What happens to a burglar alarm (just a stand-alone one, not centrally monitored) when mains power is off for days? I know that the internal battery will obviously discharge but does it actually trigger the sounder at any point, or does it just die quietly?
We're going away for two weeks, during which time the house is being rewired and I don't want the neighbours being disturbed by a shrieking alarm.
TIA
Once power is disconnected, the alarm will activate. Your external bell box will most likely have a battery back up. The external box will sound until either battery goes flat, or power is restored and alarm reset. Best option is to enter the engineer code into the alarm (if you know it). This will stop the alarm sounding when power is disconnected. Alternatively, disconnect battery backup from both alarm panel and external bell box (not sure, but this may wipe the alarms internal settings or it may have a small watch type battery to retain settings).
What alarm is it?
It shouldn't if the panels internal backup battery is OK. Damn thing would sound if there was a power cut...
If the sounder has a backup battery (it should) then it will sound when once the battery in the panel is flat after the loss of power. It should also only sound for a few minutes then shut up but it might sound until that bettery is flat.
Which shouldn't happen....
Without entering engineering mode when you open the cover of either the panel or the sounder to disconnect the batteries it will trigger the alarm.
So enter engineering mode, disconect the batteries. Leave the panel powered up and go away leaving but remember that there will be no alarm when the power is off. But one assumes that there would be no alarm anyway unless you give a code to the workmen and trust then to set it...
It's a wireless one, the ESP Infinite (the following link is to the Infinite PRIME but I've just got the bog-standard Infinite - and I'm using the wireless external sounder with it)
When you disconnect the mains the sounder in the panel itself may bleep at you until mains is restored, the external sounder should not activate.
Your bell box requires a separate mains supply to the alarm box so may do something else to indicate mains failure.
When the panel battery discharges the external sounder should go off. It should stop after 20 minutes but may go off again later.
In any case when the external sounder battery is nearly discharged the external sounder may sound of its own accord, this will usually occur between midnight and 03:00 when the external temperature drops to its lowest (hence causing the battery voltage to fall). It will sometimes then sound (often with a continuous tone) until the battery is fully discharged, usually only a relatively short time - 10 to 30 mins. The behaviour of alarm sounders as the batteries discharge is rather unpredictable
The only sure way of not annoying your neighbours is to disconnect both the panel and bell box mains supplies and disconnect their internal batteries.
Wear ear plugs when disconnecting bell box internal batteries. It's not nice if they go off 1 foot from your ear.
Andy
Especially when you are 20ft up a wobbly ladder :-).
Thanks everyone :o)
Garbage.
"Dave" wrote
As others have said + Do you have instructions for the alarm/bellbox? My bellbox is an Odyssey model - this can be forced into "hold-off" mode by testing the strobe 3 times in 30 seconds. In hold-off mode, the box doesn't sound when the lid tamper circuit is broken - handy for not blasting your ear drums up a ladder.
Phil
Not on mine it won't. There are many alarms around where doing that has zero effect on the bell box.
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