Removing alarm system

Do known if the other bell box is just a dummy one?

Just remove the battery at the bellbox front first,if the other is not a dummy? what the hell you're going to silence it anyway.

Put a battery (usually 12v) on the appropriate wires to the bells. That'll take the place of the continuous voltage being supplied by the control box. I put a junction box in the loft to do this; I intended (but haven't yet) to put a bettery and switch with it.

The bell-box will have an anti-tamper switch that triggers the alarm when you remove the cover.

Mark.

If you have a back up battery in the control panel then the bell box should not go off if the mains is disconnected. If you want to remove the whole system, try and get a copy of the control panel manual - there may be a way of removing it without triggering the bell.

Typical pro installation, then?

It should be difficult to get inside - anti tamper screws etc. And an anti tamper switch if you just try and prise it off the wall.

Personally I'd just let it go off. Do it at a sensible time of the day. You can always stand outside the open front door looking wistful and checking your watch. That's assuming the internal batteries still work which is unlikely anyway.

Even if the batteries do work the outside bell box batteries will die in less than 20 minutes.

Adam

Thanks all. I hadn't considered anti-tamper switches on the bell box casing itself, so I'm rather glad I didn't have a go at it before posting here!

It doesn't seem to have the model number on it, so there's little chance of tracking down the manual (that said, there can't be many key- operated alarms from 2001/2 out there). Guess I'll go with Dave's suggestion after warning the neighbours.

If you *do* decide to open the bellbox, wear earplugs. They can be quite noisy close up.

I had to replace my own after we had a new carpet done. Assuming they had put a nail through a wire, I called a pro in to tell me what it was intending to sue them for the damage. He told me it was just chance. So I fitted a new one - and found the short while I was doing it...

Andy

Andy

I played with mine in the living room before fitting to get to grips with how it worked (stuffed the siren in the middle of the sofa with all the cushions piled up on it;-) ISTR finding it was more intelligent than I had at first imagined. If you put the panel into engineer test mode, you could then open the siren box without it going off.

I had my panel and bell box changed last summer. The electrican left me with a single sheet instruction leaflet, how to reset, change code etc. Within half an hour of him leaving I'd got the full manual from the internet. Never tried that with the old key panel though. (When I mentioned that there was a box at the back of the house he said straight away, without looking, that it was a dummy. Is it standard practice to fit them at the back?)

Yes unless you stipulate you want an active bell box at the bac as well. I have both boxes active on the front&back. Apparently this is where most house burgalries take place lol.