Well, that will teach me. On Christmas Eve my wired house alarm suddenly went off while it wasn't armed. I think only the keypads sounders were active rather than the external bellbox. I stuck my code in and the system went into tamper lockout. At that time I knew very little (if anything) about house alarms apart from when the main battery has failed, in the event of a power cut the bellbox would start up. The battery was due for a change anyway, but I couldn't be sure what had caused the problem, so being Christmas Eve I thought I had better get it sorted. After a bit of phoning around I found one engineer (supposedly reputable) who was prepared to come and look at it. He turned up, seemed a nice bloke. He got into the main panel and fiddled with the wires, removed the global tamper and the keypad tamper wires. But, he said there was a dead zone by using his multimeter and said I had got a major problem. He removed that zone from the system and got the alarm so it was usable, but he didn't replace the battery. He said he would come up with proposals and costs for a new installation. Then he wanted £172 for coming out and 'fixing' it. I gave him £150. He was here for about 45 minutes maximum. I was expecting a high callout charge, which he told me later was £50; but that meant his hourly rate was around £130.....(I didn't know alarm engineers charged as much as lawyers). Anyway, he didn't get back to me, so after Christmas I found another (supposedly reputable) company that came out. After I explained the problem, he said he would come up with a price for a new system as it definitely needed changing. I felt his price was too high so I contacted another (supposedly reputable) company. Their price was even higher. Neither of them actually looked at the system other than to see what type it was. They all said I should have had a maintenance contract. The system is 20 years old and never had a problem with it. In the end, I found the installation manual for the alarm and had a good read. Bought a new battery. Stuck the system into engineer mode and grabbed my multimeter. I dismantled the global tamper wiring so I could test each zone.....all OK, so I reconnected them. Tested the keypads tamper wiring....all OK, so they were reconnected. Went to the dead zone sensor and unhooked the front so I could test the circuits. No power at the sensor. Bollox, I thought. Broken wire, bloody vermin in the roof? Got back to the main alarm panel and looked for the power wires. One broken red wire at the strip connector. Reconnected it, dead zone now working. Checked the last alarm condition at the keypad....definitely a tamper problem. Sod it, I thought.....I'll ignore it. I removed the front cover panel of the keypad so I could clean a sticky number button. I found a small dead spider and nest web on the keypad tamper switch. Tested the switch....differing results. Keypad tamper switch faulty, so I disconnected the tamper wire to that keypad. Alarm now works properly, all for the cost of a new battery and in roughly the same amount of time as the first engineer. None of what I had to sort out would have been found under a maintenance contract. I have drawn the conclusion, that none of the (supposedly reputable) specialists want to repair a system, just install a new one. Rip off merchants? Yes, In my opinion. Like the bikes, it pays to DIY when you have learned enough to do it properly.
Good news that you meddled yourself and fixed the problem. Welldone. I now know who I'm going to call if I'm ever in a similar situation. BTW, how are the spiders doing?
No spiders in that keypad. Might not have been the cause of the faulty micro-switch, just something that made me look at the switch.....I didn't think for one minute there was one in the keypads.
I had a similar experience with my electric gates, got told the whole PCb was fried and out of service so they would need to replace everything including intercom as none of the kit was no longer made. This little exercise was going to lighten my wallet just shy of a thousand with labour. I had a look online as I wasn’t convinced, got a new pcb for £150 of eBay, new/old stock. Replaced it, recoded the system so it all works with each other and no problem since. The cause was a slug had crawled in and fried itself on the pcb. I looked at the box it all sits in and noticed the original installer had never seated one of the bungs at the bottom which is how after 6 years the slug found its way in.
I understand the "repair" has to generate a profit and thats fine. But a £1000, selling you a whole load of stuff you don't need nor want is flat out cowboy scuzzer, marginally above a moped mugger. Glad you fixed it and paid them nothing.
And we have a lot more of this to look forward to when the great British tradesman re-establishes his primacy after all those awful polite, reliable and competent east european types clear off post Brexit
I have taken to doing everything I possibly can myself for this very reason - it’s so rare to find an honest and skilled tradesman. So many cowboys around that have pitiful standards. We need proper apprenticeships back before all of the older generation have retired - otherwise who is going to pass on the skills and values that are dying out. One of my relations is a retired Joiner/Carpenter (never actually asked him how he would describe himself). At least he would like to be retired - but he is in such demand he’s always working - because it’s so hard to find someone with such skill and pride in their craft. I despair at the horror stories I have heard from multiple sources - How do you fit a Dishwasher? Just run some screws in through the sides into the adjacent units! Just finished tiling a new bathroom? Ready to fit the bath panel? Why doesn’t it fit? hmm - never mind i’ll just cut the bottom off! Ever seen a curved plastic bath panel with the bottom cut off? Prize for who can tell me what the “bathroom” fitter did wrong!
Give the prize to charity but if you don’t measure the panel, bang in the bath without adjusting the feet to that measurement, then tile on top of the bath before fitting the panel, then you are stuffed! And btw a proper bathroom fitter would not encourage you to use a panel, they are awful, just board it and tile it, much nicer!
i didn’t mention that the idiot not only tiled above the bath - he tiled the floor as well - under the edge of the bath - he must have measured it before he tiled the floor! His tiling was shit too! I agree with you on the bath panel - not my bathroom though so not my choice - I always do my own!
Glad you got to the bottom of your alarm problems. Being an over 50 professional electrician, I do wonder who is going to be about in 10 years when all of us ageing buggers retire. There is a gap of around 15 years when virtually no one went on apprenticeships (hello Mr T. Blair) The young lads and lassies now are going to clean up when it comes to hourly rates when we have all gone and I hope that their moral compass is correctly tuned to do the right thing for customers, not rip them off due to high demand and lack of supply of tradespeople. It amazes me that schools are still not encouraging young people to go into the trades. There is still a huge demand for skilled tradespeople, especially as pointed out, post -Brexit.
There will always be a need for quality trades people. Apprenticeships appear to have been a political pawn for a longtime much to the detriment of the country. https://www.theguardian.com/educati...vestigate-allegations-at-3aaa-apprenticeships
These apprentiship figures are alaming and current. A huge problem comming down the line. https://www.theguardian.com/educati...ticeships-may-force-radical-rethink-of-policy
Our alarm needed a new backup battery after 10+ years. I did not know the engineers code but a contact worked as an alarm installer. Make and model if alarm Googled and he says try this code. Bingo. Changed battery in a couple of minutes, no drama or alarms going off. Easily saved myself £100+. He later told me that most alarm engineers codes don’t get changed from the factory setting. So, if you don’t know yours chances are it’s the same as anyone else with the same alarm system. I changed mine at the same time I sorted the battery.
