Re: Your Favorite Install Tool?

[Sylvain Robitaille <syl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

petem wrote:

> stop giving this much information ..you will make it look like rocket
> science  ;-)

On the one hand, nothing will replace the experience that someone who's
been doing this for years already has.  On the other hand, if said
experience can be helpful in keeping a determined do-it-yourselfer from
making the rookie mistakes, I'll take as much as I can get.

> Switching to French mode........

(oh ... man ... you don't want to be subjected to my written French ...)

> Sylvain si tu veut plus d'info demande moi!!
> je travaille pour la plus grosse compagnie quebecoise en alarme...

To be honest, the things I need the most help with are the types of
things that we've been discussing here.  I appreciate your offer, but
I'm always a lot more comfortable getting this type of information in a
discussion forum such as this one than in a one-on-one conversation, and
I'm certainly not looking for someone to do the work for me.

On the one hand, with a one-on-one conversation, the discussion can be
more streamlined to my specific installation in my specific house, but on
the other hand, in a more general discussion I'm able to get different
angles and benefit from the different experiences offered by all who
partake, and I'll be able to apply these to my own situation.  As I've
mentioned already, I'll even be able to apply some of what's been
discussed here to other projects that aren't related to my alarm
installation, but that will have me running wires through walls and in
the attic.

I'll remember to keep the alarm panel to under 12 feet from the floor,
and to keep the cut-off labelled ends from the service loops at all
my sensors.  ;-)

Incidentally, there is something that I still haven't asked, and have
been trying to puzzle out.  I'm sure that I can get several different
answers, each with benefits in certain cases, if I ask it right ...

Where exactly should the sensors go?  I know that with motion sensors, I
want to cover the traffic areas between livable rooms as well as
possible, for example.  I'm not (currently) planning any glass-break
sensors (if anyone breaks these windows without drawing attention, the
alarm won't draw attention either), or smoke/heat sensors (we already
use battery-powered smoke detectors, and plug-in CO detectors).

What I don't know is where to put the magnetic switches for doors and
windows.  Hinge side?  Strike side?  Top?  Bottom?  Middle?  Things to
be aware of and to look out for?

I'm assuming that I will have the round "concealed" switches in a front
and back door, and I may want to use the same for a patio door, and that
I'll use the rectangular surface-mount switches (these have gotten quite
small, at least) for windows (no sliding windows -- all openable windows
swing open from a manual crank at the base of each window).

Should I consider the concealed sensors for the windows as well, or
are there reasons (such as "don't risk breaking seals in your windows")
not to do that?

I do know (well, "believe"; it has happened to a friend's system) that
with the concealed sensors in doors, if they're improperly installed,
false alarms can result from the house shifting, causing the sensor to
become misaligned (or someone knocking hard?).  I'd like to avoid that
if I can, and I don't doubt that you guys each have methods which do,
so I'm hoping you can advise me accordingly.

Are there any photographs online that show how (and how not) to install
these sensors?

Basement windows have been bolted shut with aluminum bars in the tracks
(screwed into the tracks), but perhaps for these I should be considering
impact sensors in case anyone attempts to break them.  Are impact sensors
(not) as good as, better than, etc. glass-break sensors?

This may be too many questions, I know, but I think I've gotten the
information I needed about how to run the wiring (I'll know for sure
when I actually try one, of course), but now I need to think about
_where_ to run the wiring.

I'm intending to run it all back to a single point where the alarm
panel will be (at a reasonable height!).  There I'll install a number
of terminal strips and use wiring between these and the alarm panel
itself to configure sensors into each zone.  This will give me the most
flexibility with regard to upgrading the panel in the future, as I'll
be able to rewire the sensors then in whatever way is appropriate for
whatever the upgrade panel will be.

By the time an intruder will have gotten to the panel location to
attempt to disable it, if they haven't triggered a minimum of two
sensors (at least one of which with immediate response) to get there,
there will likely have been enough going wrong that whether the intruder
finds the alarm panel or not will have been rather irrelevant.

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Sylvain Robitaille                              syl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Systems and Network analyst                       Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology        Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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