How can I decommission my domestic Euro-MERiDIAN alarm system

That's exactly what I want to try and avoid!

MM

Reply to
MM
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I don't want to *destroy* it! Just disable it. The next owner (I would have moved by now but for the housing slump) can decide whether to re-commission it.

MM

Reply to
MM

Google SAB and SCB. Any decent alarm system has a battery in the bell box so that it makes a fuss if it loses power from the panel. Otherwise you could simply shut the thing up by cutting the cable.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

No, the maintenance company said this is the correct behaviour. It is

*supposed* to work like that. I.e. a power cut occurs, 30 minutes elapse and a warning goes off until one hits the Yes key on the control panel. This warning is not nearly as loud as the one when someone actually breaks in (tested by setting the alarm then pretending to "break in" by unlocking the door and walking in) but it is still irritatingly LOUD! Since we do get frequent powercuts out here in the sticks I can't keep leaving my door key with the neighbours to disable it, as they have to go to work anyway. And in any case, this is how it's worked since the house was bought new in 2004. Power cut --> 30 minutes --> alarm "power outage" --> press Yes

--> silent again. But someone has to BE here to go through the rigmarole. And the insurers weren't interested in any alarm! Whether Churchill, AA, or another (can't remember) presence or absence of an alarm seems not significant.

What does that mean? "switch the mains off to the panel"? The panel is screwed to the hall wall. There is no switch.

These are NOT false triggers. That is the way it's supposed to operate. The quieter warning is to indicate that the power has gone off. (Quieter, but still loud enough for the neighbours to remark about when it happens while I'm away. The "power outage" warning ceases on its own after about 20 minutes. But that's a long time at dead of night to have an alarm going off next door.)

MM

Reply to
MM

UPS? How frequent are your "frequent" power cuts, and for how long? How much power does the alarm consume?

Reply to
Clive George

Sorry, what I meant was that accessibility isn't an issue because one doesn't normally need to change that battery.

Difficult in your case. Get a 12V battery and hook it up to the wires inside the house? Then remove the bell box when you're able to.

Reply to
Bob Eager

That hasn't worked for 30 years.

Reply to
dennis

I installed a few for Chubb in the seventies and they all have a battery. How do you think the alarm is going to sound if someone cuts the wires?

Any alarm your late brother fitted is not to British standards and is useless as far as insurance goes if it doesn't have a self actuating bell box.

Reply to
dennis

Seemed to work quite effectively for the tea leaves that did over the local Co-op only a few years back...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

You've tried it regularly for 30 years?

How many times have you been arrested?

[you stupid twit]
Reply to
Bruce

Gang,

Something to be aware of that I once came across during many ( 30 ) years or so of occasional alarm installation / maintenance for self / friends / family. ( Not my employment, I was an electronics engineer then - about 20 years ago ).

A neighbour had an alarm system fitted by a professional and well known North West alarm company, probably 20 - 25 years ago - he didn't know I had alarm experience at the time and until after I solved his problem, probably

12 months later.

The installing engineer suggested that he should sign up for a regular and ongoing 6 month maintenance visits ( at a cost ) on the system as otherwise it was likely he'd start to get false alarms. Being that this neighbour's house was immaculate and well maintained and that he was careful in any DIY he did he declined thinking he would be unlikely to cause any damage and in the knowledge that electronic systems are quite reliable.

After about 6 months he started to get false alarms. He called the alarm company, paid their non contracted maintenance fee for the visit, and all was superficially well. The false alarms stopped. He signed up for regular 6 month maintenance after that experience - hey, that installation engineer knew what he was talking about.

About 6 months later the same ( false alarms ) occurred and they fixed it as they were contracted to do. ( Replaced the dry battery [a PP9, I remember that] for an extortionate cost - see later ).

One night whilst in the local pub, months later, he was telling me the story and he couldn't understand the false alarms. By this time we had come to know them quite well, he then knew of my alarms experience, and he asked if I'd take a look at their system re the false alarms which were annoying.

What I found was almost unbelievable for a professional alarm installer outfit.

They had fitted an additional circuit board to the system that had a dry battery connected. I knew there was no need for any dry batteries anywhere on the system. The circuit board monitored the voltage on the dry battery and had a permanently connected variable resistor to drain the battery. There was also a voltage sensing circuit on the board monitoring the voltage of the dry battery. Relay contacts of a relay on the board were connected to the alarm's loop. I presume that the variable resistor was set to drain the dry battery at a rate that would cause the relay loop to open in response to the voltage sensing circuit after about 6 months. Thus this GUARANTEED false alarms when the dry battery was drained sufficiently.

