at this stage,

Alarms are always yours, you make about €100on them and they are yours for life, when people change windows five years later and butcher the cables you get the call.:mad:

northdublin

generally when an alarm system is not on its own mcb we wire them into the lighting circut(10amps). there are many reasons for this but its a bad idea to feed the alarm of the rcd protected circut which the sockets are fed.
when you kill the power and the exterior siren activates its because it has a tamper circut and its own power supply. if the back up battery in the panel is dead theres no power goin to the bell at that stage and it begins to ring as if the cable has been cut. usually on a wired system we use a 7amp 12 volt battery which can be got at any electrical wholesalers. you simply remove the panel lid at which point the alarm will ring cause of the lid tamper but ignore it and change out the batt making sure red lead goes onto the red terminal then close up the lid and enter your code to deactivate the alarm.

Micamaca

Thanks for those responses, that's great. We'll open up the box in the house and see what kind of battery we're dealing with and take it from there.

Sorry for being thick but is there also a battery up in the box on the outside of the house? Can that run out too? Our alarm is about 5 or 6 years old so if I'm replacing one, I might as well replace the other.

Stoner

Micamaca wrote:

Sorry for being thick but is there also a battery up in the box on the outside of the house? Can that run out too? Our alarm is about 5 or 6 years old so if I'm replacing one, I might as well replace the other.

Yes there is typically a battery in the bell box too, if its a new enough system I'd leave it be, the ones in the panels are usually the ones that need replacing.

Micamaca

That's excellent...I really appreciate all the quick replies. I know what I'm at now.

All the best,

mica

GreeBo

Stoner wrote:

The bell box should keep going with its own battery though, just the internal stuff can be stopped at the panel.

Hmm I was going to say "well mine doesnt" but maybe it does for 15/20 mins and then it doesnt restart...
however Im not going to try it out right now

Finneganjp

There should be no need to replace the batt in the bell box. Anyway you would have to replace the whole bell. The ext bell is set on a timer and will only ring for 15/20 mins. Nothing to do with the battery.

GreeBo

Finneganjp wrote:

The ext bell is set on a timer and will only ring for 15/20 mins. Nothing to do with the battery.

yep thats my point, it was running off the battery for 15/20 mins then it stopped
I had forgotten that disabling the panel still means the external bell will ring...