Replacement alarm for 22 year old wired system

quenching

Our 22 year old house has a wired alarm system with perimeter sensors on doors/windows and PIR sensors on the ground floor. The current control panel has stared to misbehave, activating the sirens when the system is disarmed and displaying a “panel tamper” code. It’s happened a few times in the last few months when people have been at home and nobody near the panel. Panel is a HomeGuard Scopetronic. The existing wiring was installed during the housebuild and we’ve never had any problems until now.

I’ve been told by a local company that the existing wiring is too old to reuse with a new wired system and that we should install a wireless system with internal PIRs. They offered this opinion over the phone and haven’t seen or tested anything. I have a few concerns about this:

Is the wiring really too old to reuse?
If we have internal PIRs how do we deal with small children getting out of bed in the night?
Surely some sort of perimeter sensors are needed?

Our current system has a “part armed” option that we use at night that only arms the perimeter sensors so that we can walk around the house without the alarm sounding. Is this possible with a PIR only system?

Ideally we’d like a new panel that uses the existing wiring and sensors, is this practical?

We don’t want it monitored by a 3rd party, happy to have self monitoring but with a system that can be serviced by any alarm installer rather than it being tied to a specific installer.

All advice on systems or especially relaiable and honest installers is most welcome, either here or by PM.

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bk

It sounds like that company just want a quick and easy install and don't want to bother giving you the service you want.

It is possible that at 22 years the wiring maybe poor and no longer suitable, but they should really check it first and conform. Wired is always preferable to wireless where feasible.

Even if you have to go wireless, you can still get wireless shock sensors which would allow you perimeter monitoring and a night time mode which it sounds like you want. Some wireless systems don't support shock sensors, but many do.

As always the advice on this forum would be:
- Always get 3 or 4 quotes from different companies. They should come to your home, do an audit, discuss your needs with you and supply you with a written quote based on those.

- Make sure they are all PSA certified and the alarm system they install is EN50131 as required by the law in Ireland.

- Generally cheap upfront means high monthly monitoring/maintenance fees and usually ends up costing more in the long term, so beware.

- Make sure you get what you want and don't let them fob you off pushing what they want.

quenching

Thanks for that BK, like others I'm discovering that the alarm installation business is far from straightforward!