Whilst fault finding, and in the first instance, having not come across this before, I renewed the dry battery and the false alarms stopped. Once proven I removed the additional circuit board and its relay contacts on the alarm loop. The alarm then worked ' ad infinitum' without false alarms. Needless to say, once explained to him, he cancelled the maintenance contract with the original installer and had very little trouble thereafter. Any trouble he had over the years following I fixed for him.

Maybe your PROFESSIONAL installer is not as PROFESSIONAL as you expected. I'm sure that professional alarm company in the North West recognises this install as one of theirs should they read this. If they are still in business.

And YES - re the OP - the bell box should have a rechargeable battery fitted on all but the most basic of systems. They have, what is known as, a SABM ( SCBM ) - Self Activating ( Contained ) Bell Module.

The reasons for SABM's being fitted are valid and explained in other replies.

Don't get ripped off on your ( essential ) alarm maintenance contract though.

JD

Reply to
JDT2Q

Very common and IMHO sharp practice. I suspect you can still get "maintenance" timers.

From other posts in this thread having a simple alarm doesn't get you any insurance discount so there doesn't seem much point in the bother of having an alarm maintenance contract or not. It's not likely that the Police will attend a simple alarm sounding unless the reportee says they can see people taking things away or inside.

I suspect insurance companies only entertain a discount for a system meeting APCO standards for maintenace and monitoring and any discount given is very likely to be more or less spent on the APCO required maintenance and monitoring service.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Very frequent. So frequent that I actually went and bought a camping gaz stove last year as I went hours without a hot drink. Rural Lincolnshire isn't given the same priority in the case of outage as, say, Lincoln itself. And often the power is off for hours. Yes, I do have a UPS on my PC here, and it has kicked in more times that I can count, sometimes for only a matter of a second or two. The power supply here is truly third-world. However, I did remark elsewhere that the power outage audible warning ceases of its own accord after 20 minutes. It's just a PITA to have it sounding at all just because of a power outage, especially when I'm not here to punch in Yes on the panel!

MM

Reply to
MM

I don't have a contract. Last year I simply told them not to come when they sent me the annual reminder. They harrumphed a bit and said if I told them not to come the following year (i.e. 2009) they'd have to come anyway and disable the alarm. Which brings me to the reason for this current thread and the desire now to just de-commission the ruddy thing and let any future owner decide whether they want to reinstate it.

Note that I am not getting *FALSE* alarms! I am getting a power outage audible alarm IF there is a power cut that lasts longer than 30 minutes (which most around here in the Fens seem to). The audible alarm switches itself off after approximately 20 minutes - or when I walk to the panel and key in Yes to acknowledge that I have read the little message on the display saying "Power failure". But 20 minutes when I'm not here is long enough to irritate the neighbours, especially if it happens at night.

MM

Reply to
MM

They used to work on bells because the foam stopped the striker moving. This is why the anti foam Chubb bell box is still used on many old installations. It is multi skinned so the foam doesn't get to the bell. And even then they are frequently linked anyway so even if the bell doesn't work the alarm still sounds elsewhere.

Decent modern ones use a transducer that is virtually unaffected by foam.

{you stupider twit}

Reply to
dennis

There is probably a programmable option to disable that warning if you have the engineering code. However remember that when the battery finally runs down the bell box *will* activate and will sound until its battery is depleted.

The audible warning from the panel is there in an attempt to stop the external box sounding.

As other have suggest a computer UPS will keep the mains going for a few hours for about £70. It will also beep when the power is off but probably not as loud.

Reply to
dennis

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "JDT2Q" saying something like:

Doesn't surprise me at all - some alarm companies were/are run by wankers, and the servicing contract side of things is very lucrative indeed.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

When a modern transducer is surrounded by expanding foam, it can transduce at full blast as much as it wants, but only someone whose ear is within inches of it will hear it.

Reply to
Bruce

I have such a UPS (from APC and excellent it is, too) for my PC. It has a 3-pin plug for plugging into a wall socket. There is no such connection at any part of the alarm system that I can see. When this estate was built, all the houses were equipped with the same alarms and the builders seem to incorporate all the wiring/conduit/fittings in the fabric of the building. There are NO cables that are visible. All buried in the plaster (in, probably, conduit). Not even the cables to the room sensors are visible. It's actually a very neatly designed system.

So, unfortunately, I would not know how or where to connect a UPS.

MM

Reply to
MM

Rubbish, expanding foam is not a very good sound insulator.

Reply to
dennis

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