alarm batteries

OK.

But if you remove the 12v the sounder sounds?

No expert on alarm internals since I've only ever followed a wiring diagram. But with your method, it would mean the sounder no longer works if the internal battery is kaput?

Thing is the bell box should be situated where it's difficult to get at. Which means changing it or the battery equally difficult?

And anyone who feeds it with accessible cabling should be shot. ;-)

It does on a decent one.

That's why you can test them.

Its how all the bell boxes on banks work so it can't be the worst way. No banks use one that rings when it is powered by 12v in an alarm condition.

I have actually installed some for Chubb alarms but it was a long time ago and I quit as I didn't like the training bloke as he was getting things wrong about mains and didn't like being corrected.

It was my first proper job before I moved the GEC telecomms.

The battery is fine for years. Not all buildings have somewhere difficult to get to.

crowbar, rip box off wall cut wires and one that needs power from the panel goes quiet.

Yep.

A housing estate was built around our small row of terraces about 12 years ago.

For whatever reason (Faulty? Windows open? Pets left in? Insensibly placed sensors? Power outages?), I can't remember the last time I went more than a few hours without hearing an alarm wail.

Sometimes just for a couple of minutes, sometimes all day/night.

Makes me dread summer.

If one sounds for more than 20 minutes you can get the council to silence it, and bill the owner for doing so.

That will probably get them fixed.

How will they silence it? Long ladder and a can of squirty foam? Personally I don?t think councils would put workers lives at risk (working at height) just to deal with a self limiting nuisance. I could be wrong though.

Tim

Handy for a can of foam, then?

And the CO2 and other stuff when they catch fire :-)

Apparently some EU countries have special mobile tanks to dump an entire Tesla car into and flood it, because those Lithium batteries are sods to put out after a vehicle fire.

When chubb fitted real bells they had a special box specifically made to stop expanding foam from getting in. They were the triangular ones. I won't comment on what they did as they may still use them for all I know.

water of course makes it worse.

And a full tank of petrol is safe as houses? ;-)

It is a requirement for owners of properties with alarms to register them with the police and nominate two keyholders. Most people probably don't, but report the alarm to the police and request that they contact the keyholders. If it turns out (most likely) that they have not nominated any, reporting a noise nuisance (not as a one off) to the council and pointing out the lack of nominated keyholders may get them to at least contact the owners and make threats of action.

SteveW

Relatively, probably. Even with cars that are well on fire, only a small proportion ever have the petrol tank go. Electric car fires are quite likely to be battery fires in the first place and are then very difficult to deal with.

SteveW

Some years ago my Brothers next door neighbours were on holiday and their alarm went off and did not stop.

A phone call was made to the council and they said that they could come and stop the alarm but the owner would get a bill.

In the end it was decided that I should disable the bell box to save the neighbours (who were a family that everyone on the street got one with) the money and let them fix it when they got back off holiday.

There is a difference between SABs and SCBs.

A SAB's siren is powered via the control panel and the SCB's siren is powered via it's internal battery.

The removal of 12v to either will activate the tamper and the siren will sound due it's internal batteries.

The main reason for the strobes having a different supply to that of the siren is so that they can continue to flash after the siren has stopped.

Both SABs and SCBs should still ring if ripped from the wall.

It would also set of the internal alarm and any other bell boxes.

It's also a good bet that it would also set off an alarm signal to a monitoring company.

BTW cutting the telephone wires on a proper monitored system also actives the monitoring company.

Mind you opening one door without first closing another door on an unset alarm can also set of a silent alarm in some houses BTDTGTTS. The police were there in about 3 minutes.

Given the bell-box is outside and difficult to reach, you'd expect them to be more likely to have a dead battery, but I suppose in that case the sounder wouldn't sound* after a power cut, so I assume most of the ones causing nuisance have a dead internal panel battery?

Yes, a dead internal battery is almost certainly the problem.

But bell boxes seldom use SLAs as their back up power.

since when?

It was certainly that way, right back in the mid-90s - I got the form needed back then. In fact, I've quite likely still got a copy somewhere.

Apparently, it has changed a bit due to "THE CLEAN NEIGHBOURHOODS AND ENVIRONMENT ACT 2005" which transferred such powers to the council and it is now up to them whether an area is designated as a zone where a (single) keyholder must be named.

SteveW