ious trips before it sends an alarm can be set. Find the installation manua l for your. If you bought it from an alarm monitoring company you won't hav e the install code ti change it though. But they can change it, probably fo r the cost of a trip, even though modern ones can be reconfigured remotely.
I've never seen one that had any delay.
Seems to me if you had all kinds of alarm inputs that had their own delay, it would make the whole system more complex and confusing. Having the alarm panel control how long a delay there is and for what types of trips is the more logical approach.
30 seconds just isn't
Are you sure you're looking at the right settings? If you're looking at the alarm panel settings specific to fire alarms, that may be the wrong place. There may be a general setting that changes the delay time before *all* alarms are reported to the monitoring company. Generally these home monitored alarm systems are more trouble than they are worth. Police don't give them much priority because 99% are false alarms, so they may take quite awhile to arrive. Many places also start fining people after a couple false alarms. IMO, an alarm with a good siren that can be heard is good enough, unless you have the Hope diamond in your house. Any burglar is going to hear the siren go off, they don't know if it's monitored or not, and they will almost certainly beat it. Put a sign in the window that says "Monitored Alarm System" and stop paying monthly monitoring fees, that's my advice. That saves you money and solves the problem.
That's probably about it. I wish there were smoke detectors that first started with a reasonable beeping for 30 secs to give you time to get to it with a dish towel and move the smoke away when you're there and know it's from opening the oven, before it goes off at 150db.
I went to my friend's website to try to find the installation manual for the panel he uses now. I dl'd one and searched for "delay" and found in an Impasse manual: "Note that fire-type alarms are normally reported without a delay".
My friend has bought maybe 10 smaller companies, so he has customers now that use, or used when he got them, lots of different panels. So he has manuals online for lots of panels that either he uses now or has used in the past. As he has time, he replaces the panels with his favorite panel. And I guess if I want to know what that is, I'll have to ask someone there.
I don't think any panel has a smoke input, only fire.
It would require documentation,
I have no objection to that, and unlike Impasse, my panel gives me 30 seconds. As you can imagine, there is no way I can get upstairs and wave away the smoke (which is inside the detector by now).
Oh, I said that.
You may be right**. i will look some more. The installation manual is very complicated. I installed my own alarm 35 years ago and that manual was complicated with some argot I didn't undestand. I read it over and over and over and over, over 5 or 10 hours before I knew it well enough. And this one is worse.
I've been relying on searching for delay or fire. Later I found out that PDF-XchangeEditor will let me search for two words at the same time
But maybe that doesn't find everything.
That's why monitoring companies were created. They are supposed to verify the problem and when they can't get a phone reply and the password, they should call the police or fire that should consider it NOT a false alarm. And indeed, it was only 5 or 10 minutes after the alarm went off before a policeman showed up. And part of that time was spent before the dialer dialed (30 seconds) and then by the monitors trying to reach me.
You're the first person I've met who agrees with me on that. Even 35 years ago, I bought a separate amplifier panel to run the siren off of
18 volts instead of 12 to make it louder. And I have a siren under the eaves and another in the attic. Which is sort of ridiculous. I have a
2 story house plus another foot of the basement is above ground and no one here is going to climb up and cut** the wires to the siren, or fill it full of foam. **If they did cut the wires, it has 4 wires instead of 2 and cutting the other 2 will set off the alarm.
And it seems true that my neighbors ignore the alarm when it goes off, even though they are not common here at all.
But I think the burglar will hear the alarm the moment he breaks the door or window, and why would he possibly stick around? It's not like this is Topkapi.
I've got that.
80% or more of the fire danger is when I'm home causing fires. I can call the fire department
I don't even set the alarm when I'm in town. I wanted it mostly for trips, 3 weeks to drive to Florida and back, and 3 months abroad in
2017, 2 months in 2018, and a similar trip planned for next year**
When I got back from every trip I've taken, everything was like I'd left it, including the car, but a vacant house a few blocks away was broken into and used as a "clubhouse" by teenagers, who also did a lot of damage. I guess the siren is enough to stop that.
**BTW the 3 month trip was iirc only 7500, including everything, airfare, room, car, phone, meals, souvenirs. The 2-month trip was $4500. That's how I can afford to take such long trips. Last year rented a room for $900 a month. This year lucked out, better roommmates and only $450/month. Older, smaller, more rundown apartment but I don't care about that.
Nah, that wasn't an insult. If I wanted to insult you, believe me- you would have known it.
My plonk file erroneously let you through and it was constructive criticism/feedback attempting to improve the quality and focus of posts in this newsgroup.
Really dude, you can't be serious with half the scribble you launch clicking on the SEND button!
That's' a good idea, but that means it's not connected to the house alarm and won't call the monitoring who calls the fire department if there's a fire. I have one like that too except no silence button. I put it in the fridge until it stops beeping. ;-)
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